Bring the Discussion Board to Life

Student interaction is one of the main components to building successful online learning environments. Student interaction in an online learning environment can either hinder or increase the success of a student in an online course. Without effective communication, the online course ceases to be a classroom for learning and becomes a holding place for documents.

It is important for facilitators to implement and enforce procedures that direct student responses to be written in a clear and professional manner to help students understand their fellow peers. The syllabus is the best place to start for setting the tone of an online course. IDEAL encourages instructors to include a section in the syllabus that covers how online communication in the discussion board will be handled. This will help avoid student responses of “I Agree”, “Yes”, “No”, and “What they said”.

IDEAL also recommends that instructors include a discussion rubric or guide that will help to set student expectations for online discussions. Participating in and online discussion might be a new concept for students, so it is helpful when instructors lay out exactly what they are looking for in student participation. This can be accomplished by using examples in the discussion rubric of what you think counts as a high-quality answer. Also, providing examples of what does not count as an answer will help students understand their role in your course better.