Student-led facilitation strategies in online discussions

Abstract

This study explored student-led facilitation strategies used to overcome the challenges of instructor-dominated facilitation, enhance the sense of learning community, and encourage student participation in online discussions. It presents a series of cases of students' facilitation strategies and using qualitative data analysis of discussion threads within the naturalistic inquiry framework, identifies three facilitation strategies: inspirational; practice-oriented; and highly structured. The study shows that these facilitation strategies generated innovative ideas, motivated students to participate, and provided a risk-free and relaxed atmosphere for participation. © 2009 Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, Inc.