Desire2Learn 9.0

Online Discussions: An Overview

Online discussions help personalize the online class experience by building a learning community. Students can begin to form and extend the online community as well as engage with each other over the course content. In addition, discussions aid learners in developing reflective skills and higher level critical thinking skills. Online discussions can improve course management by giving students and faculty the chance to reflect as well as give and receive feedback about the web-based learning environment.

General Discussion Tips
Discussion Tips for Faculty
Discussion Areas Versus Online Chats
Recommended Discussion Areas for Faculty
Considerations for Setting Up Discussions in D2L

General Discussion Tips

Most of online discussion etiquette is common sense, but making it a course expectation increases civility. See Online Etiquette for some helpful reminders of appropriate online discussion etiquette.

Discussion Tips for Faculty

Below are some tips to help you make the most of your online discussions.

Provide a separate area for informal and off-topic conversations. For more information, refer to Recommended Discussion Areas.
Start a new forum/discussion area for each major discussion/unit.
When building discussion topics, use the description area to introduce the discussion.
Use open-ended questions that allow students to explore different aspects of the question.
Set deadlines for posting initial responses and for posting follow-ups to other students' posts.
Provide structure and evaluation criteria.
Establish roles (discussion leader, facilitator, summarizer, participant) for team members; this helps to facilitate the discussion and provides good experience for students.
Determine what role you, as instructor, want to have in the discussion, and let the students know (e.g., you are leading, eavesdropping, playing devil's advocate, guiding).
Provide models of what good discussion responses include. Use a question and response that are not part of your own course content as an example.
Make your presence in the discussion area known to the students. Students value your viewpoint and will value the discussion more.
Make etiquette mandatory; enforce it.

Discussion Areas Versus Online Chats

Discussion Areas

The discussion area is for asynchronous conversations. If one student posts a message in the morning, someone else can respond in the afternoon. All posts are in one place and can be read at any time. The discussion area is appropriate when one or more of the following conditions are met:

Schedules vary; communicating at the same time is not feasible for everyone or important in meeting the objectives for the discussion.
A deeper, more thoughtful exchange of ideas is appropriate.
The number of participants varies.
A quick response is not necessary. Students can compose offline messages, which provide more opportunities for reflection, spell checking, revision, and reduce time spent online. After students have completed their responses, they can copy and paste them into discussion messages.

Online Chats

Online chats are synchronous conversations in which all participants are online at the same time. Depending on the tool used, you may be able to archive chats for future reference. For more information, refer to Archiving Chats. Online chats are appropriate when one or more of the following conditions are met:

Group project activities need to be coordinated.
Instructors want virtual office hours.
Quick responses are more important than in-depth answers.
The group size is fairly small (3-5).
Instructor is bringing in a guest.

Recommended Discussion Areas for Faculty

Creating separate discussion forums can help maintain order. What forums and topics you use depend on your curricular objectives and the class structure. In addition to the content-area discussions, consider creating the following discussion topics:

Introductions
In this area, students can introduce themselves to you and their fellow classmates. This forum can aid in establishing a sense of community early in the course.

Student Lounge
In this area, students can discuss issues not related to the course.

Technical Questions
This type of forum provides a place for students to ask technical questions and look for answers. In many classes, students can and will help each other.

Reference Desk
In this area, students can ask questions regarding where to find or how to use library resources relevant to course assignments.You can arrange for library staff to monitor this forum by contacting the reference librarians.

Virtual Office
This forum provides a place for students to seek clarification about assignments or request additional information. Posting these questions in the discussion area allows all students to see the answers, reducing repeat questions.

Considerations for Setting Up Discussions in D2L

A well-setup discussion area can aid communication for you and your students. Keep these points in mind when organizing your discussion area:

The Forums & Topics List pane can be used to navigate between topics; see Setting Up Discussions.
Messages in the same topic are sorted by date.
You can search postings in the same topic, but you cannot search across topics.
Use the Description to detail your expectations for the discussion.
Example: "Post your thoughts on this subject by Wednesday and reply to two other classmates' messages by Friday."
Decide whether you will be tracking and grading participation as the course progresses or at the end.
If only tracking at the end, the fewer the forums, the easier it will be to track. The more forums, the more places to look for an assignment posted in the wrong place.
Limiting the size of discussion groups can provide for richer discussions and easier grading. Refer to Discussions: Setting Group Restrictions.