How to Get Students Talking in Online Discussions

Hey there, everyone.

Sarah Brown Wessling here and looking forward to spending a

little bit of time with you talking about what I

know we all must be struggling with on some level,

which is how to get our students talking in on

line discussions.

So I don't know if you are like me at

all, but I kind of imagine that just because my

students are digital natives that hopping on a video conference

call should just be really intuitive to them.

But I think it's more like what happens to us

when we, uh, listen to our own voices on a

voicemail message, and we're kind of cringe cause we're not

quite sure what it is that we're hearing.

I think this is what's happening to our students, right?

Just because our students are on Snapchat and tick talk

all the time and their stand their faces all the

time, I don't think that means that they are ready

and feel comfortable in a video conference.

I think they're actually different.

So let's talk about some of the foundational things that

we can do to make sure our students feel confident

and comfortable in these video conferences and discussions.

So I think we have to build on the relationships

that we've already started cultivating.

But I also think we have to remember that starting

online discussions is like starting the first day of school

all over again.

So just like many of us do on the first

day or two of school, we want to make sure

we hear every student's voice.

We've got to find a way to have that happen

in these online discussions to right.

We have to help our students cross that threshold from

just kind of being present into being active.

And that's gonna happen in a lot of kind of

deliberate ways.

And when order for us to do this, we have

to really think about our scaffolds, and I think we

have to primarily think about two kinds of scaffolding in

orderto have these kinds of conversations, right?

It's scaffolds with content and engagement.

So let's jump to this content here.

So here's what I want you to think about.

I want you to think about how we want our

students to move from the concrete to the abstract when

it comes to content that we need them to start

with something that's really accessible before we start asking them

to think about and deal with some of that content

that is more abstract and less accessible.

In addition to that, we also want a scaffold, our

engagement. So we want to start with low risk, and

we want to move to higher risk Engagement asks of

our students.

So let's kind of dive into these with a little

bit more specificity.

And I actually want to start with those engagement strategies,

right? So those moments were removing from low risk toe

higher risk.

So in order to start this, the place that I

think we have to start is by asking our students

to engage in reactions.

Um, so reactions can be with emojis or icon.

Some of your video conferencing tools may already have these

built in, and this is a great place to start,

right? So we're thinking about also making sure that every

student says hello if you have a chat window or

if they're on mute and you want them to come

off mute and they just say hello, even if they

all know each other.

You know, everybody already knows each other because they've been

together before.

It's really important again to remember this is like the

first day of school again.

And even if you've been in the middle of these

video conferences for a while and they aren't working the

way you had hoped, there is nothing wrong with starting,

you know, having a new first day and just getting

everybody to talk.

But again, we wanted to start with a really low

risk engagement from there.

We want our students to move from reactions, toe answers.

So when that we're thinking about, I'm having students get

answers, you can think about creating polls.

You can think about creating yes or no questions you

can think about creating either or questions.

And even when you're doing this, if there's a way

for students to chat their answers or to type their

responses rather than going off mute and saying them out

loud, this is a great time to do that.

Right? Because remember, were working from low risk toe higher

risk, and we want to scaffold this, and if we

can scaffold it within one discussion, that's fantastic.

But sometimes you might have to scrapple this over a

series of discussions, and there is nothing wrong with that.

So the next phase in kind of easing into engagement

is to move from reactions to answers up to responses.

Okay, so here's what we want students to dio when

we're asking them to respond.

We're asking them to do some thinking and processing, but

we have to give them time to do this thinking

and processing on dhe.

So I would really suggest that in order for this

to happen that our students are given opportunities whether it

is doing some writing on us, scratch piece of paper

right in front of them, whether it is just some

quiet time, whether it's an activity that's a little outside

the discussion window on dhe, then we're asking them to

bring that back.

If you want students to give responses where they have

thought through, you know, some ideas, we have to give

them time.

So this is really part of that scaffolding, right?

That time and easing into this is important because you've

got a lot of students who are gonna want to

process their thoughts, and they're gonna want to get them

just perfect.

Before they hit UNM Ute and start to share as

we are thinking about easing into engagement and building some

confidence. Got a couple of kind of methods for us

to think about.

One is to really consider using small groups.

If you have the capacity in your video conferencing tool

to create small groups or break out groups, you want

to do this.

Okay, here's one of the reasons why this is so

important. I'm guessing that in your actual face to face

classrooms, a lot of you have students do things like

turn and talk work in a small group, you know,

talk to the person next to you, share out to

the large class if we just go from teacher talk

to student response and we have for gotten the kinds

of processing time that we have built in for.

Our students were not going to set them up for

success, right?

They're going to feel like they're going from low risk

to super high risk instead of making that gradual increase.

So using those small groups really helps them process.

Here are some ways to think about small groups.

One that I really like to use is an asynchronous

discussion. I actually use this on Google docks.

