Communication Plan - Part I: Routine Administrative Tasks

Part I:  Routine Administrative Tasks

Please feel free to add ideas via comments.  This is an ongoing checklist of tasks that will help instructors monitor discussion forums.  An instructor may teach more than one class, with more than one section.  You may need to keep track of numerous discussions, which can be overwhelming if you are not structured in your approach to them.  It is the instructor's role to be the faciliator and let the students generate and discuss ideas; however, that does not diminish the instructor's role, nor does it reduce the taskload.


Checklist - Main Discussion Forum

___  Post discussion question(s) at the beginning of a new module.
        ___  Is the question relevant to the learning objectives for
               that module?
        ___  Is the question concise (does not include too much
               information)?
        ___  Are the students directed to at least one resource to help
               get them started?


___  Check in at least once a day to read new posts from students.
        ___  Check in at least twice a day near the due date.


___  Keep a short list of key points/common themes among the
       posts.
        ___  Synthesize students' ideas once or twice throughout the
               discussion.
        ___  Create a new question from one or more student posts if
               the discussion lags.

Checklist - Other Forums

____  Check in at least once a day to read new posts in other forums
         (social, technical, private, etc.).
____  Respond to posts that have been unanswered for at least two
         days (other students may not check in very often, or they
         may not know the answer).
____  For introductory forums, comment on every student post. 
         Include your own post with a short biography and a picture.