I use focus discussion before and after my lecture to help keep students more actively engaged intellectually. Two important aspects of this technique are to make the task and the instructions explicit and precise, and to require the groups to produce a specific written product. The question and answer pairs alternate asking and answering questions on the assigned reading. This allows me to give feedback to all of the students. Progress checks are similar to quizzes, but not graded.
Students individually complete the progress check and compare the answers with a partner.
Then, they retake the progress check in groups to broaden the discussion of each question. Phone lines are open to permit and encourage open communication. Intermittent Pair Discussion. During my first few distance education classes, when I attempted to solicit students' participation through questioning the whole class, only students physically present in the on-campus classroom responded. Later, a very small minority of the students at one of the distant sites tended to dominate.