Discussion forums are ubiquitous in online education despite getting mixed reviews from students and teachers. Faculty complain of students giving only perfunctory responses, while students lament discussion questions that allow only cursory answers.
The problem is the prompt is often written in language requesting a mini-academic
Discussion is one of the biggest challenges for online students, and poor discussion is one of the biggest complaints among online faculty. Student responses are often perfunctory, lacking the depth the instructor desires. But rather than laziness, poor discussion often results from students not knowing
The LMS discussion forum was once the only real option for hosting discussion in an online course. But today there are a variety of options, from videoconferencing to social media to online post-it boards. The choices can leave faculty perplexed as to which to use.
One of the hallmarks of online learning is that students can engage in deeper discussion than they can in most face-to-face courses due to the additional think-time for crafting posts and responding to others. But many online instructors report disappointment in class discussions because students
Have you ever wondered how to structure or strengthen a requirement for students in your online courses to interact with each other in meaningful ways? Perhaps you assigned discussion forum posts and responses or assigned team work only to notice that interactions devolve into superficial
Exchanging ideas, sharing information, and voicing opinions in an online course isn’t the same as doing so when the class meets face-to-face. Even so, some of the same problems emerge: not all students participate, and some offer observations unconnected to previous comments in the exchange.
Discussions in online courses are both an opportunity and a problem. They are an opportunity for students to think more deeply about topics and respond to opposing views without the pressure of having to come up with a response on the spot in front of
After teaching online for a number of years, I grew weary of the normal “make an initial post, then respond to two others” discussions. Was there another way to engage students? How could I make discussions more meaningful and in-depth? Were there ways to ensure
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Discussion forums are ubiquitous in online education despite getting mixed reviews from students and teachers. Faculty complain of students giving only perfunctory responses, while students lament discussion questions that allow only cursory answers.
The problem is the prompt is often written in language requesting a mini-academic paper or a yes-no answer rather than a real discussion. Crafting a good discussion question is tricky, but one option is to move beyond the traditional text prompt by using media such as images, videos, and podcasts. Media capture our attention in ways that text cannot. A video clip of Neil Armstrong taking his first moonwalk can accompany a short prompt about the end of the Space Race. Dorothea Lange’s 1936 photo of a hungry mother with children during the Great Depression can drive a discussion on economics. Video and audio prompts can elicit ideas that might not have come to students with a text prompt. An instructor might also post multiple images on a topic to suggest different perspectives to get students thinking more broadly, such as multiple depictions of civil rights protests by athletes throughout the 20th century.
Natural discussion happens over the last movie we saw, a new podcast we heard, or an interesting piece of news. Consider having these be the basis of online or in-class discussions too. The prompt can be a short video clip, a portion of an audio broadcast, a news story, a blog entry, an opinion piece, or even a picture. Design your discussion prompts to spark interest by having open-ended questions or ask for an interpretation of the piece.
These alternative types of prompts work best when you are trying to elicit conversation, engage students, and open broader understanding, not when you want a correct answer. Use these prompts to teach divergent thinking to encourage creativity. By the time students get to college, divergent thinking becomes secondary to getting the answer correct. But divergent thinking is key to maintaining and fostering creativity. And we all know that creativity sparks innovation. As Stacy Goodman (2015) writes, “Divergent thinking strategies offer the possibility of doing more than fostering a creative classroom environment—they can also help us better understand and appreciate difference in all areas of our students’ lives.” Alternative prompts may foster thinking from students who traditionally don’t answer the written discussion question.
Research has shown that students broaden their responses when expected to consider “multiple-perspectives, challenge assumptions, state their own predictions, and negotiate new understandings” (Williams et al., 2015). Using novel discussion prompts can encourage students to discuss almost any subject. But how you respond to the initial post matters too. Post your responses to further elicit deeper thought using second-level questions. That is, question your students’ initial posts to draw out further discussion. Model the type of behavior you expect in responses. Encourage others to question responses and offer differing opinions. If needed, stay with this topic before proceeding to new discussion posts.
Here are some fun examples to try in a variety of classes. Sometimes, the more obscure the prompt, the better the conversation.
To breed creativity in your classroom, be prepared to put in a few nontraditional discussion prompts. Expect answers to vary greatly and allow that there may not be an exact right or wrong answer. But teach the students to investigate and question why and what it means to them. Explore using audio and video for both prompts and feedback to prompts.
Goodman, S. (2015, August 12). Fuel creativity in the classroom with divergent thinking. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/fueling-creativity-through-divergent-thinking-classroom-stacey-goodman
Williams, S. S., Jaramillo, A., & Pesko, J. C. (2015). Improving depth of thinking in online discussion boards. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 16(3), 45–66.
Katherine Senko, EdD, is an instructional designer at Pittsburgh Technical College. She has taught both in the classroom and online in high school, college, and corporate environments.
