Participant activity and facilitator strategies in an LMS-based discussion forum

Abstract

New ways of communicating challenge us to rethink the ways that we define both the acts of writing and the texts that are created. How can technology be constitutive for reflective and interactive writing during field practice in higher education? This paper reports on a study in which six student teachers wrote logs in an asynchronous LMS-based discussion forum that offered a practice of online interaction between the students, their mentors and lecturers. This resulted in discussions dominated by a two-way interaction between the lecturer and the individual student, but also the achievement of prolonged forum reflections and students' acquisition of theory. This paper examines some of the challenges of the instructor role in collaborative online learning environments. Keywords learning management system (lms), discussion forum, collaborative learning environments, facilitator strategies 1. This article is based on data from an ongoing project, SKRIVUT 2012SKRIVUT -2015 aims to establish and develop collaborative learning environments in different digital formats, to enhance the interplay between practice and theory in the teacher education program at Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag (Dons, Klemp, Nilssen & Strømman, 2013).

From Tools to Complexity?—A Systematic Literature Analysis of Digital Competence Among Pre-service Teachers in Norway

“…Three of these articles more clearly seek to develop the concept and they apply methods such as document analysis, interviews, and literature reviews (Instefjord, 2014;Røkenes & Krumsvik, 2014;Tømte, 2013). However, the majority (7) of the purely qualitative studies report on specific digital practices or the applications of digital tools, e.g., videopapers (Krumsvik & Smith, 2009), blogging (Kvåle & Rambø, 2015), online discussion forums (Strømman, 2015), or podcasting (Carson et al, 2021). Røkenes and Krumsvik (2014) pointed out that previous reviews and studies had lacked in the area of 'microor interactional levels focusing on showcasing daily teaching practices and activities with ICT' (p. 251).…”