One issue facing educators with large classes is how to create meaningful discussions amongst students. At Dawson College in Montreal, Canada, I run online chat room sessions which have met with great success. The purpose of these chat room sessions is to give students the opportunity to work on assignments or discuss the subject material in greater depth. With the help of the chat room sessions, the ‘burden’ of teaching is shifted from the teacher to the students. Here is a brief overview of how I set this up.

First, we use the WebCT¹—a course management system at Dawson. This platform has a chat room where students can log on to any one of the four ‘rooms’ for a period of 90 minutes any time during the week except Fridays. They can use it at 10am on Monday or 3am on Wednesday if they wish. The rush hour is usually around dinner time. In order to ensure active participation by all everyone, I only permit a maximum of four students per session. Students can work with whomever they wish. I have considered matching stronger students with weaker ones but have decided that this would not be fair to the former. However, others may view this differently.

The online class is in place of an on-campus session. At their scheduled time, students log on and work on the weekly assignments together. They are required to spend about 80% of the 90 minutes working on the assignments in groups. They can chat about whatever they want for the rest of the time. I am able to monitor their conversations in real time if I wish.

Afterwards, students with questions can post them in a discussion group which all other students can look at. Most of the time, I find that students have similar questions. I post my replies to students with similar questions throughout the week.

Friday is free time on the chat rooms and the groups are permitted to use any of the free rooms for up to a half-hour to finalise their answers.The groups then submit their assignments to me via the WebCT’s email by midnight Friday. I return their work in a few days via WebCT’s email.

In the following sections, I would like to explain a few issues in greater detail and make a few suggestions regarding WebCT.

Why logged chats? First and foremost I want to see what the students are up to. From past experience, I have found that going through the logs allows me to ‘diagnose’ students’ problems. Furthermore, the fact that the students know that their discussions will be read ‘encourages’ them to stay focused on their work. I realise that the monitoring of chat rooms might seem creepy, voyeuristic or Orwellian, but the students do not seem to mind and they are told repeatedly that their conversations will be monitored either in real time or later in logged form.

Sometimes I follow the students’ chats if I am on the computer. I will answer their questions or interject when I see something of interest. Professors herding very large classes might be able to arrange it so that a teaching assistant (TA) is always monitoring discussions in order to answer questions immediately.

I require students to be noticeably civil at all times when they use the chat rooms. While most students are respectful towards their peers, there is always the potential for unpleasantness in the chat room. As I am aware that ‘toxic’ environments are destructive, I use disciplinary tools when necessary. However, what is problematic is that friends sometimes call one another the vilest and foulest things. Though I cannot tell whether they are joking, I tell them not to say anything that might be misinterpreted. Finally, all conversation is carried out in languages understood by most students and myself. This is of particular importance to educational institutions with a rich ethnic mosaic.

Another interesting tool is the Whiteboard—an online real time blackboard—which allows the students to create online real time diagrams with an inexpensive electronic tablet and pen. WebCT 4 also has a math editor for those needing such a tool. With these tools, it is also possible to create assignments and quizzes which are corrected by the computer and automatically entered into WebCT’s grade book. If a TA is helping to administer the course, you can give the TA as much or as little control and access to the course as you wish. Students can address questions or send assignments directly to the TA’s WebCT mailbox.

I also use the discussion board to post answers to F.A.Q. I often discover common problems after reading the students’ chat room discussions. I then post my explanations on the discussion board in order to resolve the problems. At the end of the semester I look at all of the problems which have popped up and revise my lecture notes accordingly to clarify the things for the next batch of students. Finally, it is important to note that the total amount of time ‘teaching’ online is identical to the amount of time I spend in class teaching.

I find that most students love this way of online learning; many like the fact that they do not have to come to campus to learn. Such a form of online learning also forces students to work on the problems in small groups. Instead of sleeping or downloading e-mails in a monster teaching hall, students are now actively engaged in discussing and doing their assignments. Furthermore, the responsibility of teaching has shifted from the teacher to the students. This transformation may be to teaching what the printing press was to Plato.

¹ Most of the features in the WebCT are also available in their competitors such as the Blackboard.

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