Discussion Boards Online Courses

[lightning]

This is a great discussion, and I can't really add much more, except that when I was working at _________ I experienced the same thing. I applied the <insert second boldface header in reading here> that the author of our text mentioned in the textbook. Needless to say, I was happy with the result. <Insert random name of student in class>, I TOTALLY get where you are coming from.

(Dear Prof, do I get my 5 points and keep my excess financial aid?)

[lightning]

For those who don't do discussion boards, what do you do to meet the requirements of "attendance" for online courses?  When I was director of online education at Super Dinky, the federal financial aid guidelines indicated that merely logging in did not count as attendance; students had to have regular and substantive contact with the group or else students were in a correspondence course and that's a different category for federal financial aid.  The new ruling this year doesn't seem to have eliminated that requirement: https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/04/09/federal-rules-student-teacher-interaction-accreditation

For those who haven't spent years watching the debate, IHE has a readable overview of the issues at https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/08/08/new-debate-regular-and-substantive-interaction-between

For the first time in 15+ years of online teaching, I am making discussion boards optional. I am not at all sure that I am doing the right thing. But in these 100-level courses, the discussion were nearly always terrible. Students write for the professor while making a nod at "discussing" the topic with another random student. They post the kind of trite bullshit that you get when in a regular class you call on any fratboy B student who did not do the reading.

I am sure I am doing it wrong and some of you have vibrant discussion boards in your online survey classes, but me I am giving up. For now anyway.

When I was director of online education and spot checking our online courses, I never saw a discussion board that had great discussion.  I saw discussion boards that were better than terrible, but the faculty member was carrying a lot of the load--just like in other gen ed classes where few students were engaged enough to do the reading and had enough background to make a useful contribution.

I've taken online training with cohorts that had good discussion because we were practitioners in the field who had a variety of experience and lots of questions for each other as well as the professor.  Likewise, project teams where we were engaged in a joint endeavor usually have productive discussion.

I've looked over various people's shoulders as they wrapped up a post for the graduate course they were taking and seen great discussion.

But, as downer wrote, undergrads in intro classes at non-elite institutions tend to not have the abilities necessary to do good discussion.

For larryc, I suggest some learning theater. That's where you go through the motions of appearing like learning (learning as defined by bureaucrats) is taking place. So for the sole purpose of satisfying the bureaucrats at your university and the the bureaucrats above them, all the way to the politicians who pull the purse strings, embed a couple of discussion board assignments into the class. Assign one at the beginning and one about 2/3 of the way through. Keep the assignment simple for the students and easy to grade for you. Again, this is for satisfying the bureaucrats in the bloated admin. Most of them, for the most part, are actors in the learning theater, as well.

As for the real learning this is supposed to take place, you as the professor can decide how that is handled. But for the bureaucrats, you have to install some learning theater components, and you can certainly use the discussion boards for that purpose.

[apl68]

When I took online classes I recall one instructor who had a rule to the effect that each student had to make X number (a small number) of posts to the class discussion board each week.  That was about the only guideline we had for online discussion.  The instructor and teaching assistant both would go AWOL for most of each week, so it was just us students.  We actually managed to have some fairly informative discussions among ourselves.  This was a Masters'-level professional class, so we had a fair proportion of self-starters.  To be honest, we students learned a great deal more from each other in that class than we did from anything the instructor or TA did.

Other classes with more engaged instructors had better discussion boards.  I don't recall any of them ever using rubrics to stimulate better discussion, though.

[HigherEd7]

Should you assign a discussion question each week or bi-weekly? Thoughts?

[britprof]

I have served as an online program director for the last few years and, in conjunction with the center for teaching excellence, I had the responsibility to mentor faculty in best practice. There are a number of things that can go wrong with online discussions but a key failing is that they are often completely divorced from the student learning outcomes and the major assessment tasks in the course. Student engagement tends to improve when they can see the relevance of the discussion. For example, if the students have to write a research essay then it is a good idea to connect discussions to preparation for that task over several weeks. One discussion thread might require students to post an annotated bibliographic entry for one of the sources that they have read. This allows the instructor offer formative feedback before the student submits their annotated bibliography of several sources. A discussion thread in the following week might then ask students to post a paragraph that responds to one of the substantive analytical themes in the essay. Again, this allows students to receive formative feedback on their ideas before they submit a full essay draft.

Students taking an online course over 8 weeks should expect to spend a total of 17 hours per week engaged with the course in order to meet HLC criteria. A good proportion of that 17 hours (maybe 5-6 hours) should ideally be spent participating in discussions. With that expectation in mind, the notion that students should post only once or twice a week is a ludicrous failure of academic rigor. Students should be reading and writing on the discussion board for an hour a day, five days a week, in response to multiple discussions that are appropriately scaffolded with guidance and resources. The rubric should reflect that: a minimum of 25 points per week x 8 weeks = 200 points in a 1000 point scheme of work.

[backatit]

I have served as an online program director for the last few years and, in conjunction with the center for teaching excellence, I had the responsibility to mentor faculty in best practice. There are a number of things that can go wrong with online discussions but a key failing is that they are often completely divorced from the student learning outcomes and the major assessment tasks in the course. Student engagement tends to improve when they can see the relevance of the discussion. For example, if the students have to write a research essay then it is a good idea to connect discussions to preparation for that task over several weeks. One discussion thread might require students to post an annotated bibliographic entry for one of the sources that they have read. This allows the instructor offer formative feedback before the student submits their annotated bibliography of several sources. A discussion thread in the following week might then ask students to post a paragraph that responds to one of the substantive analytical themes in the essay. Again, this allows students to receive formative feedback on their ideas before they submit a full essay draft.

Students taking an online course over 8 weeks should expect to spend a total of 17 hours per week engaged with the course in order to meet HLC criteria. A good proportion of that 17 hours (maybe 5-6 hours) should ideally be spent participating in discussions. With that expectation in mind, the notion that students should post only once or twice a week is a ludicrous failure of academic rigor. Students should be reading and writing on the discussion board for an hour a day, five days a week, in response to multiple discussions that are appropriately scaffolded with guidance and resources. The rubric should reflect that: a minimum of 25 points per week x 8 weeks = 200 points in a 1000 point scheme of work.

This is good advice. In one of my classes I have discussions called "build your research paper." They really cut down on plagiarism too, because I suppose you can plagiarize over 12 week's time, but what a process! One week you propose (and peer review, and get feedback on) your topic, the next week you interview someone in your field, etc. The peer review process in my class is important because it gives students a chance to see each other's work, and to do some guided feedback on it (I give them a structure for the peer review so that I don't get a "yeah, this is great" answer). This is more than once a week, as it takes time to do the initial post then peer review (so it's not the standard post, then respond assignment). They also have another discussion due which is a reading assignment which I use to help determine whether they understand the reading (this is a research methods class, and in that discussion I'm looking for an application of whatever they're reading, plus a response that brings in new information) So on the week we do the annotated bibliography, they might DO part of their bibliography in one section of the discussion area, then do another discussion from their reading about perspective taking and discuss varying perspectives on different research topics.

In another class, I have them discussing things that are going on in their groups, and talking about how they're handling technology challenges, etc. Those happen only once a week because they have other things to do (it's more of a project management/production course) with other deliverables, and the discussion is more so that I can tell if they're having issues with group dynamics or some other aspect of the task. So in that class only part of their work is discussion-based. The rest of the deliverable might be a proposal (and their group work would take place on a group discussion board, but it's not graded; only the deliverable is, although at the end they do get a overall group participation grade; we've discussed how I handle that privately, I think, but their group discussion in this case is cumulative).

[rhetoricae]

I am the course lead/builder for our fully-online Comp 2 courses, and I have many things set up very similarly to what backatit describes. Since mine is a composition course, it is writing focused -- but it's not independent study, so some group interaction is needed.  I don't have discussion forums due every week (as backatit says, sometimes there are other/different deliverables) but what seems to be important in retaining students and moving them through the course is to have something they must turn in for credit each week.

In my discussion forums, students first have to post a reasonably detailed, cogent response to the prompt/reading/whatever. After that, they can see other posts and have a few days to make at least 2 replies -- replies must have some meaningful engagement with the post they're replying to (so "Good point!" won't cut it). I have a very simple rubric that grades each of these three posts based on whether or not it meets the standard for sufficient, thoughtful engagement.

I don't participate much in the student-oriented discussions, but will occasionally go in to comment on a particularly strong post (or award it a "5 star rating"), or to answer a question. They seem to do fine, generally, without me. In a few other instances, such as when they are developing research questions, I participate actively to help guide everyone along.

Where I ran into issues was with Peer Review forums for student essays. I've made some positive changes there, too: I cut down the number of Peer Reviews throughout the term, and instead of posting an in-forum response, students must reply to a draft with a 2-3 page, well developed memo [basically a mini essay about the writer's draft]. This has led to much more substantive feedback, and -- to my total shock -- a colleague recently came and asked if I could share that assignment with him, since a student in one of his non-composition online courses mentioned this method and how much they liked it.

I think the key thing is to establish your standards well, and then make sure the grading aligns with that. I do find that students who get dinged for skimping in forum replies tend to step it up the next time. YMMV, of course.

[Aster]

Students taking an online course over 8 weeks should expect to spend a total of 17 hours per week engaged with the course in order to meet HLC criteria. A good proportion of that 17 hours (maybe 5-6 hours) should ideally be spent participating in discussions. With that expectation in mind, the notion that students should post only once or twice a week is a ludicrous failure of academic rigor. Students should be reading and writing on the discussion board for an hour a day, five days a week, in response to multiple discussions that are appropriately scaffolded with guidance and resources. The rubric should reflect that: a minimum of 25 points per week x 8 weeks = 200 points in a 1000 point scheme of work.

Oh My God a fully online professor that I can professionally respect.  They do exist.

I LUV U

[backatit]

I am the course lead/builder for our fully-online Comp 2 courses, and I have many things set up very similarly to what backatit describes. Since mine is a composition course, it is writing focused -- but it's not independent study, so some group interaction is needed.  I don't have discussion forums due every week (as backatit says, sometimes there are other/different deliverables) but what seems to be important in retaining students and moving them through the course is to have something they must turn in for credit each week.

In my discussion forums, students first have to post a reasonably detailed, cogent response to the prompt/reading/whatever. After that, they can see other posts and have a few days to make at least 2 replies -- replies must have some meaningful engagement with the post they're replying to (so "Good point!" won't cut it). I have a very simple rubric that grades each of these three posts based on whether or not it meets the standard for sufficient, thoughtful engagement.

I don't participate much in the student-oriented discussions, but will occasionally go in to comment on a particularly strong post (or award it a "5 star rating"), or to answer a question. They seem to do fine, generally, without me. In a few other instances, such as when they are developing research questions, I participate actively to help guide everyone along.

Where I ran into issues was with Peer Review forums for student essays. I've made some positive changes there, too: I cut down the number of Peer Reviews throughout the term, and instead of posting an in-forum response, students must reply to a draft with a 2-3 page, well developed memo [basically a mini essay about the writer's draft]. This has led to much more substantive feedback, and -- to my total shock -- a colleague recently came and asked if I could share that assignment with him, since a student in one of his non-composition online courses mentioned this method and how much they liked it.

I think the key thing is to establish your standards well, and then make sure the grading aligns with that. I do find that students who get dinged for skimping in forum replies tend to step it up the next time. YMMV, of course.

Yes, that's totally true about peer review. If you don't structure it like a separate assignment, you will get bad peer reviews.

[zuzu_]

I'm currently overhauling an online course that I teach frequently, and I'm trying a dramatically different approach to discussions.

Although I believe excellent discussion is theoretically possible (I've experienced it in grad classes), it is functionally impossible at my CC in my courses. But --we need discussion to meet interaction requirements.

Here's my new strategy:
-Dramatically reduce weight of discussion on final grade
-Dramatically reduce word count requirements
-NOT rely on discussion as a way to assess knowledge/learning; move that to individual assignments, and make those more substantial and worth more weight
-Make discussion prompts primarily designed to engage rather than assess.
-Hope the discussions will be fun and engaging
-If they're not fun and engaging, who cares?

Example:
Old discussion prompt: select a character and make rigorous in-depth analysis of numerous aspects. (This has been moved to the individual homework assignment.)
New discussion prompt: Describe yourself in three fictional characters. Explain why, make some connections to textbook material.

The course starts next week--I'll let you know how it goes!
-

[lightning]

There's a good chance I may have missed someone commenting on them, but has anyone tried using internal wikis? For satisfying requirements of group interaction, I've found that they work well for some topics. They seem to work best for activities where you want students to create something (even if it's just amassing, annotating, organizing, and editing). Also, I have found them to be much easier to grade than discussion boards. The online course admincritters at my school have left me alone, more-or-less, and I think it's because I have these group interaction signalers like wikis.

[backatit]

There's a good chance I may have missed someone commenting on them, but has anyone tried using internal wikis? For satisfying requirements of group interaction, I've found that they work well for some topics. They seem to work best for activities where you want students to create something (even if it's just amassing, annotating, organizing, and editing). Also, I have found them to be much easier to grade than discussion boards. The online course admincritters at my school have left me alone, more-or-less, and I think it's because I have these group interaction signalers like wikis.

I use them a lot for group work. Students can create team plans, etc. and actually DO some collaborative work on them (they make it really easy to see who has done what). For project-based classes and collaborative (or reflective) work they are good. I could see using them for portfolio work too, where you have students reflect on papers, or have them journal.

[HigherEd7]

I am the course lead/builder for our fully-online Comp 2 courses, and I have many things set up very similarly to what backatit describes. Since mine is a composition course, it is writing focused -- but it's not independent study, so some group interaction is needed.  I don't have discussion forums due every week (as backatit says, sometimes there are other/different deliverables) but what seems to be important in retaining students and moving them through the course is to have something they must turn in for credit each week.

In my discussion forums, students first have to post a reasonably detailed, cogent response to the prompt/reading/whatever. After that, they can see other posts and have a few days to make at least 2 replies -- replies must have some meaningful engagement with the post they're replying to (so "Good point!" won't cut it). I have a very simple rubric that grades each of these three posts based on whether or not it meets the standard for sufficient, thoughtful engagement.

I don't participate much in the student-oriented discussions, but will occasionally go in to comment on a particularly strong post (or award it a "5 star rating"), or to answer a question. They seem to do fine, generally, without me. In a few other instances, such as when they are developing research questions, I participate actively to help guide everyone along.

Where I ran into issues was with Peer Review forums for student essays. I've made some positive changes there, too: I cut down the number of Peer Reviews throughout the term, and instead of posting an in-forum response, students must reply to a draft with a 2-3 page, well developed memo [basically a mini essay about the writer's draft]. This has led to much more substantive feedback, and -- to my total shock -- a colleague recently came and asked if I could share that assignment with him, since a student in one of his non-composition online courses mentioned this method and how much they liked it.

I think the key thing is to establish your standards well, and then make sure the grading aligns with that. I do find that students who get dinged for skimping in forum replies tend to step it up the next time. YMMV, of course.

Once your students respond to the initial question how many days in between do you give them to respond to two other classmates? Also, do you give them a word count per response?

[rhetoricae]

Once your students respond to the initial question how many days in between do you give them to respond to two other classmates? Also, do you give them a word count per response?

Oh dear - sorry to have missed this question!

They have around a week to complete both post and replies; my goal is to get them in and active in the course a couple of times a week at least. I do allow late replies and keep forums open for around 2 weeks after the due date.  I don't require a certain word count -- I have found that if I give specific ideas in that regard, they basically count words as if they were composing a haiku, rather than just responding substantively/thoughtfully. So the rubric specifically asks for a "meaningful" response which directly addresses a point or points in the post they are responding to, and gives specific thoughts on the subject or comment.

[spork]

If, for example, the discussion is supposed to happen over a week, you need to require that students' initial posts are due early in the week. Otherwise you'll get a lot of last minute, meaningless responses at the very end of the week.

I set deadlines for graded online discussions as:

• First post must be by Wednesday midnight.
• Second post by Friday midnight.
• Third post by Sunday midnight, which is when the week's discussion ends.