Discussions

Overview

The Discussions feature enables instructors to create asynchronous discussions for students to contribute to outside of class time. Instructors can utilize conversations in discussion to encourage students to think about and discuss themes in advance of class and/or to foster collaborative thought after class.

Students who are less likely to participate in live, real-time discussions may benefit from the asynchronous setting. It has been shown that discussions benefit shy students who prefer time to think and carefully craft responses. The asynchronous nature of the Discussions tool also provides a venue for most if not all students to express themselves which is generally not possible in a classroom setting which has time constraints.

Discussions can be used in the following scenarios. Discussions are structured in advance or after class. The discussions can focus on:

• Reflection/Opinion: Students can read a prompt and respond.
• Debates: Students can be asked to defend or rebut arguments.
• Peer sharing/peer review: Instructors can use Discussions to post assignments that they want their classmates to see and remark on. 
• Group Discussions: Instructors can use group conversations to establish discussions where only a subset of students—say, 5-12—can interact with one other. This is great for group assignments or when a class has more students than can easily interact on one discussion board.
• FAQs: This can be very useful way where students post their questions and answers can be offered by students or the instructors. 

Let's take a look at the steps for creating a discussion board in the next page. Click "Next".