High quality online instruction must encourage high levels of critical thinking and inquiry from students. This presentation will first explain the basics for building an effective learning community through online discussions using the community of inquiry model by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) as the theoretical framework. Then practical strategies for encouraging learner-centered discussions will be introduced, such as clear guidelines for posts, student moderator roles, instructor modeling, and rubrics for assessing the quality of posts.
These strategies will help any online TESOL instructor promote higher levels of critical thinking through online discussions and build a learning community in which practicing teachers can socially interact with each other to share ideas and construct new knowledge. Based on research conducted in an a fully online distance teacher professional development program with participants from over 90 countries, the main location for encouraging critical thinking and inquiry was the asynchronous online discussion board.
