Discussions serve many purposes in the online classroom, but most importantly they foster community amongst the students. If the instructor does a good job of encouraging students to participate they can be effective. In my course now, one discussion that I always enjoy is the "Uses of Math Discussion". Essentially, students must explore a job that requires math and summarize the career, education needed and potential salary. For high school students this is a very interesting discussion to read because their opinions can vary quite a bit on what seems like a "fun job" and a "boring job". I also enjoy the responses from students who were surprised math was involved in certain fields.
Some best practices to facilitate online forums are:
- PARTICIPATE! If students see their instructor participating and giving feedback they are more likely to do so.
- Give students some guidelines for discussion responses. Remind them that just saying "nice post" is not enough they need to give feedback and show they fully read their classmates post.
- Create good discussions that will actually require students to give feedback to one another.
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