Discussion step

Overview:

Discussion step is unlocked by the teacher when they're ready to give students access, by clicking a "Start Discussion" button in the teacher's interface.  Each student team reads a starting Discussion Question/Topic, writes a response, and posts this response to the forum (a Level 1 post).   Each team is then prompted to review and respond to X number of the posts from other teams.  Their responses are considered Level 2 posts and appear as indented discussion threads.  The identities of each team can be shown or anonymous at this point (selectable).  Once each team has completed their required Level 2 posts, the forum opens completely, allowing each team to create L1-L7 posts (6 levels of indent in the threaded forum interface).  The teacher has various controls for monitoring/facilitating this discussion in real-time, including ability to edit/delete any posting.  Teacher also has the option to group students into sub-groups teams (with option to assign the same Question to each sub-group or a unique Question for each subgroup).

Functionality from the Author's perspective:

1.    Author creates a new "Discussion" step using the WISE v3.0 authoring tool.

2.    Author specifies if "Show Previous Step"  option is ON or OFF.* If ON, the author can click a pop-up menu displaying all previous Notes/SelfChecks/Challenge Questions in the project.  Selecting a step makes its content (question and student response) appear at the beginning of the Discussion step.   The students can't edit this Previous Step.

3.    Author writes a "Discussion Question/Topic"  (text field).

• Author has sub-option to write a "Starter Sentence".  1 line text field.  Author specifies if the Starter Sentence is of type LINK or AUTO (default is Link).
• Author has sub-option to write a "Discussion Sample Post."  4 line text field.  A sample post that the student can call up if they're having trouble getting started.

4.    Author specifies the size of the "Student Response (Level 1 Post)" field that student teams will see.

• Drop-down menu:  3 lines, 6 lines, 9 lines, 12 lines.  Default is 6 lines

5.    Author specifies the Identity Setting for the Discussion.  

•  Radio buttons:  1)  Students decide if a post displays Student Names or Anonymous  2)  All posts show Student Names  3)  All posts are Anonymous.    Default is Students Decide.

*6.    Author specifies if the Discussion is Gated or Open. Radio buttons:  1) Gated  2) Open.   Default is Gated.*

• Gated means the student team MUST submit a response before seeing other posts.  Open means the forum is immediately active and students can see postings appear before they have submitted a first post, however, all identities are hidden until the student submits their first post

7.    Author specifies how many response-posts each team is required to make.

•  Drop-down menu allows choice of 0-6.

8.    Author specifies if sub-group option is on/off.

• Radio buttons: On/Off.  Default is On. 
• If the On button is selected, the author sees additional buttons:  1) Create sub-group   2) Delete subgroup.   3) Assign Students to subgroups.   The author can create an unlimited numbers of sub-group names that are shown as a list.   The author can highlight any list item and delete it.
• Each sub-group shows a "Discussion Question/Topic".  The author can select Default or Unique radio buttons.  If Unique the author writes a unique Question for the subgroup, otherwise the subgroup gets the default question.
• The list of sub-group names is automatically passed forward to the teacher interface.  The teacher can use/edit this list as desired.
• Author can click "Assign Students to Subgroups" to see a screen similar to the Student Management screen.  The author can  1) Manually drags and drop student names (per periods) into the various subgroups  2) Click "Assign random Teams of X (selectable number)" to make random assignments.  3) Click "Assign Teams with similar scores"  or 4) Click "Assign Teams with Dissimilar Scores"

Functionality From Student Team's VLE Perspective:

1.    Student team cannot explore the Discussion step until the teacher unlocks it.

• When team navigates to the Step they see message: "Discussion Not Started Yet.  Your teacher will tell you when to start this step."   
• This message disappears to reveal the Discussion when the teacher clicks "Start Discussion" in the teacher interface.

2.    Team may or may not see a Previous Step displayed at beginning of the discussion (author setting)

• Example: "Please review [Activity X, Step Y] from earlier in the project:  [display of Question and student reponse]

3.    The team sees a Discussion Topic/Question and a "Student Response (Level 1 Post) field.   

• The team may or may not see other student responses at this point (gated versus open).
• The team can click a "Sample Posting" link which calls up a sample post in a pop-up window  (with CLOSE button).
• The team can click a "Show Starter Sentence" link to display a starter sentence.  (this sentence is displayed automatically if this option is selected by Author)
• The team can also click a "Show SmartPrompt" pop-up menu.  This menu shows Allows students to enter a color-coded opening statement (non-editable).  These prompts help focus student responses.  They also allows readers of the thread to understand the type of response they're seeing via the coloring of the prompt.  
  a.    SUPPORT.  I agree with this because... 
  b.    ASSOCIATION.  This reminds me of...
  c.    QUESTION.  One question I have about this is...
  d.    UNCERTAINTY.   Something confusing to me here is that...
  e.    CLARIFY.  I need more information about...
  f.    REBUTTAL.  I disagree with this because...
  g.    REWORDING.  It makes more sense to me to say...
• If the student selects a SmartPrompt, the first word (example: "Support") is embedded as colored text at the beginning of the Title field.   This colored word is NOT editable.  The follow-up text is embedded as text at the beginning of the Message field.  This text IS editable.

