Abstract:

Course Management Systems (CMS) such as Blackboard have become a commonplace feature of university landscapes to the extent that it is considered normal practice for faculty to use the technology of CMS for such routine tasks as disseminating syllabus material, grade keeping and sharing, communicating with students and so on. But many universities look beyond this basic course management component of the technology and advocate for an increasing use of the technology in course delivery. This mission of universities to optimize the use of technology in course delivery may be at tension with the preferred teaching methodologies of some faculty.
The CMS Blackboard provides various tools for the delivery of course components. Amongst the most commonly used tool is Discussion Board. While some professors use this tool simply as a platform for informal discussion within a class cohort, others use Discussion Board participation as graded assignments, arguing that on-line discussions are a vehicle for the development and display of students’ critical thinking skills. Opinion on the validity of this approach is divided. Concerns relating specifically to the use of discussion boards may derive initially from the skepticism of faculty in regard to the pedagogical value of this methodology, particularly amongst faculty less skilled in the more sophisticated control applications of CMS tools. Secondly, concerns are related to the adjustment required of freshmen students in shifting from the platform of on-line social communication which is so familiar to them, to the use of the on-line discussion medium for academic purposes.
This paper reports on a project for the development and implementation of an on-line discussion protocol for freshman students in an academic writing course at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Senior students in the elective course Teaching and Learning in Electronic Environments collaborated with a professor in the academic writing program who held reservations about the value of online discussions in the development of critical thinking and writing skills in freshmen students. The purpose of the collaborative project was to develop, implement and evaluate an on-line discussion protocol to meet the learning outcomes of the course WRI 102 Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum. The paper examines the position of three distinct yet connected sets of stakeholders drawn into collaboration: the student designers of the discussion protocol; the student participants in the on-line discussion; and the faculty evaluating the outcomes of the protocol application.

Keywords:

Discussion board, protocol, critical thinking, critical writing.