Ways to Structure Interaction in the Chat Room

There are many options listed below. Use only one or two in a single class or students will get really confused!

• Use the Pairs-Check strategy [pdf] or the Reciprocal Teaching strategy. Assign each pair one of the chat rooms. You probably will need to assign different times or have students pick times to meet with each other as well.
• Use the Jigsaw strategy [pdf]. Divide the teams into the four chat rooms. Then have them report/teach the other students in the general chat room. (Or if you want a written record of their presentations for grading, direct the whole class to meet in one of the chat rooms.)
  
• Use these 28 Roles (in Coop Learning) to assign to students if you divide them into groups in the 4 rooms.
• Use the Quick Techniques 1 and Quick Techniques 2 [pdfs] by dividing students into groups in the 4 chat rooms. With large classes, you may have to use more than one chat time because of the limitation of 4 groups.
• When designing questions to discuss, use these questioning strategies from the Discussion section.
• Use the KQLA strategy [pdf] or Knowledge Construction [pdf]. Have students discuss each section as they are learning. If students are quite technically literate, have one student record the information in a Word/WordPerfect file and post it to the Discussion (to whole class) or Assignments tool (to just the teacher) when complete.
• Use the Cooperative Controvery strategy [pdf]. Assign each pair one of the chat rooms. You probably will need to assign different times or have students pick times to meet with each other as well.