Facilitating Offline Discussions
Overview
Students discuss a topic with someone outside the course in-person or virtually.
Why Use This?
This strategy gives students in a self-paced course the opportunity to have a real-time discussion about a particular topic studied in the course.
How Does It Work?
Students are instructed to find a friend, colleague, or family member with whom to discuss a topic and its associated prompts for 30 minutes. When finished, the student summarizes the discussion and shares their reflections with their classmates.
An example of the offline discussion in a biology course
Instructions
Find a friend, colleague, or family member to participate and discuss with you. Note It should be about a 30 minute discussion.
Together, watch the 21 minute, 24 second video: The story of stuff.
Directions
Based on the information from The story of stuff, have you and your discussion partner calculate your carbon footprint using the provided pdf ecological footprint calculator. Use this to inform your discussion on the following:
- How many Earths would we need if everyone lived like you?
- What was your most “expensive” area and why?
- What surprised you the most?
- Identify four things you could realistically change within the year to lower your footprint. How do you think you could implement this? Do you have role models in friends, or will you need to convince your family/roommates to participate?
- Identify 2 things you could realistically change within ten years to lower your footprint. How do you think you could implement this? Do you have role models in friends, or will you need to convince your family/roommates to participate?
- How could you convince the people around you to live more sustainably?
When you are done discussing this with your partner, summarize your discussion and reflections in the Discussion Board below.