Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Rowena Santiago et al.
6.1.2 Assignments and rubrics developed for online group discussions
In response to the need for course re-design and for learning how to structure more effective online
group discussions that facilitate critical thinking skills and student engagement, assignments and
rubrics were developed for the following courses:
Evaluating and critiquing peer assignments/projects (Instructional Technology)
Enhancing argument in an online class, which is case-based and student interaction and active
learning are important (Communication Studies)
Structuring online group discussion for multi-country group projects and team work (International
Management)
Reviewing and assessing the curriculum and lesson plans (Technology Education)
Engaging students in practice problems and discussion of online video/audio lecture (Accounting
and Finance), and
Facilitating online interactions and collaboration when analyzing and explaining the Spanish
language (World Languages).
Based on these assignments developed by FLC members, the most immediate and relevant impact of
this FLC was going to be at the classroom level where the practice of promoting critical thinking
across the curriculum was going to be addressed.
Each assignment was reviewed by group members, using the guidelines that were generated earlier.
Some comments were posted on the discussion forum, but most discussion and review feedback took
place during the face-to-face meetings. Most of the rubrics were revised due to two main reasons: too
much emphasis on participation, and no/fewer criteria for assessing how critical thinking was reflected
in student responses during the online discussion.
Results of the implementation of one of these assignments (Instructional Technology) are presented
in the next section.
6.2 Part Two: Implementation and SOTL integration results
6.2.1 Course
The course that was used for this project was ETEC648: e-Learning Delivery and Evaluation. It was
one of the courses in a certificate program for students who wanted to become online instructors or
online training facilitators. ETEC648 was a completely online course where interaction (studentcontent,
student-student, student-instructor) played a critical role, and at the same time, it aimed to
develop high-level thinking skills among students by engaging them in the following online group
discussion activities: (1) students critiqued peers’ e-Learning delivery plan and materials for a “good
start” of e-Learning instruction; and (2) students explained and justified their viewpoints for accepting
and not accepting peer review suggestions.
6.2.2 Assignment
The original assignment that was designed for this class had a brief introduction on what the students
did the previous week. The brief introduction helped the students make a connection between the
previous assignment and the new assignment for which students needed to post their e-learning
delivery plans including their materials on how to conduct a “good start” for their online instruction
For the online group discussion, each student was asked to select two classmates and to critique their
delivery plans and relevant materials (for example, their technology checklists for a good start). To
make sure that everyone’s project would be critiqued, each student chose two assignments to review,
and then announced their choices by posting threads in the Blackboard discussion forum. For
example, to critique the assignments of Mary Smith and John Garcia, the student created a thread
with his/her name, after confirming that no other person had already posted his/her intention to
critique Mary’s and John’s work. This critique was considered as Level I Response, where every
student project (delivery plan and materials) was reviewed by a maximum of two peers. The critique
had to be within 500-800 words and it should cite the sources (or references) to support the critique
being given (for example, page 207 of Waterhouse’s book). Each critique consisted of two parts: first,
734