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EPost Teaching Guide
 

CIDR, Catalyst, and PETTT have worked together with UW instructors to plan and assess their uses of the EPost online threaded discussion tool in their classes. Based on our work with these instructors, we have developed the following set of questions as a guide to help instructors promote student learning through their design, use, and assessment of online discussion, and we also have provided links to selected additional resources.

Each question on this page is also a link that takes you to additional considerations related to that question. In many cases these considerations are accompanied by links to Student Comments. Comments in blue indicate, from the students' perspective, how these uses of the tool help them learn; comments in red indicate challenges that may come up.

Designing the Tasks

Context
What role does EPost play in the course as a whole?
Requirements
Will you require students to use EPost or will you make it optional?
Deadlines
Will you set deadlines for postings?
Groups
Will you limit the number of students in each online discussion (or EPost account)?
Discussions
Will you provide guiding questions or topics for the discussions?
Participation
Will you read the postings, comment, provide summaries and/or redirections?
Using the Tool
Archiving
Will you reduce the number of postings in the main window by archiving postings?
Pseudonyms
Will you allow students to remain anonymous to peers by using pseudonyms?
Expectations
How will students learn why you want them to use EPost and what you hope they will get out of it?
Content & Conduct
What content should postings contain and what rules of conduct should students follow?
Subject Lines
How can you help students make effective use of the subject lines?
Length
What are your guidelines for length of postings?
Preferences
How will you alert students to preference options?
Assessment
Grading
Will you grade students on their use of EPost?
Criteria
If you grade EPost performance, what criteria will you use?
Student Feedback
Will you ask students to assess what they are learning as a result of using EPost?
Course Evaluation
Will you look at the role of EPost in your overall course evaluation?
Resources
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UW Resources
Teaching & Learning
Online Resources - Teaching and Learning
Technology
Online Resources - Technology
Books & Articles

Recommended Reading

 

 
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