I Love Discussion Forums: Why Forums Are an Excellent Assessment Tool
By: Dr. Bettyjo Bouchey, Dean of Online Education at National Louis University
I love discussion forums. There, I said it. Perhaps a better way to say that is that I love a well-designed and facilitated discussion forum that is part of a strategic and focused formative assessment plan. I don’t love discussion forums at the expense of other formative assessment tools we have available to us in online learning, but I do think a discussion forum is an easy-to-use and easy-to-understand assessment for faculty and students. If it is well-crafted and open-ended, it can lead to deep learning and community building within an online course and enable students and faculty to bring themselves to the learning in meaningful ways. We have a couple of great resources on designing and facilitating discussion forums in our Online Faculty Resources pages, but here is what I would say about both items in summary.
Designing a great online discussion question is an art. Here are some keys to designing discussion forum questions for the greatest impact:
- Open-ended and using mid- to upper-level taxonomies (e.g., applying, analyzing, or evaluating).
- Aligned to the learning objectives as a means of formative and incremental learning for the module it is included in.
- Relevant and flexible so that it can be applied to current events, student-specific or discipline-specific circumstances and/or is not dependent on lived experiences of only certain subsets of students.
At all levels of education, students seek validation and contextualization of their efforts. Not replying to the posts of students in many ways is akin to asking a question in class and then simply moving to your next topic without calling upon raised hands. Here are some tips and tricks of discussion facilitation that do not disrupt the learning process, and will not overwhelm teaching time:
- Express gratitude – “Julie, thank you for this great post…”
- Offer context – “I recall a time when this happened when I was working at Pfizer…”
- Connect to others – “I noticed that John had a different experience/perspective in his post, would you want to check it out and weigh in?”
- Raise inquiry – “This is a great perspective; did you also notice that...?”
Note, too, that many learning management systems, including D2L at National Louis University now has VideoNote as a tool where you can respond to Discussions (and for grading feedback) through audio and video. Sometimes, I record myself just “saying hello, and thanks for this great post. Hope you are having a great week!”
Moreover, discussion forums and their facilitation are not only a great way to formatively assess students, but also to keep up the momentum in your online course throughout the week. If you are noticing that students always wait until the Wednesday deadline to post, that is okay – just plan time for replies on Thursdays and Fridays, but please do plan the time to weigh in and join the dialogue! Looking for more advice on discussion facilitation? Here are some great sources:
