Moderating Discussions - tips

-- a university of arizona course on methods and approaches for studying the future

Moderating a discussion is a little like leading a team or chairing a committee. Except that it is done on-line.

The role of a moderator is to guide people, keep them on track, summarize threads or ideas that develop during the discussion, and to stimulate discussion when things get slow. This will be a good experience for you in later life, so read some of the references below and try your on moderating.

Our class moderating will be of short duration - one week - you should enter your initial comment on the weekend or early Monday, for the week your topic starts. On the following weekend or early the following week, summarize what happened. See guidelines below on how to accomplish this.

Guidelines
• Define the discussion topic for yourself. Take time to understand what it really is all about
• Understand the setting – we only have a week to discuss this rather than a lifetime - don't make it too complicated
• Enter a short description of the topic, suggest areas of initial discussion, and provide a couple of links for further information if needed
• Watch the first couple of days to see if things go well and clarify if necessary
• Toward the end of the week, if things are going slowly, add a new question yourself, or comment on someone else's question to stimulate more activity
• Summarize the discussion (do this the following weekend).

For further reading

Moderating On-line discussions (company in Israel)

Initiating and moderating discussions (University of Waterloo)

Recommendations for moderators (Bemidji State University)

Etiquette for On-Line Discussions (Caldwell)

If you need help or more guidance, contact me (caldwell@ag.arizona.edu)