Engage Students Through Discussion

Overview

Learning requires a social component, and much of what is enjoyable about teaching and learning is wrapped up in the exchange of ideas. This is true for in-person and remote instruction. In an in-person class, methods for creating an environment for engaging students can seem more intuitive, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to also create this environment in a remote instruction course, too. So, the first thing you might consider is how to relay and share in that sense of camaraderie in your remote instruction class. Discussion forums in bCourses provide an opportunity to engage with students and promote interaction among students.

In the Core Template

There is already a sample discussion assignment set up in the template called Week 1 Discussion. You can copy that discussion as many times as you need and place those discussions where you’d like to include them on your weekly landing pages. Pay attention to the settings you incorporate into the discussion assignment including whether they are group/section discussion assignments or ones that you’d like the whole class to interact in. Providing explicit instructions for discussion participation is also an important consideration in order to ensure that students are prepared to participate in meaningful and productive ways.

Components of Discussion Assignments

The following materials provide guidance for how to create a successful discussion assignment. You will also find example text in each section that you can use as a starting point for discussions in your own course.

Description and Purpose

Be sure to address why students are engaging in the discussion assignment (e.g., are they meant to engage in research in order to achieve a learning objective, is this practice for a larger assignment, is this part of a scaffolding process, are they demonstrating understanding of content covered in the weekly readings?) and who they are engaging with (i.e., are they addressing all of their peers, are they pretending to be writing to a different audience and their peers are providing responses as an exercise in peer review, are they working in small groups for a reason?).

Instructions and Due Date

Identify and/or refer back to discussion directions and guidelines including referencing netiquette standards and assignment due dates (i.e., Do they have to make an initial posting by a certain date and then respond to a specific number of peers by a different date? Are they required to respond to students who ask questions of them?)

Once the rubric is added to the discussion, students can view it by selecting the vertical ellipses and choosing "Show Rubric" from the dropdown menu. You can also copy and paste the rubric to the discussion prompt and share it in your syllabus.

Resources

Canvas Guide

• How do I create a discussion as an instructor?
• How do I pin a discussion in a course?
• How do I add a rubric to a graded discussion?
• How do I view a rubric for my graded discussion?