EOTP - Facilitating Engaging Online Discussions

Rationale

Interacting with your students in a discussion is an important way to guide their learning. Are they confused about a concept? Misapplying it in their context? Engaging in online discussion forums with your students fosters both cognition and student engagement. After all, “when you teach in person, you wouldn’t launch a class discussion and then walk out of the room” (Darby & Lang, 2019).

Practices

Balance voices
Strengthen peer connections
Use groups to generate more meaningful dialogue
Set clear expectations and identify model posts
Offer guidelines for responding to peers
Prompt for critical and deeper thinking
Summarize and clarify
Leverage asynchronous materials to prompt and expand discussions
Design questions to expand thinking and prompt for examples
Use breakout rooms to increase engagement and deepen thinking
Use prompts to support peer-to-peer learning

This content is only available to Commons members. If you are a Commons member, this course content is available for those who have completed this ACUE course.

EOTP - Facilitating Engaging Online Discussions

Rationale

Practices

Balance voices

Strengthen peer connections

Use groups to generate more meaningful dialogue

Set clear expectations and identify model posts

Offer guidelines for responding to peers

Prompt for critical and deeper thinking

Summarize and clarify

Leverage asynchronous materials to prompt and expand discussions

Design questions to expand thinking and prompt for examples

Use breakout rooms to increase engagement and deepen thinking

Use prompts to support peer-to-peer learning