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Support Students in Online Discussions by Clarifying and Demonstrating Expectations, and Providing Guidance in Feedback

July 10, 2024
Online discussion forums provide students an opportunity to engage with one another and with their instructors on topics relevant to the course. They can be effective in creating community and can reassure students that their contributions to the class are of value. Additionally, they provide a space in which students can be experts, sharing their…

Digital #Powerups: Hashtags to Empower Higher-Order Student Engagement in Online Discussions

March 5, 2020
Description The digital powerups strategy provides an innovative way for instructors to engage students in higher-order online discussion by humanizing and personalizing the discussion. This strategy should be used to allow students to engage in online discussions in relevant and authentic ways. Online discussions can “allow students to participate actively and interact with students and…

An Alternative Strategy for Using Online Discussions for Learning Course Content in STEM Courses

December 4, 2018
Online discussion boards offer students an opportunity to engage with their peers and instructor in a course outside of the classroom.  The discussion boards are often used to replicate a classroom discussion and have many positive benefits.  It is relatively straightforward to setup and facilitate online discussions where students weigh in on a certain topic,…

Use Role Play to Increase Student Engagement in Online Discussions

October 27, 2017
Description As faculty, we are always trying to both stimulate student engagement and assess learning. One method for increasing student engagement that has been gaining in popularity is engaging students in role play activities. These activities can vary in scale from large, multi-day events (such as Reacting to the Past) to smaller activities contained within…

Use a Guided Approach to Support Critical Thinking in Online Discussions

April 16, 2015
Supporting college students to develop critical thinking skills is an overarching goal in higher education. Students with developed critical thinking skills have the ability to evaluate their own arguments as well as others, resolve conflicts, and generate well-reasoned resolutions to complex problems (Behar-Horenstein & Niu, 2011). Given that there is an exponential increase in the…