Stimulating Discussion In On-Line Graduate Courses: Successes And Failures

Abstract

Teaching a quantitative course on-line has challenges, including the asynchronous nature of the course, students with a wide variety of experiences, and quantitative content. This teaching note presents several techniques, some successful, one a failure, that were used to address these challenges. One successful technique was the use of two-part discussions. These discussions helped the student feel they were part of a community. A second successful technique was the use of an interactive simulation. This gave the students a common base of experience to use in the course discussions. The unsuccessful technique was the use of cases to encourage course discussion. The complex cases apparently required a depth of understanding that the students were not able to reach without the give-and-take of classroom discussion. The asynchronous nature of the course coupled with the complexity of the cases created an environment where the students could not succeed in the time available.