Moderator+assignments

The role of the moderator
You and two partners will be assigned to moderate one week of our online discussions. The descriptions of the sessions with an “on-ramp” message for participants is provided in the webpages for each week, and also included in the Blackboard discussion board. Your role is deceptively simple—make the discussion come alive and help make your discussion valuable, engaging and meaningful. Here is what I suggest you do, but realize that the topic and your own preferences may guide your approach. This is not a formula you must follow – be creative and put your own stamp on the exercise if you like. Generally speaking, however, you will want to:


 * Contact your partners for the exercise and talk over what you’ll do. Be clear about who will do what. In many cases, you will want to share tasks so you can get a good feel for all parts of moderating discussions.
 * Post some kind of welcome statement to the group under the topic in the discussion area of Blackboard.
 * When participants post their comments, you may want to acknowledge their contributions by providing a quick reply or an initial observation about the posting.
 * Find ways to initiate discussion. Do the kinds of things you might do if this were a discussion being held in a classroom (tie ideas together, refer one person to another’s response, ask for comments about something important).
 * Remember that everyone will be posting at least twice during a discussion (an initial posting and a response to somebody else’s posting). You may need to encourage some people to respond in a complete and timely manner.
 * Moderators facilitate, but do not contribute the same as the discussants (in other words, you don't do the formal 250 word post and two 50 word replies like the others). But you respond, encourage, and knit together the contributions of the others.

At the end of the exercise, review all of the postings and provide a written summary of your key observations and the main ideas that emerged from the discussion. Do this soon after the final postings are made in the discussion, as we will be immediately moving on to the next topic. Check with the moderators from the other group and see if you can combine the summaries.

Have fun with this. Don’t turn it into something deadly serious or academically oppressive. Remember that the discussion area is a place to play with ideas…so play! Don’t be afraid to be critical of ideas, but keep your aim squarely on the ideas and not on the person – please avoid personal attacks. The usual conventions that govern common decency and civility apply.

Assignment of moderators to topics for Summer, 2014
Week 1: Value conflicts in ET Moderators: Cheryl Anderson, Greg Woitas, Ian Hecht

Week 2: Classical learning theory Moderators: Rebekah Bennetch, Randall White, Rick Heise

Week 3: Skateboarder motivation Moderators: Beige Biggins, Kris Street, Karen Fox, Rob Heppner

Week 4: Virtual learning communities Moderators: Roxanne Bitner, Janine Smits, Stacey Monette, Sarah Stack

Week 5: Connoisseurship Moderators: Marilyn Black, Jonathan Scott, Corinne Dutka-Stainbrook

Week 6: Instructional design and ethics Moderators: Michelle Davis, Elenna Nickel, Lianne Kenyon, David Morin