Getting students active in online discussions

[Charlotte]

Anyone having success with keeping students active in online discussions? Most of my students seem to wait until the last minute to post which defeats the whole purpose of an online discussion. I scheduled it so their initial post is due on Wednesday night and they have replies to classmates due by Sunday. They come in, post their initial post on Wednesday night, come in Sunday night to post short responses ("I agree. Good job!"), and ignore any questions I ask in response to their initial post. Most of them come in, spend five minutes in the discussion to post their responses all at once, and then leave. As a discussion assignment, it is a complete failure.

Are there any ways to encourage them to participate throughout the week and also make sure they are answering questions if asked? Sometimes other students will ask a good question in response to their initial post, but the original poster never comes back to answer.

The grading rubric has penalties for posting last minute and only posting short responses but they don't seem to care about losing points for it.

Alternatively, is there a substitute assignment you give students to take the place of discussions? My college wants to see those discussions taking place but the discussion boards seem to be mostly a waste of time.

[downer]

I also find some students don't care about losing points. I have one class where the highest grade right now is a C+, and that's partly because they are mostly doing one post per week. But one or two students are making more effort to improve their grade.

I have other classes where students are brighter and more motivated, and I don't need to do much to generate some significant interactions between students, with a real exchange of ideas.

My only suggestion is to make the rewards and penalties greater, so that they really need to engage in discussion in order to get the grades they need.

[Cheerful]

Sometimes other students will ask a good question in response to their initial post, but the original poster never comes back to answer.

IMHO, for numerous reasons, it's asking too much of students to require that they keep coming back to answer responses to their original posts.  Some students might get more responses than others.  Why should they have to keep returning and responding while others do not?

Asynchronous online discussions can't match the characteristics of in-person discussions.  Online discussions are not the same as in-person where the students are all sitting in class together at the same designated time(s).

Lower your expectations a bit.  As long as they post within your stated deadlines, there's little else you can do.  Uphold the course policies and grading criteria.

[Parasaurolophus]

My class participation has always been abysmally low at this university. The same is true of synchronous discussion sessions.

Asynchronous discussion boards are a bit better, but what I've learned is that they need a particular prompt or case study, and you need to pop in to the "discussion" regularly to show you care.

It's a bit better in my formal logic classes, because it's obvious to them what's not making sense, and they're not shy about asking about it.

[polly_mer]

Are these major courses or general education courses?  You can expect much more participation from people who want to learn than from people who are checking boxes.

[Hegemony]

I think the kind of question you pose can help — ideally it will be a question that stirs thought and maybe even some controversy. I always participate volubly in the discussions, mainly expressing excitement about their answers, asking further questions (along the lines of "I can't believe you saw that in real life! What did they do then?", rather than critical-type questions), and very gently redirecting things if someone posts something genuinely erroneous. Sometimes I post relevant pictures in the discussion. The students say they really appreciate this, as they often have the experience that the prof only comes in after the discussion is done, to levy judgment and assign a grade.

My son right now is taking one of those classes where the prof doesn't participate, and he is finding it discouraging. He says it feels like discussing in the dark, where they have no sense of whether they're on the right track.

I also tell them that anything that comes up in the discussion — new examples, etc. — might appear on a later quiz, and then I make sure it does. I have multiple discussion groups, but generally the discussion develops along very similar lines in each of them. So for instance if we're talking about famous speeches, someone in each group might raise the example of the Gettysburg Address, and a discussion will develop about it, and then something relevant about the Gettysburg Address will appear on the quiz, in such a way that everyone who paid attention to the discussion can answer the question. Between their own interesting answers, my participation, and the prospect of a quiz, the discussion boards get very lively. I have to suppress myself from checking on them too many times per day, because I can spend hours chiming in.  I've also learned an incredible amount from the things the students post, both in examples or experiences I hadn't thought of and in analysis that developed in the course of the discussion.

[Aster]

Maybe try linking their online engagement to "extra credit".

It has long been noted among us that many/most students seem to perceive extra credit as more important than regular work.

[nonsensical]

I really like Hegemony's suggestions and may steal some of them myself if I end up teaching asynchronous online courses.

Also, I am confused about the negative response to students who post at the last minute. If they're doing that they're still meeting the requirements of the assignment, which is to post by X time, right? If you'd like them to post earlier you could move the deadline to be earlier, but it doesn't make sense to me to give students a deadline and then get upset that they are posting before that cut-off point.

[mamselle]

Or create staggered posting times: they must do one post by such-and-such a date, another by another date a week or 10 days later, a third another week or so after that, etc.

Then at least the last-minute-ers would have an overlapping conversation, howevermuch engineered by you, that allows for some ventilated thought and response/reflection time spacing.

(Maybe that's been suggested above already, if so, please ignore...)

M.

[apl68]

My son right now is taking one of those classes where the prof doesn't participate, and he is finding it discouraging. He says it feels like discussing in the dark, where they have no sense of whether they're on the right track.

I've been in such a class.  The prof (And it WAS a prof--not some presumably downtrodden adjunct) just checked out entirely for days at a time, along with the TA.  Apparently he didn't read e-mails on anything very often either--it was usually days before you could so much as get any sort of course-relevant question answered.  We students managed to teach each other some stuff through our participation in discussions.  Which was nice, but where was the prof adding value in all this?

[downer]

Also, I am confused about the negative response to students who post at the last minute. If they're doing that they're still meeting the requirements of the assignment, which is to post by X time, right? If you'd like them to post earlier you could move the deadline to be earlier, but it doesn't make sense to me to give students a deadline and then get upset that they are posting before that cut-off point.

It's a problem when students do all their posting in a short space of time -- an hour. It's also a problem if students don't leave any time for other students to reply to their comments. So posts at the last minute should be the final contributions to the conversation, not attempts to have a monologue

[the_geneticist]

With 3 task (write post, write on another post, answer question on their first post), you're going to need 3 deadlines.  And some sort of option to still earn points for students where no one asked a question about their first post.

[Morden]

I have different groups responsible for leading discussion and keeping discussion going for particular weeks, so each student is responsible for significant contribution to the discussion 3 times during the term. After their particular week, they have to self-assess using a rubric and writing what worked well and what might work better the next time. Then I send a short email with their grade and my assessment of their participation that week. It's been working really well so far for those whose week it is. I am struggling to get other people to comment when it's not their week (which is an extra credit opportunity).

[Golazo]

I have to say that I have online discussion boards with a passion. I'm going to try an experiment that goes like this: student posts answer taking a position on a basic controversy, class has breakout discussions via Zoom or chat that I moderate, then student writes a reply taking into account the discussion. 4 or 5x semester. Students who can't find a time in common with their classmates can have a 1 on 1 discussion with the prof. We'll see how this works in the spring.

[reverist]

I have different groups responsible for leading discussion and keeping discussion going for particular weeks, so each student is responsible for significant contribution to the discussion 3 times during the term. After their particular week, they have to self-assess using a rubric and writing what worked well and what might work better the next time. Then I send a short email with their grade and my assessment of their participation that week. It's been working really well so far for those whose week it is. I am struggling to get other people to comment when it's not their week (which is an extra credit opportunity).

I like this style a lot. I've found people who announce discussion forums don't work rarely, if ever, do a good job with them. This can often be because they're frustrated because they don't know how, which is perfectly fine. Just learn, is all I ask. This above is worthy of being an example to emulate.