Use the Discussions tool in your course to encourage users to share thoughts on course material with their peers. Instructors can also use “low-stakes” discussion questions to facilitate non-academic engagement with course topics.

Forums

• Use forums to organize your discussion topics into categories (Chapter Discussions, etc.). Your course can have multiple forums and topics, but you must create a forum before you can create a topic since all topics belong to forums. You can set up forums and topics for users to ask questions, discuss course content and assignments, and work together in assigned groups and sections.

• 1. Instructors can enable anonymous posts for unscored discussion work. This setting would work best for an Ask Your Questions Here discussion topic, informal course/content evaluations, etc.

  2. Instructors commonly require students to create an initial thread before seeing other student posts. Enabling this setting prevents students from being influenced by other students’ posts.

  3. In limited circumstances, requiring moderator approval of posts may help instructors navigate particularly sensitive topics/discussions

  4. Enabling Rate Posts allows learners a variety of methods (ratings, up/down votes, etc.) the work of others.

1. Discussion Start and End Dates limit discussion topic access, student viewing access, and student posting access before and after desired dates at instructor discretion.

   • • DIID recommends instructors use Start and End dates set to “Visible with submission restricted” to ensure students can prepare for - and later, revisit - their discussion contributions.

2. Brightspace does not currently offer instructors multiple due dates on an individual content item; there is no system-level due date for an initial post separate from discussion replies.

   • • Instructors can create new events in the Brightspace Calendar or utilize the Checklists tool to outline initial discussion post deadlines (prior to final discussion due dates) and keep dates in front of learners.

3. Discussion topics and forums allow instructors to restrict discussions to the groups and sections.

   • • DIID recommends using the Groups tool and group-restricted discussion topics whenever groups of learners need to coordinate on a course project.

• 1. Instructors should build and associate rubrics with their discussion topics.

     • DIID recommends building a separate rubric criterion for each required post or reply and building initial feedback into the rubric design.

  2. Selecting the “assessment of individual posts” option allows instructors to independently assess learners' individual posts. Each user's topic score is calculated using the method selected from the calculation drop-down list.

Instructors may also choose to create individual discussion boards viewable only to each learner and the instructor. This can be a valuable conversation space for reflection and/or journaling. Learn how to set up single-user groups in Brightspace.