Banging Your Head Against the Discussion Board Wall: Alternatives to Written Discussion Posts
Discussion boards are the “workhorses” of online learning. However, if you’re like me, you’re not that into discussion boards. As we’ve learned this fall, sometimes they work and sometimes it’s a painful exercise for both you and the learners. Perhaps it’s time to think about other ways the discussion board function can be used to assess student learning. Regardless of what method you choose, it’s important to provide students with explicit instructions in an online environment so they understand what’s expected of them and to decrease any potential frustrations for you and the class. If you’re teaching a course with large student enrollment, any of these learning activities can be modified and completed in smaller groups.
Visual Reflections
Instead of a written summary or analysis of readings, lectures or other learning materials, require students to post an image with one simple reflection sentence connecting their image to the materials. The sentence could also be a quotation from the reading or the lecture. Be specific about whether you want students to take the photograph themselves or if they can use a photo from the internet. Remind them that they should never take and distribute photographs of other people without their consent and images should include proper citation.
This type of reflection can occur once a week without being too laborious for either the students or the instructor. The images can be used to stimulate discussion during synchronous class time or tutorials.
Audio Reflections
Students can post a number of different types of audio reflections using the discussion board function. It could be a short (no more than 1-2 minutes) spoken summary of the learning materials, or you could ask students to choose a song that relates to the course themes and post a link in the discussion thread.
Consider your class size and the time you you'll need to listen to these types of responses. You may want to ask students to participate in this kind of activity on alternating weeks or at the end of a topic. In a large enrollment course, you could require students to first share individual recordings in small groups and then choose one audio response they would like to submit to represent their group.
Concept Maps
This is another visual way for students to reflect on and demonstrate their learning, and for you to assess which concepts students are comfortable with and what gaps exist in their knowledge. A concept map is an illustration of how the topics, themes, and theories connect to and build on each other. Students could draw concept maps that only illustrate connections between the readings or that map how readings and lectures relate to each other.
Concept maps can take time to develop properly. If you decide to use this method of assessment, it might be best to limit the frequency of submissions to 2-3 times during the term.
Questions
In most disciplines it’s important for students to be able to ask good questions. Asking relevant and boundary-pushing questions about course topics and themes is typically an indication of a student’s ability to engage with disciplinary knowledge and successfully move through a program. Ask students to post two questions about the readings, lectures, or weekly topic in a discussion thread. Depending on the course year-level, you could even require students to answer one other student’s question (with a word limit). You can respond to the questions in a follow-up video at the end of the week/course topic or use them to guide your synchronous class time.
This type of activity can be fairly quick to assess, however it can take time to create a video that responds to the answers. In the past, I’ve taken the questions, themed them and responded to the themes instead of each individual question.
Short Videos
Some instructors prefer to watch student response videos. It’s possible to use the discussion board function as a place where students can upload and watch each other’s videos. Responses should probably be no longer than 1 and a half minutes because it takes time to create and watch videos. Including time-length restrictions allows you to manage the workload associated with this activity.
Course size and TA availability will often determine whether you attempt this type of assessment.
Examples from the News
Depending on your discipline, it might be possible to ask students to post relevant articles from reputable news outlets either weekly or bi-weekly. If you set-up the discussion board so that students can’t see previous posts until they submit a link to their news item, you might get a number of the same articles- and that’s good! Then you can address the most relevant submissions in a summary video.
The most time-consuming element of this assessment is reading a popular article that perhaps you haven’t yet read and creating a video response. I’d probably require students to do this every other week or at the end of a topic module to minimize grading fatigue.
Case Studies, Primary Sources, Common Problems
You can provide students with relevant case studies, primary sources, or common problems to which they’re required to respond. I’d suggest creating the discussion board so that students can’t see previous posts until they submit their response.
This activity can be time consuming for the students, so providing a reasonable word limit is important. The number of required words could also depend on how frequently you require student to complete the activity. For example, if they’re writing a 200-word response only require 4 or 5 during the term. A 50-word response can occur more frequently throughout the course.
Cartoons or Memes
Students can submit hand drawn cartoons or digitally created memes that reflect on the course topics, themes, or theories. Remind the students that the activity isn’t about artistic ability (stick people are totally appropriate). Instead, your goal for this assessment is to encourage students to consider various expressions of knowledge and demonstrate what they’re learning in an alternative format.
Similar to creating concept maps, this activity requires more student effort. Consider how frequently you need to assess the students’ learning and perhaps ask them to submit a cartoon or meme 4-5 times during the term.
If you’re using discussion boards for writing practice and finding it too arduous consider these ways of minimizing workload for you and the students:
Make the first discussion board post “safe.” Ease them into discussion board interactions by asking them to submit their first post about something they already know, like why they decided to take the course or if they enjoy participating in online collaborative work!
Alternate student summarizers and student responders by dividing the class and requiring half of them to summarize the weekly course materials (with a reasonable word count) and the other half responds to those summaries with one follow-up question. Every week the summarizer and responder roles switch.
Organize students into small discussion board groups, so they’re only interacting with the same 5-7 students through discussion during the term.
Provide manageable word limits. This will be more enjoyable for both you and the students.
Limit the requirements including how frequently students are required to contribute and how many responses are expected. Allow them to skip one or two posts without incurring penalty.
Consider the factors presented in Robyn Moore’s article “The Writing on the Wall: Managing Discussion Boards”
However you choose to use the discussion board function, always consider the students’ experience and your ability to provide feedback and assess. The percentage allotted to a discussion board activity should reflect the effort required to complete the assignment and probably shouldn’t be less than 20% of the total course grade. Finally, someone should be having fun, so it’s okay to design assignments that will be enjoyable to grade, while providing students with an opportunity to both build on their knowledge and skills and demonstrate all the great learning that’s happening in your course.