discussion boards

Jump-Start Online Discussion with Unconventional Prompts

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

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Modeling Discussion Board Posts with Discussion Labs

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

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Rethinking the Rules of Online Discussion

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

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Ways to Improve Interaction among Students in Online Courses

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

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Online Discussions: Five Kinds of Forums

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.

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Modeling Postings to Improve Online Discussion

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

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online student: PBL

Using Online Protocols for Discussions

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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