By: Jessie McDowell

 

Discussion Boards - The modern cornerstone of virtual learning

The evolution of the internet and its merge with modern education prompted new and interesting ways of interacting with students. Today, those options are almost limitless with virtual reality, gamification, automatic differentiation and easy access to vast resources and research. The cornerstone of today's virtual classroom was founded on a still-developing internet with limited resources. One of the first capabilities was the option for internet users to post and interact with online information, rather than passively scrolling and reading. Thus, discussion boards were born.

As a current Ed.D. student and a professional with other undergraduate and graduate degrees under my belt, I've come to dread the weekly required discussion boards. These necessary evils come packaged with citation, word count and reply requirements. Given a prompt, I am expected to use provided resources or dig for new resources to support the prompt. Then I am expected to reply to other classmates' posts - supposedly with ground-breaking supporting research or with sources in opposition to their stance.

Prompt. Post. Reply. Repeat.

My current professor in my Ed.D. program has specific rules prohibiting text such as, "I agree with your point, Bob! You were spot-on and your gathered research looks great!". My professor is smart. He knows students use any and all filler text they can so there's more progress towards the ever-important word count. And I knew Bob wasn't going to see, care nor reply to my response post, so why go further than paraphrasing his post and including a citation I'd previously made?
Is the educational or learning value there, in word counts and fluff replies? No.

What's the problem?

In class, when a professor poses a question or prompt, a few students may answer, but not all, and only if their answer adds something extra or differs from the other answers already given. Most educators know better than to propose a question to the class then simply say, "discuss!"

"Hi, how are you?"

"I'm good, and you?"

The real-life example of a discussion board.

Expected prompt

Typical, expected replies

No real, new or useful information

We all know that probably won't go well, without instructor guidance, introducing other perspectives or counter arguments to really get students thinking. However, that's exactly what we ask of our students in these online forums. Prompt. Discuss! Ever seen the first student post an inaccurate or ill-prepared response that most of the class then echoed in their posts? Exactly.

One of the problems is that students are writing these posts for their instructor, rather than their classmates (Verdine, 2022). Additionally, the conversation is limited to the weekly topic rather than blending information from other experiences or from earlier in the course. As stated by Verdine, "assignments and grading compel content generation but do not propel content consumption or conversations", and that, "research...indicates that it is consumptive behaviors and comments, not posting, that are most associated with better course grade outcomes, student satisfaction, and student persistence/retention" (2022).

Discussion boards force a repeated and rephrased response from every student. This prompts a dearth of true interaction, critical thinking or academic curiosity.

"The main reason why this is the case is because the initial question that is presented is a question that just requires a response. The question generally doesn’t require any significant judgement calls or critical thinking on the part of the student, which leads to us not really investing ourselves in answering the question. The ripple effect of this is that we also won’t care about what our peers have to say about the initial question, so our responses to our peers are also lackluster."
(Brooks, 2019)

Why are online asynchronous discussions so encouraged? Students are not reading all other posts and thoughtfully considering what they could learn from their peers. Students are purely fulfilling the syllabus and assignment requirements. From the professor perspective, lengthy grading processes are laborious, not helpful for getting true learning feedback and can be, "absolutely worthless to read" (Lane, 2022). Educators are often left frustrated at the lack of contribution by students in online forums (Morrison, 2012).

But, what about online student engagement?! What about communication and dialogue?!

So what do we do?

Here are some aspects to consider, as well as some varied discussion-based options:

1. Determine if discussion is necessary. Are there different points that could be argued? Do students need to delve deeper into a topic or apply personal experience? If not, discussion might not be your best classroom bet (Lane, 2022).
2. Rather than looking for a specific answer from the lesson, consider using open-ended and thought-provoking questions that will prompt students to generate their own unique answer, rather than just the expected one (Morrison, 2012). However, be careful to not leave topics so broad that students are wondering where to start or what's expected of them for the assignment (Brooks, 2019).
3. Use smaller teams of 2-3 students for discussions, rather than a class-wide post (Morrison, 2012). This helps alleviate anxiety for those students who are hesitant to "speak" to the entire class or who need the option to bounce ideas off other students before posting.
4. A twist on the previous idea is to turn these teams into facilitation teams, who are responsible for guiding and evolving this discussion for the week. Examples would be providing additional resources, opposing perspectives or asking classmates why or how they formed their responses.
5. Using a rubric to clarify specific posting requirements can help generate more in-depth and analysis type posts from students, however this does not solve the underlying dread or frustration with discussion boards.
6. More and more, information is conveyed via podcasts, movies and videos. This societal shift means using video-based conversations may be more useful for students. Programs like Flip (formerly Flipgrid) use video-based posts for class discussions (Brooks, 2019).
7. Ask multiple questions and allow students to respond to the ones they most relate to or have the best mastery of (Brooks, 2019). This also allows students to respond to what appeals to them most, creating a little more buy-in.
8. Create prompts with a "two-step" approach; start with a prompt that doesn't require prior knowledge, then some kind of moral judgement to get students thinking (Lane, 2022). Step two of this process, occurring later that week, included the professor posting "Take discussion from here" with summaries of various student ideas and opinions across the class, naming ones who added thought-provoking information and asking follow-on questions that relies on their reading and knowledge, rather than emotions.
9. Use the discussion board and a springboard for a different assignment, requiring classmate input (Lane, 2022). Have students post in the discussion board then later create a project or essay over that discussion board, however they must react or use the responses from classmates on their post. For example, students may be tasked with suggesting 2 additional resources for that student's topic, or by playing devil's advocate!

References

Brooks, M. (2019, November 1). Discussion Boards are an inconsistent substitute for face-to-face discussions. The Triangle.
  https://www.thetriangle.org/opinion/discussion-boards-are-an-inconsistent-substitute-for-face-to-face-discussions/

Lane, L. M. (2022, March 30). Why online discussion boards suck, and what to do about it. Medium.
 https://lisahistory.medium.com/why-online-discussion-boards-suck-and-what-to-do-about-it-e843a09c16d4

Morrison, D. (2012, November 10). 3 Reasons Students Don’t Participate in Online Discussions. Online Learning Insights.
  https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/3-reasons-why-students-dont-participate-in-online-discussions/

Verdine, B., PhD. (2022, June 24). Why “Discussions” Fail: Reconsidering Online Discussion Best Practices. Yellowdig.
  https://www.yellowdig.co/post/why-discussions-fail