DE Oracle @ UMUC

Moderating Conference Discussions

Cynthia Whitesel

Other

Published: July-August 2005

Category: » Online-pedagogy » Classroom-communication

Facilitation Ideas for Conferencing

What to say and do in the conference? Truly, this medium makes this kind of reflective discussion so rich. There are three parts to conference facilitation: 1. what the discussion will be; 2. how you want participants to contribute; and 3. how you, the facilitator, will moderate the discussion or have the discussion moderated by your students.

What Kinds of Discussion Topics?

The best kinds of topics for discussions are those that ask the participants to apply the new theories and concepts they are learning to their own experiences. You don't want to ask participants for responses where there is only one right answer or a few right answers. You want to use the questioning to open up the topic and bring forward new ideas and insights into the material you are learning. Having students share their experiences and insights is one way to do this.

When you respond to your students, affirm what they are saying or address it in some way. Then, ask more questions of them, probe their conversation with your critical eye to encourage them to become better at articulating their thoughts. When you find a particularly gifted student, ask that student to respond to others or ask that student what s/he thinks about something. Asking more questions keeps the discussion moving forward, avoiding the 20 responses to one topic approach!

You can ask them to compare and contrast what they are learning with their current practices. You can ask them to apply the new learning to their own work environments or practices. You can ask them how the new learning explains their current practices. You can ask them how the new learning fits with their notions of what a practitioner does. You can ask them for more information that can be found in researched articles they can summarize in the conference and then explain the significance of the article contents for the readings. In general, asking participants to apply, analyze, problem-solve, or synthesize ideas and information will lead them to give you insights into what they know.

The key is to create rich discussion questions. Another method is to lead the participants to create operational definitions. Ask them to write about their own experience in light of the new learning. What did they do? What were the considerations? How did they solve a particular writing problem? When participants draw on their readings, theory, and experience, they can come up with good discussions that reflect sophisticated learning. As facilitator, you can then see what concepts the participants have brought forward and what concepts need to be brought forward.

How Do Participants Participate?

As far as how you want participants to contribute, you can ask for any number of ways. You can ask participants to respond to one another in any order, e.g., discuss with one another as you see fit; respond to the last one who responded in the conference; or every fourth (or whatever) participant in the conference synthesize the other three responses and ask another question that the next three participants will respond to. You, as moderator, can respond to every three students with a synthesis and then ask another question that the next three students should respond to and then repeat the pattern.

Another method is peer-to-peer. You can establish the criteria you want participants to use and how their responses will be evaluated. The facilitator can even pair up the peers, asking them to work together to create a response. Ask the first person who responds to respond to your topic discussion. Ask each successive person who comes to the conference to respond to the last response in the conference.

Another effective way is to assign your students to groups and ask each group to facilitate the discussion for the week. Permit them to decide how they will respond and to let you know what they will do. In fact, you can even ask your students to create the discussion questions for the week. Give them this reading so they know what you know about how to set up interactive discussions!

When participants are responding to each other, the moderator(s) can observe rather than have to respond to each person. Then, the moderator(s) can synthesize ideas at different intervals and draw more questions to keep the discussion going (just like a classroom discussion that furthers itself with more questions rather than everyone responding to the first question over and over).

How Does the Moderator Facilitate Discussion?

What the moderator or facilitator then does to help with learning can be handled in a constructivist way. That is, the moderator/facilitator can help the participants construct their own knowledge from the discussion and share what they learn with one another. Research shows that there is little difference between learning from lectures and learning from constructing the knowledge oneself. However, there is a significant difference in retaining that knowledge. Those who construct their own knowledge retain it much longer!

The model for this strategy, then, for using constructivist's concepts might look like this. First, have participants articulate the conceptions and assumptions that were in the readings. Be sure that participants have some common understandings at this point. After this discussion, the facilitator can ask questions to lead to the target conception. At some point, the facilitator then articulates the target conception. Through discussion, the moderator can help participants problem solve the distance between what is known and the target conceptions by leading or asking significant questions. Sometimes it's called concept attainment; sometimes it's called dialectical method.

Another method is called bringing forward operational definitions. Bring forward the assumptions and conceptions in their definitions and assertions. Let participants know what your assumptions and conceptions are to the degree that it may play on their assertions. Help them arrive at their own newly conceived definitions out of their own understandings and experiences.

Let them see where the target conception may be. Let them try to figure out how to get there. Or, provide the guiding questions that, when addressed, will help the students apply the thinking pattern you wish them to learn to solve the problem, arrive at the correct thinking, or manifest the higher order thinking skills.

How Do We Prepare Participants?

We need to prepare our participants as best we can if we have expectations about how they should be contributing to the discussions in the conferences. To do that, be sure you clarify what your goals are and how you would like participants to work with the discussion. Tell them what your criteria are for successful participation (e.g., engaging, thoughtful, insightful contributions; contributions reflect their reading materials and real-world application of ideas; contributions consider the other participants' discussions). Give them examples of what you mean if you see that the discussion is faltering. Model good facilitation by being there in the conference and talking with them.

These are some ideas to ponder. Whatever you do with these discussions in the conference, avoid putting up questions and topics that have only one right answer. Encourage participation and acknowledge your students' contributions. Be there; don't neglect the conference discussions. Of course, you may come up your methods for conducting conference discussions. Please let us know what they are as you prepare us to participate in your own conference.