Week 2 discussion 1

For powerful online collaboration and critical thinking to take place, students must be engaged in
productive inquiry and analysis. Dr. Levine, Dean of Humanities at Southwestern College states,
The school that fails to teach critical thinking fails at everything (Interview, October of 2010).
If we are to create and facilitate empowering critical thinking discussions in a virtual
environment we must know how to ask great questions. To explore this concept further lets take
a look at the following case:
Mrs. Jones assigned her senior students in her online History class to read the following
article:
No End in Sight: Germany Has Paid Out More Than $61.8 Billion in Third Reich
Reparations
Then, she asked her students this question in the discussion forum:
1. Who or what is the JCC?
2. In the 1990s, how much did the JCC pay out to individual claimants?
What do you think might happen in the discussion thread when you ask this type of
question?
Students will simply answer the questions above verbatim without much elaboration
which would result in a discussion thread that has basically the same answers. McKnight (2000)
states, in any discipline, the level of questions influences the depth of thinking that occurs
(p.39).. Thus, the discussion responses would not necessarily promote critical thinking,.

Now, imagine instead she asked this question:

The article states that most of those who were alive during the Second World War are
now deadthat is, the perpetrators of war crimes are themselves long gone from
Germanyand that further, the process of reparation may be bottomless.
Should Germany be required to make good on damages for the past, and should there be a
limit to the reparations? Use what you have learned from this unit to support your
position. Read and respond to the posts of two other students.
What do you think would happen now in the forum?
The questions posed above would encourage elaborative discussion and possible debate on the
issue of whether or not reparations are appropriate and/or inevitable. The following link is to an
article that discusses critical thinking in online discussions:
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0048.pdf

Now that you have experienced a little bit on the art of asking good questions, please select
an article from the web about online learning strategies and post it in this forum. Then,
provide a few examples of good and bad questions.

Some examples of good and bad discussion question are posed in the following table according
to topic:
Discussion Topic
Online Learning

Bad Questions
Have you ever learned
anything online?

Technological Tools

Why is it some people call

technology a tool?

Needs Assessment

Do you know what you need

from this class?

Teaching Sequences

Do you understand how the

instructor sequencers lessons?

Good Questions
How has your knowledge of
online learning progressed
since attending college online?
Does the use of technology
alleviate the ne3ed for hard
work and common sense?
Does being allowed to have
input in lesson planning
encourage you to work harder
to in turn improve learning
skills.
How does the way an
instructor sequences learning
activities affect your
comprehension of the
subject/concept?

The bad questions are not necessarily wrong questions but they may be considered as
shallow/rhetorical and therefore do not provoke interaction/ discussion at length among the
teacher/students in the online classroom..
References
McKnight, C.B. (2000). Teaching critical thinking through online discussions. Retrieved
from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0048.pdf

Respond to at least two of your peers with comments on how their questions can be improved to
promote critical thinking.
For more specific information on critical thinking, please explore the website The Critical

Thinking Community.
Blooms Taxonomy is a great resource when crafting questions for the discussion forum: Major
Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives