Best Practices for Forums

Best Practices for Discussion Forums

Below are tips for using online discussion forums effectively. These tips were gathered from the experiences of real instructors, from Durham Tech and elsewhere.

Set clear expectations

• From the start of the course, provide clear and specific information on how forum participation will be evaluated.
• Also lay out guidelines or "ground rules" for expected forum behavior.
• Feel free to use or adapt this document: Forum Guidelines and Grading Rubric
• For more ideas, here are three sample discussion forum rubrics (from Middle Tennessee State University)

Encourage participation

• Students typically won't post in the forum unless it is required and "counts" toward their grade.
• Require students to post AND to respond to 1 or 2 classmates' posts each week.
• Consider making forum participation a substantial part of the overall grade (20% or more).
• To prevent everyone from posting at the last minute, many instructors set two deadlines each week: one for students' initial posts and another (a few days later) for replies to classmates.

Write effective prompts

• Ask yourself "what is most important for students to understand about the material?" Shape your questions with that in mind.
• Avoid yes/no questions or ones with strictly factual answers.
• Require students to explain their answers and to support their statements with details from assigned readings.
• Get ideas from your peers! Check out this sampling of Discussion Forum Questions Used by Durham Tech Instructors

Help students get started

• Begin the course with an online icebreaker discussion to allow students to get to know each other and to practice using the Forums tool.
• Remember that your students may be new to Sakai. Provide a link to Durham Tech's Forum Resources for Students so they'll know what to do.

Promote originality and quality work

• Use the topic setting "Require students to post before reading." This way, students won't be able to read their classmates' posts until AFTER they write and submit their own.
• At the end of each week's discussion, pick one or more exemplary posts to showcase to the class.
• When entering grades, use the comments box to provide private feedback and specific suggestions for improvement.

Learn more

• Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussion (University of Oregon) - Provides many time-saving tips and useful ideas
• Why aren’t your students participating on the Discussion Board? - Offers tips to enhance student engagement in online discussions