RODP Course Discussion Board

This page is under construction and will continue to be modified.

The Discussions tool is an asynchronous online forum where students can participate in discussions that you have made available. Students compose and and reply to postings in a threaded format. They can also attach files to their postings, making the Discussions tool an excellent place for students to collaborate on group projects or complete peer reviews.

Examples of how the Discussions tool can be used are listed below:

• Answer commonly asked questions
• Share and/or comment on files
• Post questions, problem sets and/or answers
• Group communication

To access Discussions from your course home page, click the Discussions link in the course navigation bar located near the top of the screen.  The Forums and Topics List will open and has six icons that run along the top of the screen: Forums and Topics List, New Forum, New Topic, Copy, Re-Order, and Delete.

When instructors grade discussions in an online course, students tend to participate in the discussions actively and thus have higher levels of sense of community (Rovai, 2003). However, too much emphasis on solely quantitative analysis of postings/messages can only result in coerced participation, poor quality of learning and student contributions to the online discussion (Garrison & Anderson, 2003).

References:

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., and Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. The American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), pp 7-23

Ten Tips for Generating Engaged Online Discussions
by Katherine Fischer, Donna Reiss, and Art Young

In electronic environments, responses to ideas and texts are dialogic rather than solitary and foster ongoing written conversations among readings and readers. These guidelines should be adapted to course content, design, and emphasis, as well as to the type of electronic communication (email list, discussion board, or Weblog, for instance).

1. Carefully integrate electronic discussions into course goals, not as add-on assignments.
   • Participation should be mandatory, and on-time participation is crucial to establishing a conversational, academic exchange.
   • To highlight the importance of online community as a complement to your face-to-face community or as an alternative communication area in your online community, designate a student-moderated conversational forum such as a Cybercafe Forum or Cyberlounge.
2. Give students credit but not necessarily grades for their prompt, engaged participation. Without intervening in the students’ discussion, you may provide feedback in an email or discussion board message or in person to the entire class mentioning insightful ideas generated by the discussion and encouraging further reading, thinking, and conversation.
3. Offer precise directions with clear expectations: scope, approach, tone (courteous and respectful of various viewpoints), length (minimum and maximum—we recommend 250-350 words), diction (such as “edited conversational”), form or genre (letter or memo or report), and deadlines for each post. You may want to provide a model of a good post.
4. Consider integrating Internet research, in which students include and discuss relevant Web sites as active links in their messages to each other, for example, a misconduct case from Ethics in Science or a Pre-Raphaelite painting from the Victorian Web. When appropriate, encourage students to incorporate visual images and multimedia.
5. In your guidelines for the discussion, encourage explanations, examples, questions, speculations, alternative viewpoints, and connections to personal experience.
6. Develop topics and assignments that will elicit engagement with ideas as well as the answers and responses you seek. Sometimes you’ll want to be quite specific about topics and approaches; sometimes you’ll want to be more open-ended, allowing the first person who posts to determine the topic and approach.
7. Encourage or require students to quote from the textbook, from your lectures and materials, and from their classmates’ posts when they respond to each other and when they write their tests or papers on topics they discussed online. Provide a model for informal documentation for these source references
8. Have students include their own and one or more classmates’ posts in their final course portfolios along with reflection on what was learned from specific classmates and from the e-discussion process.
9. Assign small groups, for example, five-to-seven students who read and respond to each other. Every group’s posts should be available to the whole class, but students need only read their own group’s writing.
   • To expand the learning communities, have each group respond to a different group for one or more posts.
   • Encourage students to read all the posts of all the groups; select some exam questions from their discussions (and let them know you plan to do so).
10. Develop a heuristic, for example, here’s an adaptable approach that can be made more fluid or more directive.

