In Part I of this article, we wrote about the value in collaborating with peers. Here we conclude the piece by sharing with you the steps we followed in forming our group, while offering advice on how a similar approach could work on your campus.

Most of us have encountered students who struggle with a particular course objective or assignment. Finding innovative ways to help students break through these barriers to learning is a common challenge for all educators at any level. This problem may be exacerbated in the online classroom due to the geographically dispersed participants and asynchronous learning environment, however, it can be overcome.

The joy of discussion as a class activity is starting it up and seeing where it goes. Although some of the same themes come up in every discussion, how they emerge and the connections they raise vary as much as the individual students do. On a great discussion day, the talk flows freely in interesting and unexpected directions, much like jazz.

When Hayley Lake, lecturer at Eastern Washington University, got the opportunity to develop an online version of Survey of Alcohol & Drug Problems, a multidisciplinary course that draws students from a variety of majors and backgrounds, she knew that online discussions would be an essential feature of the course. She had taught the course in the face-to-face environment and saw a lot of room for improvement—despite the diversity of students and the inherent potential for lively discussions, the course lacked engagement and rigor.

Issue 1: The classroom discussion is going pretty well. Students are offering some good comments and more than one hand is in the air. Then a student makes a really excellent observation that opens up a whole avenue of relevant possibilities. You follow-up by calling on a student whose hand has been in the air for some time. Her comment is fine, but it’s totally unrelated to the previous comment. How do you get students to respond to each other’s comments? How do you get student comments to build on a key topic so that it becomes more like a real discussion?

The online learning environment, no matter how robust the platform, does not fully address the isolation many students feel. This environment can be especially isolating for doctoral students. In traditional programs, particularly those with cohort models, students engage with one another through their courses, and many form groups and lasting friendships. Groups might meet or communicate on a regular basis to share their progress; edit/proofread dissertation drafts; solicit ideas, strategies, and advice; and even to vent about their challenges, frustrations, and lack of sufficient progress. Students with shared research interests, albeit rare in small cohorts and interdisciplinary programs, are even more fortunate to form this bond.

As a college student, I was rarely the first to raise my hand or respond to a question posed during class. I was shy by nature and always felt like I had little to offer. There were times, however, that I would interject simply to break the long silence after the instructor asked a question. In those cases, the silence was either too uncomfortable to bear or I figured that my response would be no worse than anyone else’s. There was also the threat of a pop quiz or some other academic challenge looming for the unresponsive class, which included students who obviously either did not know the content or had not read the assignment. I believe this is an experience all college students have faced at one time or another.

In "Good Teaching as Vulnerable Teaching” (The Teaching Professor, December 2012), Rob Dornsife of Creighton University invites us to embrace the uncertainties teachers encounter. The article prompted me to invite colleagues also to embrace being strict when the conditions warrant it.

That was the question, followed by, “Are they students who want to take over the classroom?” “No,” I replied, “it’s about how students approach learning—motivated, confident, and ready to tackle the task.”