Three Tips for Interactive Discussion Boards

While there are many tools in Blackboard Learn, discussion boards are a staple when we want to foster conversation with students about course content. When crafted to leverage the key aspects of meaningful conversation, discussion boards can support learning and engagement for students (and instructors!). However, many of us have experienced stale and repetitive discussion boards that feel more like a task than an interaction. But, when well structured, monitored, and managed, they can be an effective learning tool for both virtual and face-to-face classes. When designing a discussion board, it’s important to start by carefully considering the purpose, the structure of peer-to-peer interactions, and managing instructor feedback and to make sure all three align.

Purpose: Designing Effective Prompts

Depending on the course content and learning goals, discussion boards can serve different purposes. Much like in a live class, you want to create prompts that invite varied responses and perspectives. Open-ended prompts serve this purpose well and including action verbs that describe the nature of the work you want students to do helps make it even more clear. One key to facilitating a discussion online is setting clear expectations for what students should post – the initial posts set the stage to foster good discussions.

• For a class with difficult texts and challenging content, a discussion board can serve as a place to highlight confusing passages and seek feedback from peers and the instructor to help with sense making. Example prompt: Share two quotes/examples from this week’s readings that you found challenging and describe why and what questions you have.

• In classes where content combines with field work, discussions boards can serve as a place to share, connect theory to practice, and demonstrate an understanding of those connections. Example prompt: How do the theories described in Chapter 4 align with or differ from your own experiences in your current field work? Be sure to share specific examples from your own experiences.

• For classes with problem sets, it can be a place to share strategies, approaches, and perhaps compare solutions to practice problems. Example prompt: Before our synchronous class meeting this week, please try example problems #1 – 10 and then post on the discussion board one problem you found challenging and your strategy or approach. It’s okay if you do not have the right answer, this will help me prepare the examples I will use in class on Tuesday.

Structure: Crafting Peer-to-Peer Feedback

Much like the expectations for the initial post, the expectations for responding to peers should be clearly outlined as well. For discussions boards to feel interactive, personalized, and useful, the initial post should connect to their own understandings and experiences with the course content, and the guidance for their responses should help them connect to their peers and their peers’ ideas. If you assign students to make an initial post and then respond to their peers, set deadlines for each task. It can also be helpful to structure the assignment, so everyone gets peer feedback, for example:

• Post your initial response to the prompt by Thursday and post a follow-up comment to two peers by Sunday. Your two responses should be posted to the student who posted before and after you on the discussion board.

• Post your initial response to the prompt by Thursday and respond to each of your small group members by Sunday.

It is also helpful to set specific expectations for that feedback. Good discussions move beyond “I agree” and “I thought so, too” statements. Providing students with a discussion board rubric can help to set clear expectations and building that rubric into your blackboard grade book make grading easier.

Feedback: Managing Instructor Feedback

Creating good discussion board prompts and engaging students in meaningful conversations can create a lot for you to read! It’s important to make sure that students know their instructors are engaged in and attentive to their conversations, while simultaneously creating space for them to “talk.” There are several strategies that can serve to support the conversations, give students feedback, and create more meaningful assessments for student engagement.

Early in the term, it might be helpful to respond to each student in order to model the kinds of interactions you want to see on discussion boards and to make sure students know that you are engaged and reading their work. However, it can be a challenge to respond to every post in the discussion board and it may not always be productive to do so – sometimes it feels like only the student who made the post reads your response when the whole class or the whole group would benefit. If you have students working in groups, you can post to the entire group – either as an email or in the discussion board – to answer any questions or push their thinking further.

If you are using the format of an initial post followed by peer responses, another option is to send an email announcement following the initial deadline that highlights some big ideas that surface and offers some guidance around framing their peer responses. You can even highlight a few students by quoting parts of their posts and pointing out how they help the class think about the content. If you do this weekly, try to distribute your highlights across as many students as possible.

In terms of grading discussion boards, emphasize in an early announcement that grading is based on authentic engagement with the conversation, not on correctness and make sure the rubric you are using reflects this. The first discussion board in a quarter can be used to emphasize this, you can grade it quickly, using the rubric. For students who do not meet expectations outlined in the rubric, be sure to leave a short comment explaining specifically how they can improve in their next post.

Discussion boards are an important opportunity for students to learn from each other and for instructors to learn how students are making sense of the content. They can inform instruction and create a way for students to feel connected to their peers and to the instructor. It is critical to create an effective and meaningful prompt and structure, as well as engage in meaningful discussion in a manner in which all students can benefit.