Dr. Travis Thurston from Utah State University has a neat system for discussion forums. I heard Thurston on a podcast and was happy to be able to see slides to help me understand the way #DigitalPoweups are implemented. Thurston presented at the 2020 Lilly Conference online. The recorded session was entitled “Empowering Students with Choice & Voice in Online Discussions” — and this made me excited since I did a workshop and have been talking about this with PALM Fellows… yet still haven’t found a system that I’m completely satisfied with. I currently use discussion forums for students to share their learning objectives for their course experience and go on “e-quests” (if only I could remember the fantastic educator and podcast I heard this from to credit for this!). I share an article (usually a Jove.com article for students to see the lab techniques) and prompt participants to find modifications to the procedure, list limitations, compare to a local company’s technology… and then respond to a peer. I type out my prompt for the discussion forum and record an audio summary so that I can attempt to get people excited about their quest… Anyway, Thurston began by reviewing the goals of online discussions. The presentation recording had Thurston speaking with a very professional look: tie and button up shirt! However, I love how calm and conversational Thurston is! The Community of Inquiry framework from Garrison, Anderson, and Archer 2000: social, cognitive, and teaching presence. Thurston mentioned the importance of social presence for discussions: “the space where we can really engage as humans” and instructor presence with both intentional course design and facilitation to help participants engage. Thurston mentioned “inadequacies” with online discussions: pertinent posts may get buried in threads or not interacted with, no co-construction of knowledge with independent posts, limited higher order thinking with the way we frame questions or how students respond to prompts. Thurston also explained the cognitive process dimension and the knowledge dimension that we can use to think about Bloom’s and how learners engage with content and peers.
#DigitalPowerups have a hashtag, a Bloom’s verb to cue in the objective or idea, and an associated prompt. Gustafson 2014 described the goal of #DigitalPowerups to “move from basic responses to more in-depth analysis… [by] providing students additional “choice and voice” in their learning will empower them to reach levels that were previously unimaginable”. Thurston referenced UDL and self determination theory to highlight how choice helps motivate and leverage agency. Students choose entry points into the discussions: “#create develop a novel response based on what you read” was the first example Thurston provided. Another example was: “#integrate combine two different ideas from the reading and explore how that would help student in an online discussion”. Implementing #DigitalPowerups requires promoting co-construction of knowledge and comments to support discussions. Thurston uses likes as currency: like the post that is the highest quality and the one with the highest number of likes earns bonus points. Thurston requires a power up in student responses to peers to push conversations to higher critical thinking. Further, by using likes to curate posts threads provides attention to carefully crafted posts. I like this and need to think about how to ensure introverts or very self-conscious learners are not excluded or stressed by this system. Thurston described the implementation and showed a screenshot: the components included an intro, content (maybe a video), ideas to ponder, and instructions for powerups. Thurston has systematically analyzed how they interact with students in the forums. The first couple of weeks are characterized by lots of comments to model engagement. After this period, Thurston uses direct messages and feedback to support interaction. Thurston guides students a little using feedback “feed forward” that encourages connections. Thurston’s students commented that the #DigitalPowerups helped provide focus, intent, connections, and thoughtful posts. I enjoyed learning what the students had to say about this system. One mentioned “relinquishing some control to the learner is good teaching!” This really resonates with me! Also, Thurston emphasized the importance of instructor presence to design a course in which you can create opportunities for these rich discussions and facilitate the connections. How can we implement #DigitalPowerups in the courses I currently teach or BIT 295? I see several opportunities in the metagenomics, high-throughout discovery, and 295 courses!
