Since the development of threaded discussion on the World Wide Web, effective use of asynchronous discussion forums has been an issue for public affairs educators. This article is an account of research that examined how traditional mentoring practices might be used successfully in this electronic environment. A taxonomy of strategies for online discussion leaders is described. By using these strategies, instructors can move beyond just asking good questions in online discussions, to putting into practice methods that are designed to challenge students' critical thinking and foster higher levels of student participation. The research results indicate that threaded discussion by the study's target population was improved by use of the taxonomy.
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