Strategies for Effective Online Discussions

Kara Wasnewsky
Dec 6, 2019
4 min read

Updated: Jan 17, 2023

By: Kara Wasnewsky

Are you encountering some of these common problems with your online discussions?

Students misunderstand directions or may be unsure what is expected of them.
Student comments can become off track or go in a direction that is not supported in a lesson.
Student postings are shallow, superficial, subjective, and at times naive.
Students may stall or put off participating in a discussion board until last minute.
Students may not feel a sense of connection with classmates.
Students may react in an inappropriate way by blaming other students or making disinterested or disrespectful comments to their peers.

This post will help to alleviate these issues by providing you with some best practices for designing and facilitating online discussions.

Designing Effective Discussions

To design effective discussions you want to:

Align discussions to your objectives and goals

It is important that students perceive online discussions as relevant to their overall course learning, otherwise they will be less motivated to participate. Taking the time to think about how the discussion will fit in with the overall objectives and goals for the course/module will ensure that there is a strong correlation between the two.

Also, you should consider how you will determine if the discussion is successful and students are learning. You should reflect on this at the end of each discussion. This will come in handy as you tweak the course for the next iteration.

Ask good questions

You want to design questions that provoke critical thinking. Good questions should allow for expression, multiple answers or solutions, and for the exploration of the unknown.

You will want to encourage deeper thinking by using question starters that provoke open dialogue. You want to be writing questions that fall in the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Questions that evaluate, synthesize, analyze, or apply.

You should also think about social presence when designing a discussion activity. This will be key in building a class community. Social presence can be fostered by having students share their own experiences as it relates to a topic, or allowing students to showcase more of their personality by having them tell stories through their posts. It is not expected that every discussion will do these things, but having some scattered throughout your course will help the students connect with each other.

A list of question starters is attached at the bottom of this post.

Provide clear guidelines

Students need to have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Guidelines should be established for discussion posts, and they need to be specific. Guidelines should also have a level of flexibility where students have options. For example when posting their replies students can be given options for how to respond to their peers. They can build on existing ideas, contribute questions, play the devil’s advocate, or they can wrap up the thread with a concise summary.

Students should also have a view into how they are to be graded, so they can make sure they include everything necessary. Make your grading guidelines (rubric) visible.

A sample forum guidelines document is attached at the bottom of this post.

Facilitating Effective Discussions

When facilitating online discussions you want to:

Day to day

Be a part of the discussion, but don’t participate too much

Resist the urge to reply to every discussion thread. If the instructor intervenes too much in the discussion, student-student interaction can decline, as students start to rely on the instructor to answer questions and lead as the expert.

The instructor should participate enough, so that the students know that their messages are being read. You want to intervene in discussions to keep the discussion on track, or to motivate students to explore a topic further.

Send private emails to students when needed

If you notice that a student is not participating in the discussions, you should follow up with them privately. There are many reasons why a student may not be participating, they may not be understanding the material, or they are having difficulties with the technology. You will want to address any problems early on.

If you have a student who is dominating the conversation, this is also a time to reach out to them privately and nicely ask them to stop.

Post a weekly wrap-up to the discussion at the end of the week

At the end of each module/week you should post a weekly wrap-up to the discussion. This lets students know that you have read their discussion posts and allows them a chance to reflect upon the major themes that were discussed that week. This is where you can include your thoughts on the discussion for the week.

You probably want to keep notes as you read through the discussion of what you want to include in the wrap-up.

Assessment

Utilize rubrics

Rubrics will clarify expectations for students when it comes to how you will be assessing their discussions. They also help the instructor provide quality feedback, by focusing the evaluation process and providing a structure.

Grading discussions needs to happen fairly quickly, so students can learn from their feedback before posting in the next discussion. Having a rubric will make it easier for you to grade the discussions in a fast, consistent, and effective way.

A sample rubric is attached at the bottom of this post.

Asses quality and quantity

You want to assess both quality and quantity of student’s discussion posts. If a student posts the required amount, but the quality is low then the grade should reflect that, or if the student posts high quality posts, but did not make many of them then that should also be reflected.

Make it a significant portion of their grade

You do want to make the discussion a significant portion of the student’s grade to help motivate them to participate.

References

Culpechina, G. (June 7, 2015). Effective Discussion Prompts for Online Discussion Boards . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj5HPtYMqtA
Jacobi, L. (2017). The Structure of Discussions in an Online Communication Course: What Do Students Find Most Effective?, Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 14 (1), Retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol14/iss1/11 
Morrison, D. (June 28, 2012). The Methods and Means to Grading Participation in Online Discussions. Online Learning Insights. Retrieved from https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/the-methods-and-means-to-grading-student-participation-in-online-discussions/.
TeacherStream, LLC. (2009). Mastering Online Discussion Board Facilitation. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-onlinelearning-mastering-online-discussion-board-facilitation.pdf
Wang, Y & Chen, V. D. T. Essential Elements in Designing Online Discussions to Promote Cognitive Presence—A Practical Experience. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 12(3-4). Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ837521.pdf