Week 3 - Introduction

Welcome to the third week of FLO! This week’s theme is facilitating effective discussion forums. You may have noticed that we have not used very many discussion forums so far in the course. This was intentional! We wanted to show how an online course can be designed that does not rely on discussion forums. It is not that we are against discussion forums – in fact, we are huge fans! When intentionally chosen for a specific learning activity, and facilitated effectively, forum-based discussions can be highly successful.

You will have opportunities to:

• Recognize the opportunities, limitations, and challenges of the discussion forum in online learning environments;
• Reflect on the role of the instructor in facilitating online discussion forums;
• Select innovative forum-based learning activities; and
• Identify specific facilitation strategies that support effective learning in online discussion forums.

This week will follow the same format as last week, with peer-facilitated learning activities from Monday to Thursday, followed by reflection and feedback from Friday to Sunday. As per usual, please refer to the Course schedule for a list of specific tasks to complete and due dates.

Good luck peer facilitation team! 😊

(Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash)

[Note for FLO facilitators: We recommend you include an audio option for the text above here if using a platform that does not have an audio feature built in. Remove this note before offering starts.]