Foundation

Class discussion through asynchronous messages may seem unlikely, but it can have powerful learning potential. "Asynchronous" means things don't happen at the same time. A verbal discussion happens "synchronously" and so does a real-time chat; However, asynchronous discussion does not happen at the same moment but at different moments and over extended time. Email is asynchronous communication.

Asynchronous communication is excellent for many things like peer response and sharing writing, but this Lessonmap will focus on asynchronous communication for a class discussion--when you have a topic you wish your students to discuss and explore. The topic could be an assigned reading, an issue for a writing assignment, or a concept you are wanting your students to learn about. As with class discussions through "chat," being aware of the differences in the environment will help you make the "class discussion" experience a productive one.

Differences and adjustments:

• Turn-taking in asynchronous discussions is not necessary. Instead of one or two students responding to a discussion topic and the rest of the class listening passively, ALL the students respond to the topic. Multiple students can "talk" (post) at the same time, and different students can be reading any of the posted messages at any time.
• Because of this multiplicity, students participate more, and typically more views and various insights/opinions get expressed (in contrast to a teacher-led verbal class discussion).
• Also, students "listen" by reading the posts or others; consequently allowing and promoting the reading of peer posts is very important. Allowances need to be made in the class-time agenda for reading (and responding to) message posts.
• Asynchronous discussions allow for more in-depth reading than a real-time synchronous discussion and more consideration than a verbal comment because the student can read and reread the post. In addition to absorbing more information, students reading asynchronous discussions also compare and evaluate as they read more. They compare their post to the posts of others. Also, they compare one peer's post to other's posts.
• As with real-time synchronous discussions, this multiplicity is more student-led than teacher-led. The discussion will lack the teacher-control of what is important and why; conversely, students will be more in control of what they believe is significant in the conversation.
• Students when they "talk"--especially with the initial post--tend to "speak" more than if they spoke verbally. Since the response to the discussion topic is made in writing, students are able to be more deliberate and detailed in their message post (especially if you give a required length to the response).
• Since the conversation is all done in writing and all of it is recorded, it is easy to return to specific messages for the whole discussion for later investigation.
• Posting replies to each other's posts is the way "dialogue" occurs in this type of conversation.
• In Bulletin Board programs that "thread" replies, the discussion happens all over the bulletin board and is focused around these threads of conversation. Reading threads may require frequently returning to a thread to see who has posted recently.

Practice

Two options for asynchronous "class discussion" exist--in-class discussions or out-of-class discussions. If you use a web-based tool, then you have the option of extending the discussion beyond the classroom. The permutations of how you might set up a class discussion activity are so many that I will only offer a few here:

• Have students write a 150 word minimum response to a single question/prompt. Require three to six responses of 25 words minimum. Groups possible.

• Have a set of questions students reply to in one post. Require replies.

• Let groups of students collaboratively answer a question, and reply collaboratively or individually.

• After the initial post of replies to the prompt, have students read and create a single synthesis/analysis piece of important points from the responses of their peers.

What types of activities can you do?

1. Peer Response: You could have students post their essay or draft of an essay to the bulletin board and require a number of responses to peer essays (see the Lesson Map on peer response for more).
2. Class Discussion: You could set up a weekly discussion board, and each week there is a new topic and a required number of replies. Many Internet classes have this regimen. Discussion board topics, however, can follow any time cycle your establish--one week, two weeks, four (see the Lesson Map on class discussion for more).
3. Brainstorming work: Have students post freewriting drafts or initial thinking on a topic they eventually will be writing on.
4. Refining a thesis: Have students post their draft thesis. Require peers to give feedback.
5. Groups and Project work: If you have an extended project where students work in groups, the bulletin board can be the place they communicate and collaborate. It can be the place where they post certain process parts of the project.
6. Establishing a collaborative bibliography for a research project: Have each student research and post information on two to four sources they have found. They should include the full bibliographic information as well as a 25-50 word summary of the source.
7. Posting class handouts or other materials: You could post handouts or articles that would be useful for your students (probably using your Instructor Home Page would be a better way of providing access to these materials because often these bulletin boards lose text formatting).

By having students post and share text through a bulletin board, you make it easier for students to see what each other are thinking and writing. This increased access to the multiplicity of views in the class makes for a richer learning environment (see sharing texts).

In-class access to postings on the message board for teaching purposes can be achieved either by returning to the computer classroom for another session, or by bringing in one of our department's multi-media carts. Each classroom has a dataport for access to the Internet.

Tools
You have a lot of options for what technological tool you can use to conduct an asynchronous discussion: Daedalus, web-based discussion forums (whether within a course platform or not), course platforms, Eportal, or a listserv. Each has benefits and limitations. Daedalus is simple to use, but it is a LAN-based program, so it restricts out-of-class access. Listservs use a single email address, and everyone registered to the "list" receives any email sent to this address. Listservs are technically easy, but if you have a large volume of posts then they become overwhelming. Discussion forums (whether in Daedalus, Eportal, a web-based bulletin board, or a course platform) are probably the simplest and most versatile.

For a more indepth discussion of particular tools for asynchronous discussion, see the Bulletin Boards guide.