Kimberlee Gillis-Bridges
English, CIC program
University of Washington, Seattle Campus

Preparing Students for Class Discussion

Kimberlee Gillis-Bridges, lecturer in English and director of the Computer Integrated Courses (CIC) program, held the record for the most active EPost discussion board in 2001. With over 600 postings on the EPost board she created for her summer class, Race in U.S. Cinema, Gillis-Bridges is an expert in "infusing the teaching of writing with a technology-based pedagogy"--her goal for the CIC.

"Students are used to taking [film] in. It's a seamless media; students aren't used to thinking about it critically." Gillis-Bridges has found that asynchronous environments, such as that provided

by EPost, are a good way to get students thinking critically about what they see, and thus prepare them for class discussion. In Race in US Cinema, Gillis-Bridges posted a question every week, to which students were required to respond with two postings: one addressing her question, and another responding to another student's post. Ms. Gillis-Bridges reported that students began printing out her questions and bringing them to film screenings, which helped them to think more critically about the film being discussed. After the week's EPost discussion, the students came to class prepared to discuss the film, having worked through the initial stages of critical thought online.

Gillis-Bridges attributed her success using EPost to following three simple steps: she introduced EPost as an integrated part of the class from the very beginning; she required students to post twice a week, and based a substantial portion of the class grade (25%) on participation in this aspect of the class; and she consistently brought the online discussions into the class discussions. Online discussion, Gillis-Bridges insisted, "can't be just an addendum--it has to be an integral part of class and content."

Please note: EPost has been replaced by GoPost, which offers expanded features to support online discussion and collaboration.