It’s Alive – Flipgrid Discussion Activity
Empathize: Having received feedback from students in emails and student surveys, a common theme was students feeling disconnected from each other and that previous attempts to encourage collaboration (ie. Discussion board activities) were seen more like busy-work than offering actual value.
Define: The issue with traditional discussion activities is that, while students are collaborative per se, this engagement is very surface level and does provide a very real connection between students. As such, when it actually comes time to develop reply posts to their peers, this lack of engagement/interest seeps into the value and depth of their reply.
Ideate: I decided to use Flipgrid to help resolve these issues. Having used this tool for course introductions, students will already be somewhat familiar with this tool. My goal is to encourage more meaningful and personal discussions where students can actually see their peers and generate more meaningful discussions about the content.
Prototype: I decided to rethink the traditional discussion board into a video discussion using Flipgrid and will embed this directly into the Blackboard LMS. Students will still follow a similar discussion style (ie. Initial personal response and then reply to peers). Students will still be asked to include details from the course content and to support their comments.
Test: I plan to test this discussion format during my current course. I know there may be some resistance to elements of this style of discussion, ie. People not wanting to show their face, some who might prefer to just do a written response, but I am sure with time, practice, and feedback this will at very least give me information on whether this change achieved my goals and met my student’s needs.
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