It's a shared document, and I'll create this ahead of

time so that students will have access to it.

Eso this particular idea is the notion that you are

going to create these boxes.

This is called first come first serve discussion group.

So you the 1st 4 students that show up to

the document are in that orange group.

The next four students that show up in this document

are in this blue group.

And essentially, what happens then, as the students have time

to process either a question or a response ahead of

time so it could be before class.

It can be within class, but the they're doing some

processing time before we're asking them to share it with

the whole group.

So here is the asynchronous discussion with Google Ducks.

Another idea is also with Google Docks on, and it's

also using tables.

I call this the graffiti wall conversation on dhe.

You can see here that what a graffiti wall conversation

is just a bunch of different boxes.

Every student then takes a different thought.

They get to kind of choose their own pontell.

Sometimes they like that, Um, and then you pose a

question. Everybody has time to respond.

And then when they're responding in those boxes, what happens

is they're having that thinking time that processing time that

once again becomes so crucial for students to go from

quiet to interactive.

So that is the graffiti wall.

The next one is also using another shared document.

This is using shared Google slide deck.

Um, and for this one, oftentimes what I'll do is

I will pose a question or a prompt.

Put that on the on the top slide that you

can see here and then give students each a different

slide. And each student gets an opportunity than to answer

that prompt on their slide through images, through quotes, through

examples, they can pull a video on again.

What you're doing here is, instead of just saying, here's

your prompt.

Now you all talk and we can have this discussion.

We're really building in this thinking time processing time, knowing

that that processing time is also the learning time, right?

And so what we have to kind of maybe shift

in our minds is that if we want some good

discussion, we're gonna have to probably increase the length of

processing time in order to get really quality discussion.

So there is creating a slide in order to explain

something. So now let's move from thinking about scaffolding, those

engagements. I'm strategies into progressing into content, right?

Moving again from that concrete level, content into the more

abstract. So I just want to say this as I

start to talk about this.

One of my fundamental beliefs about discussion is that discussions

are about discovery, not proving what you know.

So if you are walking into a discussion, especially an

online discussion with the hope that this is gonna be

an opportunity for students to prove what they know, you're

probably gonna be disappointed.

So if we shift that kind of mentality and really

open it up to discussions about discovery and process, and

then I think we're going to feel a lot stronger

about what we're gonna get all right.

So progressing into content, remember, we're going to start with

the concrete, so I'm gonna just offer some questions stems

here that might be helpful when you are thinking about

content and questions that are going to really help students

in that concrete way.

So you may ask questions like What do you know

for sure?

This helps them just focus on something they know for

sure. Right.

Lower risk.

Can you find an example of you?

Fill in the blank right again.

That's kind of concrete content.

Um, I also love this question.

What are three things that you've learned between the last

time we talked to now and again?

It it creates the opportunity for students toe all respond.

Nobody has to worry about there being like a definitively

right or wrong answer.

And that can kind of certainly create more confidence in

students. So we're gonna move from the concrete, and we're

gonna move really into trying to get again reactions from

students, right?

So now, in terms of before, we were talking about

reactions in terms of their engagement.

Now we're talking about a reaction in terms of their

reactions to their content.

So you could ask them questions like, how did you

react to fill in the blank through the assignment?

Whatever that might be.

Um, would you have?

So this is the kind of question where you might

pose and you might ask about.

Maybe it's a character.

Would you have done what this character did.

Maybe you've just done a social studies lesson and you've

just read about a certain figure in history or in

current events.

And you can ask, Would you have said this?

Would you have reacted in this way?

Um, you can also extend this a little bit and

kind of asked, Do you think it's fair for and

fill in the blank?

Take that from your content.

Whatever your content is that you're studying, these are just

some examples to kind of get you thinking about ways

to get students to react.

Then, once we're getting students to react, we are ultimately

again working towards those responses.

So here are a couple of sentence stems.

You might ask something like if you were to compare

blank toe blank, what would you find?

What would you think?

Um, what did you think about fill in the blank?

Um, what question did this make you think about?

So whatever your content to your learning is, what question

did this make you think about?

Turn this on to the students, ask them to start

posing questions could be a really powerful tool as well.

So in all of these, right?

What we're ultimately working towards is matching engagement and content.

So you can see here all of the different ways

that we can match the scaffolds in engagement with the

scaffold and content on dhe.

Really? Then you get to use your best ideas to

figure out how to help your students really engage in

this online learning.

Finally, I just want to say this is tough work,

right? What we're asking you to do is tough work.

So as you're thinking about this, remember to keep those

safe spaces that you have created in your face to

face classrooms, you have to create and keep those safe

spaces online.

So whether that means going over norms or discussion dispositions,

now is the time to do it.

Keep building those relationships.

And remember, this is a gradual release.

Extend grace to yourself to your students.

And I know you all have some fantastic online discussions

ahead. Take care.

How to Get Students Talking in Online Discussions

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