Setting Up Discussions

Use Threaded Discussions on Canvas for asynchronous communication in a class. Instructors or students can start a discussion, then others can post replies.

For detailed instructions, see the official Canvas documentation for Creating Threaded Discussions (for teachers), or Student-Created Discussions.

Suggested Settings - For Whole Class Discussion

To set up a discussion for the whole class, click Discussion in the left navigation menu, then click the blue +Discussion button

Next, fill in the topic title, and an initial post or question for other to respond to.

We recommend always checking the option to "Allow threaded replies" which allows students to reply to each other, not just the original post. The option "Users must post before seeing replies" does what it says. Use "Graded" if you intend to grade students based on their responses to this discussion.

Click the blue Save button at the bottom, then on the next page, click the Publish button when you are ready for students to have access to the discussion.

Suggested Settings - For a Group Discussion

For some classes, the online discussions are a major component of the class and a student's grade. For online classes especially, this can be a good way to replace in-class discussions as it encourages everyone to participate and helps students learn from each other's idea. Some suggestions:

• For online classes, make discussions worth at least 25% of the grade
• Split students in to groups of six to eight. (Enough to carry a conversation, but not too many to read)
• Design a well-crafted question that helps students process the content
• Require an initial post plus several response posts, to encourage discussion

For a group discussion topic, the instructor sets up the discussion topic once, but it appears in multiple separate groups. Students read and respond to students just in their small group, not the whole class.

First: you'll need to split students in to groups. See Using Groups or the Canvas instructions on creating groups.

To create a group discussion, start as described above, then click the Graded option.

That will display the Group option, check the option This is a Group Discussion, then choose which "Group Set" to use (in this example, we've already previously created a set of groups called "Weekly Discussion" see Using Groups).

On this page, you can also choose points possible and an assignment group for this assignment. You can adjust this later in the Assignments section.

Sample Weekly Discussion

For a typical weekly discussion topic in an online class, the discussion topic may look something like this:

After you've watched this week's assigned video and read the Atlantic Monthly article by Nicholas Carr, write a 200- to 300-word short essay in response, answering this question:

Example 1: What were the issues that challenged your views on your own use of the internet and in what ways have you seen internet use affect your own attention span?

Example 2: Respond to Carr's thesis - do you believe increased internet use it detrimental to our ability to learn? Support your argument with examples from the course material.

Example 3: How does increased internet use affect a child's ability to do well in school, in light of our discussion on childhood education three weeks ago?

Submit your initial response by Thursday at 5:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)

Next, interact with others in your small group by responding to two or three their posts before Sunday 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time).

Try to keep your initial questions focused and not too broad, to guide the discussion, and don't ask too many questions. (In the example above, we would recommend one of those questions, not all three at once.) Also, it is generally a good idea to give some kind of guidance rather than a generic "What did you think of the article?" or "Respond to the video."

Instructors should avoid jumping in to the discussion too soon (or at all) as this may quash meaningful interaction if the students perceive an instructor's post to be the "right answer" or final word on a topic.