Although students can learn by themselves, it is out job to guide them to extended learning through a variety of ways including explaing and justifying their positions on topics at hand, having students to deeply think about their ideas/repsonses over a short time period and then revisit it and definitely asking open ended questions. Reflection plays an essential role in learning environment period, but especially distance learning. In order to have a strong cooporative learning environment, you must start out strong by establishing norms or ground rules that must be followed.