• First post: Respond to the reading or assigned topic with specific reference to the reading. Include a brief summary, select a specific focus or point, develop that point with explanations and examples, and invite commentary from classmates about a particular concern, not the whole post, ending with an invitation or question.
• Second post: Read all the posts in your group and then respond to the first post of a classmate who has not yet received a reply. Include specific reference to the main idea of the classmate’s post and to the assigned reading or topic, expand on the classmate’s ideas with additional information or ideas or offer an alternative viewpoint on the topic and support your position with references to the reading or posts by other group members. Perhaps raise questions and speculate further on the topic.
• Third post: Respond to the person who answered your first post with appreciation for their response and an explanation of ways their message increased your own understanding or stimulated your thinking. Remember your audience is a specific individual plus your whole class.
• Additional post: Summarize all the messages from your group and analyze for primary points, similarities and differences, and other observations about the group’s thinking.
• Additional post: For a subsequent post, respond to one or more classmates from a different group than the one you have been participating in.
• If the class meets face to face, gather the writing group to discuss the issues in person and report orally to the class as a whole.
• More patterns and variations.

Best Practice Ideas: Discussion Groups
By Robert Loudon, Educational Designer at Griffith University
Here are some tips on how to facilitate an online discussion forum, to help students
interact with and learn from their peers.

Contribute to the discussion
A common mistake by lecturers is to start a discussion forum or thread and then leave
it alone till the end of the course. In some cases it may be desirable or appropriate for
lecturers or tutors to not get involved in an online discussion, but generally the
discussion will be more fruitful if they are actively involved.
Check your discussion forum frequently to monitor its progress. Guide but don’t
dominate the discussion. Write weaving comments, that is, summarise and focus the
discussion with comments that bring together various threads or ideas of interest.
Make short open-ended comments that invite responses. Don't say too much as this
might deter others from contributing.
Especially at the beginning, ensure that every student's comment gets a response. If
no one else replies, either respond yourself by a private message or by mentioning the
original author's comments in one of your responses.

Promote the discussion group in other places
If the discussion is flagging or there are significant numbers of students not taking
part, try to advertise the discussion in your lectures and tutorials and on the course
Announcements page. Acknowledge and give credit for good participation. It is good
to highlight the learning benefits to be gained from participation…sharing ideas,
learning from your peers, how it will help you to see things from different viewpoints,
raising queries, etc.
You may find in your discussion forums that there are students who prefer to "lurk"
(simply read messages without responding to any) for some time before posting
messages, so you may need to specifically encourage people to participate.

Create an “ice breaker” activity that is common in online
learning. Have students create individual “bios” that
include brief paragraph about personal and/or
professional interest, picture of the student, and hobbies.
The purpose of the assignment is to begin creating a
sense of community among learners through the
Discussion Board. Make sure to include a statement about

yourself to get students started.
• Create a frequently asked question discussion board. The
idea is that students will answer each others questions
about the course. As the instructor you can respond to
students questions and possibly answer others questions
at the same time.

Create a grading rubric and even a sample discussion
posting to show students what you expect and how they
will be evaluated.

• Post Netiquette guidelines for posting to the discussion
board.

• Have students respond to other postings by making it a
requirement. (ex. You will be required to post to 2 other
students postings for full credit).

• Put deadlines on discussion postings.
Put a time limit on the discussion
If you allow a discussion to remain active for a long period, responses will probably
dwindle and have a discouraging effect on further participation in the discussion, and
perhaps other discussions as well. It may be better to limit the length of time that the
discussion is active. Don’t forget to advise the students when the discussion is due to
end.

When posting long comments, it is best to use Microsoft
Word and then copy and paste into the comment box.
• Make sure to tell students to click on submit and not save
when completing postings. Save allows student to see the
posting in a draft format. The student must click on
submit in order to post to the board.

• If students cannot post to discussion board, you might
want to provide some troubleshooting points before the
first discussion posting. (ex. If you cannot post to the
discussion board, please try using another browser such
as Firefox. If that does not resolve the issue, please click
here for directions

Resources for Discussion Board
• Eight Ways to Get Students More Engaged in Online
Conferences by DR. W.R. KLEMM, Professor, Texas A&M
University
• Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online
Discussions
Pdf Article from the Teaching Effectiveness Program from the
University of Oregon. This article gives classroom examples and words
of wisdom along with the different types of discussion questions.
• Net Users Guidelines and Netiquette
Netiquette practices for email, web, bibliographies, and much more.
• Sample Grading Rubric for Discussion