4.    The team writes a response  in the Title field and Message field.  

• If the author/teacher gave the students ability to set the identity for their posting, the team sees radio buttons:  1) Post with our Usernames  2) Post Anonymously

5.    The team submits their response (a Level 1 post).  They now see the full threaded forum interface and all of the postings submitted by other teams so far.

• If the teacher has placed a team into a sub-group, then the team only see the postings of other students in their sub-group.

6.    Each student posting includes several fields:

• Posted By:                           ("Posted By: Geoff Kwan & Tony Perritano"  or   "Posted By:  Anonymous 3"
• Time/Day/Date stamp           (3:04pm, Fri, 4.21.2008)
• Level                                   (Level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Group                                  ("Entire Class" or  [Sub-group name])
• Title                                     (one line)
• Message                               (# of lines for input box is set by author)

Design goal:  each posting should be a vertically compressed as possible, to allow for display of many posts on a single screen.

7.    Each Level 1 posting includes a "Respond to this Level 1 Post" button.

• At this stage, a team does not see a "Respond" button on the post they've submitted.  They can't respond to themselves (yet).
• At top of the interface the team sees an instructional message saying "You must respond to [X] level 1 postings from other teams."  This message updates as the students complete their required posts.

8.    When the team submits their final required post the instructional message changes to  "Great work!  You can now create as many Level 1 through Level 5 postings as you'd like."

• A tool bar also appears here with a link that says "Create a new Level 1 Post."  Clicking this button yields a pop-up window in which the team can create a new Level 1 post (Title/Message/Identity setting).
• The tool bar also include buttons to "Open All Threads"  and "Close All Threads"
• At this point a "Respond to this Level [x] Post" appears on ALL postings (except Level 5 posts).  A team can now respond to one of their own posts, or they can respond to any Level 1-4 post.

9.    The discusssion continues until the teacher tells the students to move on in the Project.

10.    Threaded Forum Specifics:

• Note that Discussion Question/Topic  is still accessible at the top of the forum interface (as is the Previous Step).  Ideally this entire region can be revealed/hidden by clicking on a triangle icon.  This way the student can shrink it out of the  way once they're in the thick of the threaded discussion.
• Once a posting is submitted by a student team it can no longer be edited.  A team can submit revisions by responding to their own post.
• Each thread level has a triangle that the student team can manually click to hide/reveal the thread with its sub-threads.
• The Postings for each Level ( Level 11-5) display their Title/Message with a different background color (black text for all).  This will help give visual structure to the threaded discussion interface.
• Level 5 postings do not have a "Respond to this posting" button.  This is as deep as a thread can go.
• Each team can only see and respond to teams in their "Group" setting.  If there are no sub-groups specified by author/teacher then each team sees the posts of all other teams.

Functionality From Teacher's Perspective:

1.    Teacher unlocks the step when ready by clicking "Start Discussion" in their interface.

• The teacher's interface can be reached by previewing the Project Run and navigating to the Discussion Step (while signed in as the teacher).
• The teacher's interface can also be reached from the Classroom Monitor screen.  This screen will include a "Display A Real-Time Step" button, which if clicked allows the teacher to select any Discussion/Brainstorm/Poll step from a menu.
• The "Start Discussion" link changes to "Stop the Discussion"   If clicked the Discussion is locked and students can no longer see the forum (they see the "This Discussion step is locked" message.
• The teacher can click the Start/Stop button at any time (before students have registered for the projects, in the midst of the projects, etc)

2.    Teacher interface also includes a "Manage Discussion Groups" button.

• Clicking this button yields a pop-up window containing a list of any sub-group names specified by the Author, along with the other management buttons shown to the author).
• This pop-up window creates a box or column for each sub-group.  The name of each team (with 1-3 student names) is shown in a "Period [X] Teams" box.  The teacher can drop and drop names from the Class Box into a Group box and click "Save Changes to Groups.  Ideally this will reuse code and interface look/feel from the "Manage My Students" page on the portal.
• The teacher can also write unique Discussion Question/Topic for each sub-group, if desired.   Text field.  If this Discussion Q/Topic field for a sub-group is left blank, then the group by default sees the question written for the overall class.
• When an existing student team is moved into a new group, the team now sees only the discussion postings for that group.

3.    Teacher interface also includes a "Manage Discussion Options" button.

• Calls up a window where the teacher can modify settings established initially by the author.  Includes:
  • Identity Setting (3 options for labeling posts)
  • Discussion Setting  (Gated or Open)
  • Number of Required Level 2 Posts  (range from 0-6)

4.    As the threaded discussion proceeds the teacher can view/edit/manage the student postings.

• If a posting uses an "Anonymous X" label, the teacher also sees the student names in parentheses.
• Each post seen by the teacher includes an EDIT and DELETE button.  The edit button calls up an editable version of the post which the teacher can modify and repost (at its current thread level).  Note that the teacher can edit the Title and Message areas.
• The delete button wipes out the content of the entire post and replaces it with the special phrase "This posting has been deleted by the teacher."   The teacher gets a Confirmation screen before the post is deleted.  Note that a the posting still maintains its presence in the thread heirarchy (with any sub-threads still intact), but the content has been replaced by the special message.

5.    Teacher can let the discussion continue indefinitely, or can click the "Close Discussion" link to lock the step and reactivate the "This Discussion step is locked" message.