On-line forums and seminars - Slides

Introduction

Using on-line forums to enhance teaching with seminars.

James Harris, School of History, University of Leeds.

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The module workspace

A screen shot of a module workspace on the Nathan Bodington VLE showing the links to discussion rooms for each seminar session.

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On-line forum

Screen shot of a discussion room showing a short essay contributed by a student and links to other student contributions.

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Benefits for the students

Benefits to the students:

• Continuous feedback on progress;
• Less stressful than oral presentations;
• no time wasted listening to other students' presentations;
• forces students to be prepared for tutorials;
• gives students essay writing practice; students can see quality of others' ideas;
• encourages oral participation; builds a resource useful for revision;

Module feedback on the use of the VLE suggests that students are almost uniformly enthusiastic; even as they substantially increase the effort they make.

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Benefits for the tutor

Benefits for the tutor:

• a substitute for time consuming oral presentations;
• students come with more fully formed ideas; more interactive, productive sessions;
• no free riders, i.e. students who come unprepared;
• shy students participate more;
• essays provide an overview of the student understanding of the issues;
• tutorial discussions can be tailored around the essays;
• improved student results.

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Costs

The costs:

• an hour or two to create the VLE discussion rooms (less to renew them ever year);
• the time to mark the essays.

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