Fóruns

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Template:Fóruns Atividades de fóruns podem contribuir significativamente para efetividade da comunicação e construção de uma comunidade em um ambiente virtual. Você pode usar fóruns para muitos propósitos inovadores em educação, mas os fóruns de professores e fóruns para alunos são indiscutivelmente os principais tipos.

Diretrizes para Fóruns

Quando você decide usar uma discussão de fórum como atividade em um ambiente de e-learning, é importante estar ciente que sua dedicação será necessária para uma atividade bem sucedida. Se seu objetivo é encorajar a discussão, o fórum só funcionará se:

a) os participantes sentirem que há uma necessidade/razão de participar e eles terão algum ganho com a experiência. Incentivos para aprendizagem, conseguir apoio, etc. devem ser explorados e encorajados antes para expor claramente o propósito do fórum para os outros. Qualquer um considerando oferecer notas ou vantagens por participação deve estar ciente da diferença entre quantidade e qualidade das discussões nos fóruns.

b) o clima de comunidade e propósito pode ser fomentada entre participantes. Esta sensação de comunidade pode ser alimentada pela iniciativa e apoio do tutor/professor, ou primariamente por intermédio dos próprios estudantes/participantes dependendo da intenção da atividade.

Selecionando o tipo de fórum

O Moodle tem quatro tipos de fóruns, cada um com ligeiras diferenças de apresentação e proposta.

Qual dos fóruns irá atender às suas necessidades para uma determinada atividade? Para responder a esta pergunta, é útil pensar como você gostaria encaminhar essa discussão em uma atividade presencial. Você colocaria uma questão para a classe e observaria suas respostas? Ou será que você dividiria a sala em grupos menores primeiro possibilitando a discussão com um parceiro antes de trazê-los de volta ao grupo principal? Ou talvez você gostaria de mantê-los focados em um determinado aspecto da questão e garantir que eles não se afastem do assunto em questão? Todas as abordagens acima são válidas e úteis dependendo do seus objetivos de aprendizagem, e você pode reproduzir todos eles em fóruns do Moodle.

O fórum geral

O fórum geral é útil para grandes discussões nas quais você pretende monitorar/guiar seus alunos ou para fóruns sociais guiados pelos próprios alunos. Isso não significa que você precisa para fazer uma nova postagem para cada resposta em cada tópico, embora, a fim de garantir que a discussão não fique "fora de controle", você pode precisar estar preparado para gastar uma quantidade significativa de tempo na conclusão da temas comuns entre as várias discussões e entrelaçando-os. Fazer comentários mais gerais para assuntos particulares pode ser também um aspecto fundamental das suas responsabilidades na discussão. Alternativamente, você pode perguntar aos alunos para resumir os temas de discussão em pontos acordados, uma vez por semana ou quando um tema chega a uma conclusão aceita. Essa abordagem centrada no aluno pode ser particularmente útil uma vez que a comunidade on-line foi estabelecida e, quem sabe, quando você tiver modelado o processo de síntese.

Uma única discussão simples

O fórum de única discussão simples é útil para discussões curtas o com tempo limitado que abordam um único tema ou assunto. Este tipo de fórum é bastante produtivo se você está interessado em manter os alunos focados em um único assunto.

Cada usuário inicia um novo tópico

Este fórum é mais útil quando você quer um meio termo entre uma grande discussão e uma pequena discussão mais focada. Este tipo de fórum permite que estudantes fiquem um pouco mais livres que nos fóruns do tipo "Uma única discussão simples" mas não tão livres quanto no fórum geral onde cada aluno pode criar quantos tópicos quiser. Fóruns desse tipo bem sucedidos são ativos, com foco, e os alunos não estão limitados no número de respostas a outros tópicos.

Fórum P e R (Pergunta e Resposta)

O fórum P e R é uma boa opção se você tem uma pergunta para ser respondida. Por padrão esse tipo de fórum oculta as respostas de outros alunos até que se responda à pergunta. Após a postagem inicial os alunos podem ver e comentar as respostas de outros alunos. Esse recurso garante igual oportunidade aos alunos e encoraja o raciocínio independente.

Caveat:

A student can post in Q&A forum, then have a look at other posts, and then has the editing time (usualy 30 minutes) to edit their own post in the light of what thy read of other's posts. In effect this waters down the intent of this setting for the forum. The bug tracker reference is here: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-9376

Tips for Question and Answer

When the Question and Answer mode is selected, Moodle hides the replies to the initial thread post by the teacher but not the entire forum itself.

Tip: Post each question as a thread in the forum and then have students post replies to the question. In this fashion, Moodle will protect the replies from being viewable (subject to the caveat above) by other students but allow the initial post/thread visible for reply by all students.
Tip: Do not post the question in the forum summary because every student answer will become a thread and visible to all students. In this scenario, it may appear as if the Question and Answer forum is not working correctly, since the new initial posts in the thread are intentionally designed not to be hidden, just their replies.
Tip: If you have set up groups for your forum the facilitator needs to post a question to each of the groups and not to 'all participants' as questions asked of all participants (students) are able to be read by ALL students. Questions posed to group members are only visible to those group members and replies are only visible once a group member has posted a message.

