[ARCHIVED] Discussion Posts by Faculty

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jlenrow
Community Novice

I know that this might seem like a silly question since no one asks this about face to face instruction, but would any of you mind sharing what you tell faculty who ask "how many posts should I make in a weekly threaded discussion so that I am fully engaged with the class but not overwhelming?"  

I know that your answer might depend on how many students are in the class, but do you offer any guidelines?  Maybe xxx total posts by a faculty member for every yyy posts by all of the students or something like that?  

Thanks for any information and/or resources you might be able to provide.

JDL

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I am an absolute believer of faculty presence and engagement in online courses, so I understand the good intention here, but my reaction to this 25% requirement is probably the same reaction that students have to most of the requirements we impose on them for such-and-such a grade: it seems very arbitrary.

Yes, it's something you can easily go in and measure... but usually the most meaningful things about teaching and also about learning are things that cannot be reduced to a number. I would say that is definitely true for quality of faculty engagement in a course.

I could see suggesting to faculty members that one thing they might try is participating more in discussions (it's one potential strategy among many), but as I said above, there are many other things faculty members could do with their time which might have a greater impact than that; it all depends on the design of their course, their goals, their students, etc.

The real question, I think, is let's say a faculty member does bump their participation to 25% as recommended/required: how then will you know that it is having the desired effect, i.e. that students in the class are more engaged, learning more, etc. etc.? 

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