What are discussion boards and why would I use one?
A discussion board is a space on Canvas where students can reply to an instructor’s prompt. Students can also reply to each other.
Discussion board prompts and student responses can be in any of the modalities available on a Canvas page, including text, image, links, video, audio/video recording, etc. Discussion posts can be graded or ungraded, and if graded they can be assigned a grade or simply marked complete/incomplete. Discussion posts can also be assigned to groups.
Discussion posts are a powerful tool and a great way to have students “chat” with each other slowly throughout the week. It can be extraordinarily helpful for some students to have time to think and compose their thoughts online. However, it can also be difficult to get an authentic-feeling conversation going in this format. In this document we’ll share how to set up discussions on Canvas, as well as some tips on how to use Discussions to create powerful learning experiences.
Recommendations for setting up a discussion board:
Write a prompt with a clear statement of your expectations. Consider prompts that will generate rich conversation, or allow students to make connections to their own lives.
At the beginning of the course, be specific about what a successful discussion post looks like. Consider providing models for students. This is especially true if discussion posts will be graded.
Unless a discussion board is optional, we recommend making it graded and setting a due date. Use of these settings will make sure the discussion board ends up on students’ radar as a required assignment.
To ensure that students must post before seeing other student's responses, be sure to check the "Users must post before seeing replies" box.
Be judicious about how much you participate as an instructor. It can be helpful to add your thoughts to generate discussion, but too much instructor voice can sometimes discourage student participation.
If it fits the format of your assignment, consider having two due dates: one to post, and one to read and respond.
Her first tip is to use assignments and quizzes for knowledge checks, not discussion boards (for example, to see if students have done the reading). Instead, save discussion boards for more meaty questions.
Once you have an interesting question, she recommends letting the conversation emerge as organically as possible, with you, the instructor, chiming in occasionally to encourage conversation, as you would in person.
Finally, she recommends scrapping the typical “post once, reply twice” structure. Instead, encourage students to listen, respond to one another, and only start a new topic if it makes sense in the conversation. Make it clear that you value a good, thoughtful response as much as you value a new post or thought.
Using discussion boards as interaction spaces for your class:
Discussion boards aren’t just for text conversations; they offer powerful multimedia capabilities in shared teacher-student space. Ms. Riggs suggests we should simply think of discussion boards as interaction spaces. Here are some ideas:
Places for students to share work - Students can share work they’ve created (an essay, video, podcast, presentation etc.) by uploading or linking to it in a post. Other students can share feedback, comments, questions, etc.
Media gallery - students respond to a prompt by sharing an image or video (with or without explanation). Other students can then respond.
Multi-media conversation - Instead of responding to a conversation in text, students can respond by recording audio, video, sharing still images, etc. (similar capabilities to the program VoiceThread).
Bookends for a live class - have students post questions or comments before class and then ask them to talk about them to kick-start discussions. After class students can post reflections, work products or takeaways.
Group work space - students can work together collaboratively using the discussion board in their group space, then report back to the whole class (for example, computer science students could work together to debug code, or nursing students could share and discuss research papers on a topic before presenting to the class)
Would any of these types of interaction spaces be a good match for your class?
Some instructors decide to use programs outside of the learning management system to engage students. They choose these programs because they were built for easy, mobile-friendly informal communication. If the idea of a third-party program intrigues you, check these out:
Hypothes.is - Hypothes.is is a social annotation program that allows students to publicly annotate a document or webpage, see and respond to other students' comments. An alternate for students to discuss a text; free for SSU faculty; check out our Hypothes.is guide.