THE FORUM AS A USEFUL TOOL in online education I

The online educational FORUM is considered a "gold standard tool" in part due to its great potential to encourage discussion and promote debate. 

In relation to the difficulties that the argumentation process sometimes entails, especially in non-philosopher professionals, to what extent the forum - as a teaching-learning tool - may be of interest to acquire argumentation competences? How to move the reflection in a forum from a simple statement to a genuine dialogue?.

Many educational settings are periodically embracing innovative technological tools and resources to enhance effectiveness in the learning process. In that sense online forums provide both synchronous and asynchronous interactions and while students may be offline, discussions keep being done on the forum and let access to previous threads of discussions*.

EM Onyema, et al (2019) describe that: 

 "(...) An online forum creates a motivational environment for students to freely express their views and ideas with more confidence than they do in a traditional classroom and brings people together with  shared  interest  and  mind-set,  and  members  have  the privilege to post messages to the discussion threads, interact and  receive  feedback  from  other  students  and  instructors, and  hence  create  a  deeper  understanding  of  the  subject matter  being  discussed"

According to this the debates and interaction that takes place in an online Forum facilitates learning through networking - as well as social learning -  providing opportunities for students to seek, obtain, and share information.  

It might be possible then to improve critical thinking skills and understanding of concepts due to the opportunity to learn from different points of view or approaches to solve a particular problem.

The teacher as facilitator can improve the student's understanding of the content of a given course and help build their confidence to try or respond more precisely to questions that arise.

Thus, as Onyema et al (2019) emphasize that the on line Forum "promotes dialogue, deep learning, and a research mindset among students", essential component in the teaching of Bioethics. 

It can be very interesting to know about your experience regarding the use of the on line Forum in the teaching of Bioethics as well as the strengths and weaknesses it eventually presents.

I also suggest to read the next post based on E Wenger´s thoughts regarding "social learning"and how it can be applied in the context of the online forum

Many thanks!!

* Onyema EM, Deborah EC, Alsayed AO, Noorulhasan Q, Naveed SS. Online Discussion Forum as a Tool for Interactive Learning and Communication.