LearningFutures

Discussions are sometimes called the engine of an online course. Discussions provide an opportunity for students to engage with the course content, with each other, and with you—the professor—simultaneously, which means they have a lot of potential for meaningful learning and high retention.

There is no guarantee that students will really apply themselves by just creating a discussion. What you get out of a discussion assignment depends on what you put into it. Here are some tips for writing your discussion prompt, selecting your settings, and participating in the discussion.

Photo credit: Improvisation Ability SAK

Sean Morris:

For example, find a way to allow your students to not just create discussions on their own, but to make those discussions not at all peripheral to the main thrust of the learning. Have students decide not what they want to discuss, but what discussions are necessary to the class. And here, I’m not talking about students voting on discussion topics that you create, but creating their own ideas for what can and should be discussed about the subject matter.

Another option: allow students to bring their own materials to bear on the learning. Ask them to write—asynchronously—a collaborative manifesto for the class that supplements (and sometimes overrides) the syllabus. If you’re teaching Moby Dick let them decide how best to embrace the book. Will they write reports, or make papier maché whales? Will they give video presentations, or collaboratively write a comic for the book online? Whatever they come up with, be prepared to invent right alongside them.

   Resources for Educator as a Design Thinker Ideo. (n.d.). 

Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit - Pfau, P. (2014). 

Rethinking Education with Design Thinking - Speicher, S. (2013).  (and more).

The brain is constantly on the lookout for ways to improve by obtaining new knowledge and skills, even before birth. Unfortunately, retaining information can be challenging, simply because instructors and course designers do not always use methods that facilitate remembering. The following seven points look at key principles from neuroscience research paired with tips that will allow course creators to achieve effective eLearning development.