I was asked to contribute to LCC’s new online teaching certification course by saying something about on-line discussions. I thought maybe the best way to do this would to be to have…an online discussion. While I have taught a couple of hybrid classes, last fall was the first time I have taught a class fully online. Thus, I am a novice at on-line classes in general, and discussions specifically. However, one online discussion went fairly well and I will give all of the credit to the source material which was written well and touched some nerves.
Here are the two source articles which center on two people dealing with different types of muscular dystrophy. One is a mother whose sons suffer from the condition and the other is a young woman who has a form of the disease that doctors have had trouble diagnosing.
THe DIY Scientist, the Olympian and the Mutated Gene
Below is a link to the discussion itself
It should be noted that while this discussion was required for the on-line class, my face to face class students could also participate for extra credit. Since I have separate sites for my online and FTF classes (Some people manage to combine these into one class, but I am way too disorganized to pull that off) one can not easily have this kind of discussion in D2l. However, the OpenLCC site is perfect for this (Thanks, Jim Luke!)
It should be noted that I had several purposes in mind when assigning this discussion
First, to give understanding of the ethical issues involving serious genetic conditions
Secondly, to understand what is meant by spontaneous mutations and why conditions like muscular dystrophy can arise without previous family history (Based on exam results, I need to discuss this a bit more thoroughly)
Thirdly, a more general question about one’s responsibility to understand what one is talking about and at the same time, how someone with little formal training can make important contributions by making the effort to learn.
Any comments on this or other advice to newbys on discussion forums is very welcome!
