DE Oracle @ UMUC

The Importance of Conference Design in WebTycho

Richard Schumaker

Manager, Worldwide Training

Center for Teaching and Learning

Published: January-February 2005

Category: » Online-pedagogy » Classroom-communication

Most online instructors realize that academic rigor in an online course comes from a combination of scholarship, interaction, presentation, and the course syllabus itself. Often, however, a vital element in this enumeration tends to get left out--conference design.

In this brief article, I would like to present three different patterns or models for designing WebTycho conferences. These models have at least three virtues. First, they assist the teacher in presenting material of considerable cognitive complexity. Secondly, they ground and provoke rich student-instructor and student-student interaction. Thirdly, these models are all exceedingly flexible: they can be altered by individual instructors to fit a wide range of teaching situations; they can also be modified to suit individual students or groups of students. None of what follows is offered dogmatically; on the contrary, teachers are encouraged to modify, experiment with, and expand all three of these patterns.

For the sake of simplicity, I am going to name the three patterns as follows:

• The Problem Analysis Model
• The Devil's Advocacy Model
• The Information Literacy Model

In order to better present the three models, I would like to refer to single topic—the current decline in the dollar vis-à-vis other major global currencies—throughout this article.

The Problem Analysis Model

Let's begin by taking a look at the Problem Analysis Model for organizing conferences.

The instructor, Richard Schumaker, has chosen an especially complex problem from his course material and has designed a conference around the problem itself. As one sees from the title of the first Main Topic, the instructor has emphasized the problematic nature of the issue; hence the title—"The Demise of the Dollar?" The instructor is communicating that this is an issue with different, opposing points of view. Isolating a single topic and devoting an entire conference to it enhances the focus of the teacher's presentation.

Looking at the conference as a whole, one readily sees that the teacher is striving for a balanced approach. On the one hand, he is in firm control of the discussion. The instructor presents an introduction to the problem itself; the instructor also recapitulates at the end of the conference; finally, the instructor also supplies a transition to the next part of the course. On the other hand, the student teams are responding to the question in the first Main Topic: they are taking clear positions on "the demise of the dollar" and attempting to give a rhetorical spin to their ideas by altering the title line of their Main Topic.

In this conference, the teacher is using teams. Obviously this does not have to be the case and will vary from course to course and teacher to teacher.

In my experience as an online instructor this approach to conference design has a somewhat hidden advantage; it accustoms the students to the focused discussion of complex issues; it sets a high standard of intellectual rigor for later discussions.

The Devil's Advocacy Model

The second model might be called "The Devil's Advocacy Conference." Here is a typical example of it:

In this conference model the same teacher maintains at once a stronger and weaker presence than in the first conference model. The instructor is stronger because his introduction to the conference is much stronger: "The "Devil" Speaks: The Dollar Will Crash—Very Soon!!!" No longer is he merely presenting a problem; he's taking a very controversial, time-sensitive, and speculative stand. He is somewhat weaker because he doesn't personally frame the conference with a summary and transition material. His goal here is to give the students the opportunity to analyze the problem and propose their own solutions. By taking a hyperbolic stand, he is being playful, urging the students to think for themselves and express themselves in a decisive manner. This kind of discussion, in almost all cases, becomes spirited, interesting, and inventive.

Different teachers will handle "devil's advocacy" conferences differently. Some will give precise guidelines for administering the groups; some will let the students organize themselves. Some teachers will intervene frequently; some will stand back and let the students debate amongst themselves. As in the first conference pattern, using teams is not necessary. Each student in the course might have posted their own Main Topic. It is also possible to appoint student moderators.

In my experience, this pattern of conference inevitable energizes a course; it adds intellectual atmosphere and creativity to even a sober topic. It is also an ideal model for the middle of a long course, at a point when tedium might tend to set in.

The Information Literacy Model

The following model offers an approach for integrating sophisticated skills in information literacy into the natural flow of one's online class.

Here is the sample conference in WebTycho:

Once again, this conference is carefully designed by the instructor, who is attempting to maximize student interaction without jeopardizing order or intellectual content. Guidelines are given in the first Main Topic to give direction to the students' research. These directions, not visible in the above screen shot, are precise without being patronizing:

In order to deepen our discussion of the current instability in international exchange rates, it is necessary to locate incisive, informative sources and to evaluate them carefully. In conjunction with your team, please survey library and WWW material on this situation. Find a single source that in the opinion of your team contains all the criteria that your textbook author developed in Chapter 3. As a Main Topic, give the source (live link or directions how to find it) and in a carefully written single paragraph of under 300 words, explain why the chosen source is a valuable contribution to this discussion. Change the subject line to name your source and, additionally, to reflect the thematic content of your evaluation Please post your evaluation before 3 November 2004. Once the groups have posted their evaluations, as individuals please post a response to one of the Main Topics.

The instructor also concludes the conferences by offering some key sources that he finds germane to this discussion.

In a conference like this, the student discussions in fact serve double duty; the instructor can not only discuss the economic issues themselves but can also assess the students' research skills and methods.

Conclusion 

Each of these three model conferences enhances the cognitive complexity of the course discussions by requiring students to carefully analyze thematic material. Because of the way the conferences are designed, students must think for themselves, evaluate current sources, draw on their own experience, and evaluate the points of view of others. All three of these conference designs act as springboards to personal involvement on the part of the students and spirited, probing, and creative student-student and student-teacher discussions.