Analysis of interaction patterns and scaffolding practices in online discussion forums

An analysis on interaction patterns and scaffolding techniques is attempted on an online discussion forum happening in 10 groups of 36 students in an Engineering Mathematics unit. The analysis was performed on the content of the student and moderator postings and classification done based on the IBIS model. It was noticed that a lot of student interactions were related to students proposing issues and their positions. Majority of the moderator interactions were Socratic questioning modes and suggestions to effectively coordinate with peer members. The scaffold of Socratic questioning was seen to contribute to the active responses in the online groups.