When Discourse Environment Meets Students’ Goals: Situated and Emerging Goals When Learning in Online Classroom Discussions

• In Event: Roundtable Session 96
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Multiple Discursive Contexts for Learning

Abstract

We examined how graduate students’ individual goals for a synchronous online discussion, as expressed just before the chat session, were then changed by the discourse environment of the ongoing conversation moment-by-moment, influenced by the specific context of others’ utterances. Our focus was on how students learn by negotiating the dynamic interplay between their goals before the online discussion and emerging goals from the discourse. Through interpretive discourse techniques, we identified five kinds of goals students set before online discussions, four patterns of goals across the semester, and five themes connecting goals to learning practices. This research articulates the ways in which the emerging goals of an ongoing discussion battle with students’ individual goals in a challenging learning environment.

Authors

• Ji-Eun Lee, The University of Texas - Austin

• The D-Team, The University of Texas - Austin