Act 1- Online Discussion Board

[maggie.matthews]

I have done this activity a few times, and I think my favorite way of discussing the topic (what makes something art) was on an online discussion board. My school subscribes to turnitin.com (a plagarisn checker) which I don't use too much as a science teacher, but they have a fantastic discussion board option. This allows the teacher to post a topic, and then the students will respond online, and the students can read-think-respond to other posts.

A helpful tip I got from a colleague was that you have to introduce this carefully. You don't want the discussion board to turn into IM-ing, so mention that you want complete sentences, words, grammar and all responses need to be respectful.

I really liked this because I felt like it included all students, and those who take longer to process, could gather their thoughts and respond at their own time.

[pretzej]

Hi, Maggie!!

That is great - I've actually done the same thing except on Moodle.  The students are asked to participate three times on the the discussion board (which looks a lot like this one) until the mini-challenge time, and then we get together to create the rubric.  What I'd like to do next year is invite our visual art instructors to join in on the discussion.  I'm not sure all of the responses were as informed as I had hoped, so I have some work to do there in guiding the activity.

You'll have to let me know when you are in the art unit next year - perhaps we can link a discussion together?!!

Will you be at NSTA Boston??

Josh