Building Your Discussion Moderation Skills

Here are some general considerations to help promote a group discussion.

A moderator is usually needed to successfully lead a purposeful discussion, to keep it focused and to assure all participants receive feedback regarding their contributions to the discussion. This is best learned through actual practice participating in and leading online discussions.

Motivation to participate in a discussion is best provided by the moderator individually recognizing each participant via both private and public messages. One-on-one interaction is much more effective for initially motivating a given individual to participate compared to a public posting encouraging "everyone" to participate. It's important for the moderator to have a genuine relationship with each participant as this creates a social commitment that facilitates participation.

This relationship becomes key to drawing individuals into a given discussion. As the discussion begins to take form, the moderator should periodically introduce "weaving" messages that steer the discussion and keep it on track as well as summarizing what has been covered.

"Listening" skills are more important than writing skills. As a moderator, modeling collaborative processes is a social and linguistic skill that requires sensitivity to the personalities and unique differences of the participants. A moderator might play devil's advocate to solicit responses by role playing different points of view. A moderator might model how the group can gather and share information, and support each other, as part of the group's discussion. One persistent problem with online discussions is the tendency to lose the focus. Without a thoughtful moderator, purposeful progress of a discussion may not occur.

As with any classroom discussion participants may opt to not participate or only participate at a minimum level. Required participation could be part of the course assessment. The level of genuine thoughtful involvement depends on the intellectual investment your students are prepared to make. While online discussions hold the potential for high levels of intellectual rigor, the risk is always present that discussion contributions will reflect minimal effort and thought.

Group size appears to be a key factor to the success of an online discussion. If the group is too small, the discussion may peter out due to lack of fresh input. If it is too large it becomes unwieldy. The sense of continuity and community is lost, and less vocal members will begin to withdraw. As moderator it will become increasingly difficult to hold the strands together. It seems that in most instances, ten to fifteen is the ideal number of a group discussion. If you are teaching a class of say thirty, it would be best to divide it into two or three "conferences" in order to facilitate a worthwhile discussion.