Benefits of Discussion Groups

Branen: There are limitations to online discussions. There are also limitations to having discussions in a class with 60 people in it, which is what I taught. There would be a few people who dominated. A few people were willing to share their story, and that was it. And a lot of people really got lost in the shuffle. They weren't particularly accountable. They never shared anything about themselves and didn't really ask questions. This really gets everyone participating and it means that I can be checking their thinking along the way and if there is something that they're not getting, and I can tell that based on their discussion posting. I can go say, "Maybe you need to go back and re-read the section on insulin, it seems like you didn't quite get that." o I think that made everybody a lot more accountable and it has allowed everybody to participate in class, which just doesn't happen in bigger classes. So I just think there is tremendous benefit in the discussion.