Why and How of Great Discussions

Thanks to OU CFE for their workshop on this topic and providing this helpful information.

smiling male student engaged in online learning at college library — Online discussions provide opportunities for engagement and interaction.

What is a Discussion Board?

Discussion boards are sites of online communication among students and instructors. Users can post and reply to one another.
Discussion boards can be used as a compliment to in-person discussions in synchronous classes or for asynchronous classes.
Discussions can be text-based or can use videos, mind maps, or other tools for discussion. (With any digital engagement, be sure to check that the tools are accessible to all students in your class.)

Why Should We Use Discussion Boards?

Asynchronous discussion boards facilitate community in online classes and, when done well, "promote high-level cognitive presence, such as application, analysis, evaluation, and creation" (Luo, et al., 2023, p. 2).

According to Aloni and Harrington's (2018) review of the literature on discussion boards, benefits of discussion boards include:

PEER LEARNING: students learning from their peers by engaging in conversation, witnessing other's thought processes, etc.;
IMPROVED WRITING: improvement of student writing through lower-risk, and shorter, assignments;
OPPORTUNITIES: more equitable opportunities to participate for students who may experience barriers to participating in in-person discussions;
BETER CRAFTED ARGUMENTS: improved arguments as students have time to think and collect evidence to support their ideas before sharing their thoughts.

What Makes a Discussion Board Successful?

Discussion boards need to have a clear purpose, structure, prompts that encourage higher order thinking, and appropriate instructor facilitation, to be effective. These are described in more detail below (Aloni and Harrington 2018):

Clear purpose: explain to students the value of the discussion board in fostering peer learning, and reward their participation appropriately for the level of work expected of them to create a successful post.
Structure: have clear deadlines, expectations transparently in a rubric, use small group discussions, and require that students post at regular intervals so that they respond to one another.
Prompts: prompts should be open-ended and without a clearly correct answer (or else students will find it difficult to come up with new insight).
Instructor facilitation: instructors should be present as a facilitator to help move the conversation along, but should avoid responding to every student and commenting in such a way that the conversation ends, e.g. "Good point. I agree" (p. 282).

College online discussion board: Emily : the sky is blue Me: Emily I totally agree with what you said. I like how you used the color blue as a form of imagery to describe the sky that was such a powerful statement you said Emily. — Example Meme

What About Discussion's Bad Reputation?

Do a quick search for "discussion board memes" and you will find many like the one captured here. These memes also indicate that discussion boards must have a clear purpose and appropriate structure to be effective. In short, don't let the bad reputation prevent you from assigning discussion boards. Just use the tips on the following pages to create innovative discussions that require better posting!

Structuring Discussion Groups

Role Assignment

Give students a specific role to embody in their discussion posts, such as those listed by Wise, et al., (2012)Links to an external site.:

Starter - discussion post originator, based on structure provided in the instructions
Traffic director - keeps the discussion productive
Inventor - brings in new ideas
Importer - brings in ideas from outside of the class
Mini-me - takes on the role of the author of an assigned course material and responds as such
Elaborator - expands on ideas from a peer in the discussion
Questioner - asks clarifying questions or questions that require peers to interrogate their own ideas
Devil's advocate - makes a "reasonable defense" against a peer's ideas
Synthesizer - looks for themes and connections between other posts and then moves the conversation to the next level
Wrapper - "summarize key points, and point out overlapping thoughts, problems/issues and unresolved questions" (p. 62).

Consider what skills you want students to develop in your course and design roles reflective of that.

Results from Wise, et al.'s study show that while most students found the assigned roles as helpful, some students felt constrained by the roles. One option would be to provide students with clear roles early on the semester so that they learn how to effectively engage in discussion posts, but, as the semester progresses, cease assigning roles (Aloni and Harrington 2018).

Group Size

Students can easily be overwhelmed by content in large group discussions, especially in threaded posts and if they feel like they don't have anything new to contribute. In general, we suggest creating small discussion groups with around five participants for discussion boards. Learn how to create a group discussion in a course.

Pairing Content with a Discussion

Help students connect the course material to the discussion by making their relationship transparent. This can also aid you in explaining the purpose of a particular discussion assignment. You can do this by pairing content with a discussion or an assignment (see more with Canvas Teaching Tips Example Course by Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences Online and Academic Technology Services).

Effective Prompts

Prior to writing your prompt, consider the goal of your discussion posts. In fully online courses, regular and substantive interaction among students is required; however, this requirement should not be the only purpose for your class discussions. Consider how the discussion boards can aid your students in achieving the higher order learning objectives (such as Bloom's categories of analyze, evaluate, and create) by learning from their peers.

Prompts that are thought provoking, connect to timely, real-world issues, and that reflect what they may be asked to do outside of the classroom, will encourage more robust conversation than prompts that have a fixed answer or require students to summarize the same text. The following example assumes three discussion board posts in a week.

Initial Post

Search for a news article from the last two weeks that relates to our topic. Using two of our learning materials (reading, podcast, or video) from this past week, apply our learning materials to the news article. Explain how the learning materials help you understand the broader context of the news article, if there are contradictions between our learning materials and the news article, and how the news article helped you think about how our topic is presented/discussed outside of our classroom. Cite the course material and news article you reference.

Follow-up Post

Comment on the peer's post in a way that moves the conversation forward. Do this by connecting their post to two new learning materials from any week of this course and asking them an open-question informed by the course material. Cite the course material you reference.

Final Post

Respond to a question a peer poses to you, using at least one of our course materials, in your response. Cite the course material you reference.

Discussion Posts in the Era of Generative AI

Google "discussion posts ChatGPT" and you'll find easily a dozen apps offering to respond to your discussion posts for you. The reality is that prompts that focus on lower-order thinking skills (e.g. Bloom's remembering, understanding, and applying) may be able to be answered successfully by a Generative AI model. This does not mean that discussion boards have to go away, but you'll want to think strategically about your use of them.

Minimizing Generative AI Misuse

Posts that rely on lower-order thinking (to help students build up to higher-order thinking) can be worth fewer points or a lower percentage of the overall grade so that you are rewarding more of the work that Generative AI is less-likely to be able to complete.
As students progress in the course and their learning, reward students who synthesize information from multiple sources, such as lecture, class discussion, active learning activities done in class, real-world events, multiple readings, etc. This can be more difficult for Generative AI to successfully complete.
Be clear about the value of the discussion posts. Share the skills and knowledge online discussions will help students develop or how it will help them prepare for class.

Additional Resource

CFE's Generative AI and Teaching module [self-enroll link or visit the course directly if already enrolled] has resources on both minimizing Generative AI use and incorporating Generative AI.