Focused Online Discussions, Moments of Difficulty, and Student Understanding

How might computing technologies be used to help address critical problems in the teaching of sociology and other disciplines? This article discusses a qualitative case study designed to illuminate this question. It examines how a very simple computing technology, namely online discussion groups, was designed and structured to address certain pedagogical problems. Qualitative analysis of student postings and observations of the process reveals that focused, web-based discussions made student thinking visible to peers and teacher, created an electronic archive, and provided feedback to instructors. The moments-of-difficulty approach helped to identify and address lacunae in background knowledge or skills that interfere with learning, highlight new concepts needing clarification or statistical relationships requiring explanation, and helped students construct new interpretations and questions. The article discusses threshold conditions for using technology, suggests questions for further research, and considers how computing technologies may increase our understanding of teaching and learning more generally.