The Discussion Project has released its application for trainings during January 2021.
The Discussion Project Virtual is an online training that supports UW–Madison instructors in creating the conditions for equitable, inclusive, and engaging online discussions.
It consists of five, two-hour synchronous sessions in Zoom, each preceded by an hour of asynchronous work. To participate in a January 2021 cohort, you must be teaching a spring 2021 course.
Access the application for the January 2021 training can be found here.
The training is open to any university instructor (faculty, academic staff, TA) teaching a course that serves 40 or fewer students, whether in-person or online. Priority will be given to primary instructors (instructors of record).
The Discussion Project Virtual training will help university instructors:
- Understand how the characteristics of online communication affect discussion and classroom climate, and account for these in their discussion plans
- Take responsibility for creating an equitable and inclusive classroom climate conducive to high quality discussion by implementing strategies that engage all students
- Distinguish between discussion and other forms of student talk/interaction and articulate the benefits of discussion for student learning
- Identify the relative advantages of different ways of structuring discussion and match discussion types to specific learning objectives;
- Effectively plan, implement, and reflect on classroom discussions
- And implement strategies that develop students’ discussion skills.
Research conducted by The Discussion Project during the spring of 2020 — and based on 1,164 surveys and 92 interviews of UW-Madison students — indicates that they greatly value high-quality online discussion as it helps keep students engaged in learning.
The Discussion Project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and operates within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, which is housed within UW–Madison’s School of Education. School of Education Dean Diana Hess is the project’s principal investigator.