Get Your Online Students Talking:

How to build a community of engaged learners with better discussion boards

Shannon Brenner, Instructional Designer

Every day, nearly three out of every four Americans are on social media sites. We scroll through photos of kids, pets, dinners, and vacations on Instagram. We check to see what athletes, politicians, and celebrities are posting on Twitter. We check out micro videos of dancing, dogs, and duets on TikTok. Why have these digital platforms sucked so many of us in, and what does this phenomenon have to do with online learning?

The short answer is: connection. Whether it’s family from far away or strangers who share a common interest, social media allows us to feel closer to other human beings. But, when it comes to online classrooms, students aren’t connecting with each other the way they do on social media.

It’s time we change that.

We need to provide our online learners with the space to build a community. According to a study in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, “For online students, structural influences such as course design significantly impact on their learning experiences. Online student engagement can be supported by a well-designed course which promotes interaction and social presence.”

We can start by removing the stakes on our online discussions. NICC has a policy requiring instructors to meet regular and substantive interaction guidelines. If you're like me, you have likely been operating under the “initial post + 2 replies” philosophy. If so, I bet your eyes glaze over when you grade these discussions, which is probably how the students feel when they write them.

The reason for the weekly discussion policy is to ensure the instructors meet their requirement for regular interaction with students. There is no requirement that says we have to assess anything in those discussions. But, for some reason, nearly every discussion prompt that I see attempts to do just that.

We are trying to do too much with online discussions. We want students to engage, but we also want them to think critically, make arguments, cite readings, take positions, and demonstrate understanding. It’s simply too much. Our students are so bogged down trying to get their posts right that the human interaction element is removed entirely from the equation. According to a study that analyzed data from semi-structured interviews with online instructors, “It is fundamental to create an environment in which students become willing to participate, collaborate, and contribute with their reflections.” I think the way we do that is to make discussions less intimidating and lower the stakes.

As educators, we want to seize every opportunity for assessment. But what if we don’t do that in online discussions? What if we just let our students talk to each other? What if we ask questions like, “What do you know about this topic?” or “How are you feeling today” or “What are you excited to learn about this week?” We can encourage memes and gifs, ask for pictures of their pets, and get to know them as people. Low-stakes prompts get our students engaging with their peers and us without the fear that they have to “get it right.”

In my own online courses, I have made the switch to low-stakes discussions, along with some other course design strategies to promote engagement. As a result, I’m seeing a much higher pass rate for my community college students, and far more interaction in the discussions. The strategies below can help you implement this idea in your own online classroom.

Build a community through low-stakes, personalized discussions

• Start with what they already know: I like to start my units with a Know, Want to Know, Learn (KWL) approach. The first discussion prompt is usually something like, “What has been your experience with X topic?” or “What do you want to learn about X?”
  

• Personalize discussions: I have built my discussions using Flip (formerly FlipGrid), a free video discussion tool. I love being able to see my students and hear their voices! My students are generally required to use video in their posts, but FlipGrid has tons of fun tools and features they can use to take the focus away from their faces. And, I always have a backup plan for students with alternate accessibility needs.
  

• Remove requirements: If we give students minimum word counts and numbers of replies, the majority will focus on those and stop when they get to the minimum threshold. In my FlipGrid discussions, I give students a maximum 2-minute timeframe for their responses (this is a nice setting that Flipgrid offers). I’d rather they think about being concise and getting out what they want to say in a short amount of time than write unnecessary and meaningless words to meet a word count.
  

• Set up a class bulletin: As I mentioned earlier I use Padlet to create a class bulletin which is posted at the top of each unit. The bulletin is a space where I post the unit star student award winners (more on that later), ask students for their thoughts on the assigned articles and videos, and ask a question unrelated to the course, such as, “What is your perfect meal” or “If you could visit anywhere for one week, where would you go?”
  

• Let students assess their own participation: Participation comfort levels vary so much from learner to learner, that I have decided I do not want to be the one who decides how much participation is enough for them. Instead, I give my students a holistic participation rubric and have them score themselves for each unit, based on their activity in the discussions and on the class bulletin. By and large, my students are harder on themselves than I would be. For instance, I had a student recently email me admitting to having crippling anxiety that was preventing her from participating in my video discussions. As a result, she gave herself a 0 for participation. After chatting with her about disability accommodations and alternate options to meet the participation requirement, I overrode her score. I do reserve the right to challenge their grades, but I have yet to lower any.
  

• Encourage low-stakes collaboration: Consider taking an activity or assignment and building into a group discussion. Put students in small groups and set up discussion spaces only visible to group members. Let them work together to complete the activity - it could be a digital crossword puzzle, worksheet, or any other assignment or activity you already have. Give them bonus points for being the first group to submit, or for all groups that complete it successfully.
  

While these strategies can help you build an active learning community, I realize that there is sometimes a need for assessment in an online discussion. There is room for assessment, if it’s done well, and separately. Following are a few strategies that my instructional design and teaching colleagues have found to be particularly effective.

Assess students with more productive discussions

• Make your students complete an activity as part of the discussion: Include a Ted Talk or podcast episode and then ask questions about it in your discussion prompt. You can ask them to connect this material back to other content from the unit, but giving them an anchor activity will help them feel less intimidated by the discussion. See the example below, where students have to try an activity and then report back to the discussion.

• Consider having students pose some questions: Have students submit questions for the unit and choose a few to use as for the group. Depending on the course and level, you may even consider nominating one or two students to facilitate the discussion each week with you interjecting as needed. This will help them feel ownership in the conversation.
  

• Use a rubric to provide clear expectations: Focus on content rather than quantity. If a student meets the expectations in terms of quality and content, the word count will follow. Check out this participation rubric from Carnegie Mellon University to get some ideas.
  

• Give direction to replies: Instead of a generic direction like “reply to two classmates,” consider asking learners to do a specific thing like, “find a classmate who took X position and respond with some suggestions or a counterargument, etc.” This requires them to read through replies to find an appropriate one and eliminates the “I agree” reply.
  

• Give choices: Offer 2-3 prompts (depending on class size) from which students can choose. Giving them options makes them feel empowered. Consider choosing topics that might relate to different types of learners rather than different topics in your course. For example, because I work for a community college with a large population of nontraditional students, I write questions that ask students to connect our topics to their work experience, and others that are geared toward more traditional students.
  

• Write equity-minded prompts: It’s important to remember that your students come from different backgrounds and experiences. They should see representation in your discussion materials and prompts.
  

You might not be able to make all of these changes in your own online courses, but implementing even a few will help make your online discussions more effective, and hopefully a little more fun for your students. In my own courses, I’ve seen an increase in students getting engaged and staying engaged in the class. It also feels less overwhelming for me, as I no longer have to grade discussions as assessments. I have plenty of activities, assignments, and quizzes that assess student learning. Setting those aside, my students and I can sit back and relax in our discussions, and work on getting to know each other and sharing our organic thoughts in a low-stakes space. If you try some of my strategies, you might just find yourself, and your students, feeling more relaxed and connected too.