 Online Learning Update Ray Schroeder, editor, COLRS - Online@Illinois SpringfieldOnline Learning Update - a blog published daily since 2001 by Ray Schroeder, Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Springfield |
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Friday, May 27, 2005
"Two Roads Diverged in a Wood": Productive Digression in Asynchronous Discussion - Joesph Ugoretz, Innovate Online
It is a moment every classroom teacher has encountered: In the middle of a class discussion of a text, a concept, a method—some element of the course material that must be covered—a student raises an unrelated (or only tangentially related) point that threatens to derail the entire discussion. The new point may be fascinating or intriguing, or so appealing as a line of thought or discussion that it is difficult to ignore. In fact, this unrelated point is generally more fascinating than the required course material to the student who brings it up. But there are the pressures of time and scheduling, and of covering that required material. Two roads (or more—sometimes as many roads as there are students in the room) diverge, and in order to achieve our goals for the course, we have to choose one of them. The one we choose is rarely the "road less traveled by," the digression that we necessarily neglect.
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