The quiet and private discuss.....

After reading Bender Ch. 6 we were asked to discuss how we could use the information presented in either our Ed-Web project or in the Web Conference.

The conversation followed threads on; how to react to students who are quiet on line, the role of the instructor on line and making connections to personal experience. There was some debate about whether, or not it is a bad thing if students are quiet, not necessarily posting a lot in on line discussions. Many felt that this is okay, pointing to personal experiences with quite students who were engaged and actively learning, or with their own personal experiences of being a quiet student. I thought it was interesting that while many people agreed that it is okay to be quiet on line, only Phil H. (the original start person of the thread) specifically state that he would pursue any of Bender’s strategies to bring out quiet students. In retrospect, I should have asked others discussing if their ideas about quiet students meant that they would, or would not do anything different.

Another thread that developed was on the positive role that instructor interaction can play in encouraging students in on line environments. It was generally agreed that instructor interaction is a powerful thing. Some were cautious to make the point that active- caring instruction didn’t mean giving the answers away so that students had to think less.

I had contributed a specific idea to use in my Ed-Web in relation to Bender’s comment that "personal narrative is acceptable, as long as it is accompanied by critical thinking...."(Bender p. 63) The idea was that participant’s in my Ed-Web would reflect back on how their families had come to the US. To promote critical thinking participants would then be asked to compare and draw common themes out of their family immigrant experiences. This idea itself didn’t generate much discussion, but I think it was my best contribution as it represented a specific response to the readings. Eileen K. picked up on that section of Bender reading and noted that Bender made a rather broad generalization in that section, "Education cannot take place without some degree of self-disclosure." It was great that Eileen brought this up (I choose to recognize her as for this) as I think she was modeling good discussion starting technique…bringing up a quote that reflected an author’s bias, and asking us to debate the merits of the assumption. Her post opened up a new line of thoughts about what is personal in instruction. Overall, I’d say that for a group of largely quiet and private people discussions went pretty well!