Building Community With Synchronous Discussions in GoReact

Pamela Baker:

As we were planning for our time here today, we landed really at a place where the discussion questions that Dr. Jackson gives to us, we are going in recording and then our fellow students are reacting. What I expressed and what one other young lady expressed who really helped to craft out this discussion question hour, is that we were not particularly feeling as though GoReact had helped us with the community building aspect of why Dr. Jackson did this, right? And so we just lit out on this idea of how could we really look at community building and what she really meant for this to be, and this concept of the discussion question hour where we could all come together and be on GoReact really at the same time, providing almost real time feedback. That was so exciting to me because I really enjoy the aspect of talking back and forth to all of these leaders and all of the students and reading what or listening to their GoReacts, and then maybe the way that we went in and typed in our response, that just to me lit me up with the idea that I could be in the session with everybody at the same time. I’m really excited to use the tool in that way.

Karen Jackson:

Thank you, Pamela. And I think a little bit of context for the audience is that our program is completely online, and so our students being able to get together and hear from each other is really a critical component for the program. So this idea, which is at this point, just an idea of how can we shift from the kind of asynchronous way that we were doing discussions, which is everybody just kind of went in on their own time and did it, which meant if Pamela answered her discussion question today and Brenden went in three days later to answer his, it would mean Pamela would have to come back later to be able to interact with Brenden. But if we established a set time where folks were expected to come in and do it more in synchronous manner, that that might be a little bit more exciting for this group. So anyone else want to respond to this question? Any other panelists?

Stephanie Mayer:

Yes. I would say also that I really like this idea from the standpoint that the goal would be to, again, to create an open dialogue. And I kind of think about it as something similar to a virtual round table, if you will. And in my view, I think that this format would help to build trust as well as vulnerability for those who are open to that and allowing students to be able to connect more in that manner.