Are Discussion Questions Worth the HEADACHE!

[HigherEd7]

Thinking about getting away from discussion questions in my online courses they seem to more of a headache that anything else. Most of the responses I read are copied from the book or from another student's response, and it is time consuming trying to find out what page they copied from. Am I doing something wrong?

[Hegemony]

Didn't we just have a thread on discussion questions in online courses?

You need to design them so they cannot be answered out of someone else's book.  That's the short version.

[HigherEd7]

Yes we did I was not able to locate the thread or overlooked it. Thanks

[fishbrains]

I hate hate hate hate hate discussion boards in my online courses. Instead, I have students post reponses in an ePortfolio format and then other students have to respond to these posts in the comment sections (I assign who responds to whom). I've used WordPress, JournoPortfolio, and the D2L ePortfolio so far. I prefer JournoPortfolio because it's prettier, but the free version can be tricky. I used to hate hate hate hate hate the D2L ePortfolio, but it's getting better. Having students enter another student's ePortfolio seems to bring better engagement than their responding fairly randomly on a discussion board.

If the class is larger than about 25 students, it gets to be a lot of work; so I divide the class in two, and half will work with the ePortfolio and responses, and half will submit a response directly to me.   

[downer]

I hate hate hate hate hate discussion boards in my online courses. Instead, I have students post reponses in an ePortfolio format and then other students have to respond to these posts in the comment sections (I assign who responds to whom). I've used WordPress, JournoPortfolio, and the D2L ePortfolio so far. I prefer JournoPortfolio because it's prettier, but the free version can be tricky. I used to hate hate hate hate hate the D2L ePortfolio, but it's getting better. Having students enter another student's ePortfolio seems to bring better engagement than their responding fairly randomly on a discussion board.

If the class is larger than about 25 students, it gets to be a lot of work; so I divide the class in two, and half will work with the ePortfolio and responses, and half will submit a response directly to me.

What's the advantage of using a portfolio approach with chosen students commenting?
What do you do about students who are extremely unreliable, either as posters or commenters?
Isn't this all a lot more work than a discussion board?
Just asking coz I might be interested in copying what you do.

[HigherEd7]

That sounds interesting