Rather than assuming a level of understanding based on what a few students have said, the teacher can respond to the actual knowledge level of the entire class and then direct verbal discussions and review to greater advantage. Designed to facilitate high levels of student-teacher interaction, feedback, and monitoring, the specialized features of Discourse also help teachers with lesson preparation, scoring, progress reporting, and monitoring. It accommodates a wide range of instructional arrangements that apply to all content areas and grade levels. Besides uses in whole group instruction, another option with Discourse is self-paced instruction. Lessons may be prepared from the teacher's existing materials and easily stored on disk.
Students can progress through the assignment whenever they are ready.
Even then, the teacher can observe student progress during self-paced instruction as if she were looking over each student's shoulder. Discourse also provides options for multiple groups, with each group working on different lessons. The teacher can change from group to group and allow students to do the same. At the individual student level, groupware systems ensure time on task, accountability, and feedback. Increased communication is the core value in this technology.