Week 11 Reflection

After reading Haavind, I began to think more about the different methods to promote collaboration and discussion among online students. Although I don’t agree with all of the techniques, I think they are definitely useful and gives teachers new ideas to try. Specifically, I was intrigued by instructor’s facilitative intervention into learner dialogue’s (pg. 14) to increase learner’s engagement. Public praise, constructive criticism, offering resources and probe are a few practical approaches that Havvind discusses in order to focus and deepen online dialogue among learners. In cases where learners start to wander off-topic, appropriate negative evaluation where the instructor points out that the contents are divergent will be useful. The instructor needs to be careful about the appropriate “negativity” so it will be constructive instead of being disruptive and effecting the overall interaction. This week's readings hasn’t really change my views of online education much, but definitely gave me new ideas to enhance discussions and collaborations among learners.