Scaffolding online discussions to promote reflection and revision of understanding

This paper presents a conceptual framework for scaffolding reflection and revision during online discussion. The design framework includes the following components: (a) provide procedural scaffolding to facilitate articulation, reflection and revision; (b) model the types of questioning processes required for productive, high-level discourse; and (c) structure discourse around meaningful question-asking and -answering cycles that encourage reflection and revision. We present an example of an online class in Turfgrass Management in order to show how our framework and its scaffolding strategies can be implemented in practice.