Concepts for use in forums

Participation and Scaffolding

Whilst one of the great advantages of e-learning is the flexibility it affords participants, this does not mean that days or weeks should pass without response and discussion in a forum (unless it is appropriate for it to do so). This is perhaps most especially true at the beginning of a course or programme when students and tutors are new to each other and in need of welcome messages/encouragement. Whilst e-learning, and discussions in particular, can support learning that is not always tutor/teacher-centred, your role will be important, especially as an online community begins to develop. It is during these initial stages of introductory material that a group of students can become a community of participants who begin to grow in their understandings of course material and individual contributions to the knowledge construction process.

As the discussions progress and learners become accustomed to the mechanics and the tone of the forums then there are key ways in which your input can be reduced, thereby helping to foster a community that is less dependent on the tutor/teacher. Even then, however, you will probably want to be a presence in the discussions although you may choose to be one of many contributors rather than the font of all wisdom.

Commitment and Participation

Ask yourself if

  1. you wish to have involvement in the forum or if you want the students to lead and own the space
  2. you want the forum to add value to the face to face environment or have a life of its own in its own right outside the lecture theatre/classroom or seminar room
  3. you are prepared to make appropriate contributions to the discussion in order to:
    1. encourage discussion if students are quiet
    2. help shape ideas if students begin to wander off-task
    3. your role will be defined as discussions/a course progresses
    4. you will explicitly but gradually relinquish control of the discussions
    5. you will encourage and support learners to share control of discussions(for example you might ask a learner/group of learners to summarise contributions to a discussion thread/topic or you might ask learners to initiate discussion topics)

Student Centered Forums

With the growing popularity of social networking software like Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and the like, students are leaving schools and coming to Higher and Further Education with a new technological sophistication and with new expectations for communication. And as school, colleges and universities recognise that reflective and life long learning are significant goals in education, student centered learning and the creation of student centered spaces online are also gaining credence in educational settings. We know that effective learning requires access to social and academic networks for both study material and emotional support; as such, online communities can offer a holistic knowledge construction and support mechanism and recognize that affective activity is effective.

Social forums, often called ‘Virtual Cafes’ or ‘Common Rooms’ can be set up for courses or for programmes, depending on the student need. Such spaces provide a common area for students to come together and discuss unlimited topics, including social activities and educational ideas. They are supportive spaces for students, most successful with large first and second year courses where students would not otherwise have the opportunity to communicate with others outside their own tutorial group. It is arguable that students will experience a greater sense of community within and a sense of belonging to an educational institution or individual department having had the experience and convenience of the social forum on their course; this could arguably have implications for retention.

These spaces are typically highly active, especially in first term. Depending on your institution, they are usually self monitored by students, who understand that the same ‘rules’ and ‘netiquette’ that apply to them within any computing space, also apply in Moodle.

The News Forum

Moodle courses automatically generate a News forum which defaults to automatically subscribe all participants in a course. The name of the News Forum can be changed to something more appropriate, such as ‘Important Announcements’ or the like. This is a useful feature and many use this forum in a Moodle course to announce exam dates, times or changes to exams, lectures or seminars, as well as important information about course work throughout a term or special announcements relating to events.

Teacher/Tutor forums

Prior to Moodle 1.7, each course had a teacher forum, accessible via a link in the course administration block.

A teacher/tutor-only forum may be added to a course by creating a hidden forum. Teachers are able to view hidden course activities whereas students cannot.


Some forum suggestions to consider

  1. If your course is at a distance, if your face to face time is limited, or if you just wish to foster a sense of community in your Moodle course which supplements your face to face course, it is good practice to begin with a welcome or introductory message or thread in one of your forums. This welcome or introduction from you invites participants, for example, to post some specific details to introduce themselves to you and their peers. This can be your icebreaker or you can have an icebreaker separately.
  2. If you have two questions for participants to answer, starting the two strands or topics within the forum itself will both help learners to see where to put their responses, and remind them to answer all parts of your question.
  3. Remember that you are communicating in an environment that does not have the benefit of verbal tone, eye contact, body language and the like. Careful consideration of your communication is, therefore, necessary.
  4. Postings to a forum are always written but they can take different forms and you may wish to consider what form best suits the activity. For instance, you might choose to articulate a form of contribution in order to be explicit. Thus you might say, 'This is a think-aloud forum in which, together, we will try to tease out ideas and possibilities' or 'This is a formal forum in which you are invited to share your ideas on (topic)' and, where you select the latter, you might have already suggested learners plan those ideas offline or in another kind of activity within Moodle.
  5. Create a forum where only the teacher can start discussions, but the students can only reply. Each thread you start contains an essay question (or several similar ones). The students make a bullet point plan for the essay and post it as a reply. This works well as a revision strategy as the students can see how others have approached the same task. Once everyone has posted their plan, you can start a discussion as to which plans seem better and why. Creating a scale to use for rating the posts can be useful so that the students can see how helpful other people think their effort were.

Grading forums

The teacher can use the ratings scales to grade student activities in a forum. There are several methods for calculating the grade for a forum that can be found in the Forum settings under grades. There are 5 ways in Moodle 1.9 to aggregate ratings automatically to calculate a forum grade for the Gradebook. These include: Average, Max, Min, Count and Sum.

  • In older versions of Moodle, only the average aggregate function was available. Teachers often use the Assignment module as a work around in order to manually calculate and then manually give a grade for a specific or all forum activities. The Forum grade would appear in the gradebook as an assignment, called for example "Weather forum participation".

Best Practice and shared discussions

See also

Using Moodle forum discussions:

it:Modulo forum