"It is a very effective way to communicate with my students outside of class. It makes my teaching more efficient since it lets me post hints and clarifications in response to questions about the work. This reduces student frustration on problems that turn out to be unclear or too difficult."
Malcolm Boshier - Physics
A newsgroup provides an electronic forum for people to post items of interest, conduct discussions, or voice their opinions. Instructors can use Yale newsgroups for their classes to encourage communication outside the classroom.
Newsgroups are appropriate for:
* large classes where instructors can
-post updates to assignments or sup plements to reading lists
-provide answers to questions about problems sets or reading
* seminar classes that meet once or twice a week to
-provide a way for students and faculty to continue discussions started in class
-start different "threads" of discussion to pursue particular questions.
Some examples
Malcolm Boshier, whose Physics 200 class numbers 130 students set up a newsgroup last October. He uses the newsgroup for discussion of questions on the current problem set, posting material from lectures, corrections of typos on the problem sets and solutions, and for administrative announcements. Last semester he started threads to get feedback on specific aspects of the course.
Feedback indicates that students like the newsgroup and although there are only about 15 students posting to the group, there are many other members of the class who read the questions and responses regularly.
Gloria Monti set up newsgroups for two classes in the Film Studies Program, each of which meet only once a week. She uses the newsgroups for circulation of technical information, paper topics, due dates, films to see, and class planning. Most importantly, she and her students use the newsgroups as a forum to continue discussions which they have begun in class and to ask questions of the films and readings. She likes the fact that the newsgroup gives her an opportunity to extend her class beyond the two hours of official meeting time.
Niko Besnier has newsgroups for two anthropology classes with a total of 180 students. Prof. Besnier sees the value of newsgroups as permitting discussion that the class size does not allow, exploring tangential, but intellectually interesting issues and posting advance copies of review sheets after each topic unit. He also posts practical announcements, such as scheduling and the location of discussion sections and announcements of events of relevance to the topic of the classes
Lawrence Lessig's 65 students in a class on The Law of Cyberspace take advantage of their newsgroup to discuss readings, debate the nature of the community, explore ideas and experience the newsgroup as a means of communication. As evidence of interest this newsgroup saw over 300 postings within the first month.
A student commented on being asked to use the newsgroup for class participation: "I think the newsgroups are a great idea. I sometimes don't feel confident enough to contribute in class - I don't think anything I say will "go over" well, which is, of course, ridiculous. This little paranoia becomes dangerous when a good chunk of your final grade is based on participation. That's why newsgroups are so great. Posting isn't as scary as in-class discussion. I can get my participation points in a less intimidating fashion. It's also a good way for discussions to continue beyond the time we meet each week."
To set up a newsgroup for your class, contact Gloria Hardman.
Gloria Hardman, Instructional Computing Support Specialist can be reached by emailing gloria.hardman@yale.edu or phone 432-8903