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such as imbalances of access to knowledge and
resources or approaches to deal with verbal ag-
gression. The scenario of the role-play, which
related to a domestic building dispute between
a single mother and a builder, was posted to the
discussion board and dialogue was provided re-
lating to the opening statements of the mediator
and the parties. The single mother, who had few
resources was attempting to convince the builder
of the need to repair the foundations of her house
where there had been significant cracking. Stu-
dents were then invited to participate by posting
as one of the roles in the scenario with the teacher
moderating the roles taken by students. Email was
used to volunteer and confirm roles. Concurrently
with the playing out of the mediation role-play
students were invited to interact regarding the
choices made by the role-players in the mediation
in a separate thread.
Interactive:
Students and teacher acted in
the task environment to achieve the task goal of
coming to some sort of conclusion in the online
mediation. The dynamic of the online role-play
changed with the actions of the students. On oc-
casion, the teacher took the role of mediator to
model best practice in relation to interventions
to deal with power concerns. Intrinsic feedback
was provided to the students through the reac-
tions to mediator interventions by the parities.
For example, when the builder was verbally
aggressive to the single mother and called her a
“stupid woman” who didn't understand building
the mediator intervened by naming the abuse and
reiterating the ground rules relating to appropriate
interaction in the mediation. Students suggested
options in the concurrent threaded discussion
such as having a private session to speak with the
builder about his behaviour and the asking of open
ended questions to assist the builder to understand
gender issues in mediation. Other students sug-
gested strategies to assist the female party to feel
more empowered, such as the mediator helping
the woman to understand societal forces impacting
upon the story of the mediation and by enlisting
the support of an expert to assist with knowledge
disparity. Students spoke of power circulating
in the mediation and the need for the mediator
to be reflexive about her own power. Students
playing the mediator took up some of the sugges-
tions in the threaded discussion and the role-play
unfolded with a variety of interventions trialled.
The responses to mediator strategies meant that
there was meaningful change in the role-play as
a result of the mediator's actions. Role-players
responded to mediator interventions and these
responses were also commented upon in the con-
current discussion thread. A number of students
volunteered to role-play and other students were
content to be part of the discussion group and
contribute in this manner alone.
Reflective:
After the role-play was brought to
a close by the teacher both students and teacher
debriefed about the role-play in the concurrent
threaded discussion. Students were directed to
reflect upon intrinsic feedback derived from
mediator interventions and role-play reactions
in this reflection online. Following the debrief-
ing students were asked to reflect further on the
experience in a journal entry. This component
of the task was assessed. In the journal students
linked the experience on the online fishbowl to
descriptions of practice. The journal gave students
the opportunity to reflect in a self-paced manner
and they could also comment upon the learning
experience in the online environment.
concluSion
E-Learning has grown in use in university educa-
tion across the full range of academic disciplines.
There is a need to provide more flexibility in the
delivery of higher education due to competing
pressures of education, work and family on the
lives of students. This need for more flexible
delivery in higher education is likely to increase
the use of online learning as the online environ-
ment offers opportunities for flexibility without
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