A Discussion About Discussions: Increasing Student Interaction in Discussion Boards

by Kim Stewart

In April, I took some time to participate in a webinar hosted by Quality Matters: A Discussion About Discussions: Increasing Student Interaction in Discussion Boards. What intrigued me about this webinar was based upon my own experience with discussion boards both as a student and as a faculty member. As a student I had classes where it appeared that the discussion post was there just to ensure that the Carnegie hour had been achieved for the on-line class. As a faculty member, this past semester, I incorporated discussion boards into one of my classes, and although I did get some interaction between students, I believe that most of it was forced because they were required to respond to peers. I used scenarios based upon what we were learning in class, but I just did not receive/see the level of interaction that I thought that I would.

The presenters mentioned the CREST+ technique for writing effective on-line discussion questions, something that I admit that I had not heard of prior to this webinar. The CREST+ model covers the cognitive nature of the question [C], the reading basis [R], any experiential [E] possibility, style and type of question [ST] , and finally ways to structure a good question [+]. The presenters also mentioned an article, CREST+ Model: Writing Effective Online Discussion Questionsthat provides more detail about the model (it is quite informative).

In the 50 or so minutes I learned more about discussion posts than I thought that I could.

One thing that I found helpful was the reminder to think about the purpose of the discussion question and to not use the discussion boards for questions that simply require summarizing of material. These types of questions do not allow for quality interaction and oftentimes, students will see these questions as busy work and will not engage with the question or each other as they will not see the value in the exercise. Types of questions that work well for discussion boards are those that require a student to reflect on the material, debate the material, synthesize the material, or share with each other the “muddiest” point of the material. This last type allows for students who “get it” to help their peers learn the material. I always love to see students helping each other because–as we know–if you can teach the material you truly understand the material.

I also found it interesting that the presenters noted that they only have 3 discussion posts in a class per semester. This allows the students a week to prepare their original post and a week to prepare their response (with time in between discussion). By allowing this much time, the questions that are posed can be more in depth, with the responses being more like short papers as opposed to quick opinion pieces.

Something that I currently do, but welcomed the reminder of, is to require students to either reflect on something that we have read in class or to conduct their own research on a topic and then respond to the prompt – be it a case study, question, etc. With this format, students are better able to demonstrate what they have learned, and it gives them a foundation to reflect upon when responding to their peers.

Something that I do not do and realize that I should, is to provide an example of what I am expecting. Students do love examples, and the time taken to craft an example that can be uploaded in the class can save a semester of frustration when students are not fulfilling the assignment as you want.

Also important is a quality rubric that you will use to evaluate the discussion posts. If you have an example and it is aligned to the rubric, it is likely that the quality of the original as well as response posts will be where you want them to be.

In the end, everyone–students and faculty–will win.

#CREST #QualityMatters #remotetip #studentinteraction #onlinediscussion