Learning online can be challenging as instructors and students need to work actively to form connections and create community. This often happens through discussion boards. At times, I’ve talked with students who feel frustrated by discussions and requirements around engagement. In our online sections of ALS 116: Academic Success, I’ve tried to create an approach to discussions that encourages students to engage in meaningful ways. In our end of term surveys, students often share that they appreciated the structure of discussions that encouraged them to form connections and push conversation further in replies.

While these may not work for all courses or contexts, here are a few of the strategies I’ve landed on for encouraging student participation and engagement:

1. Asking students to reply using names. This may seem small, but seeing your name and not just a line linking a reply to your post can create connection. I also make a list of names and pronouns shared in the first discussion and link to that in every subsequent discussion, so students can easily check that they’re using correct names and pronouns when they reply to or reference another student’s post.
2. Encouraging balance between listening and responding. Asking students to first acknowledge specifics of what the other person said prior to sharing their own thinking can demonstrate listening in an online environment. Most of the time, posts are too long to respond to everything another person shared, but naming a specific moment from the post can ground replies in specifics of the original post prior to building on that post with individual perspective that furthers the conversation.
3. Requiring that replies go beyond praise, summary, agreement, and/or questions. These are great starting points for identifying a focus area for a reply. If students choose one of these, the “why” can build on thinking. For example, if you think something is praise-worthy, why is that? What value do you see? How did it impact your thinking? How has your understanding changed as a result of what the other person contributed? Prompting with these types of questions early on helps students create habits around explaining meaning.
4. Providing sample discussion board post replies. Showing what a reply can look like when it builds on praise, summary, agreement, and questions can help students imagine what’s possible and demonstrate the length of response that is likely needed to engage with another person’s ideas. I also include a list of potential ways students could respond to help folks brainstorm what they might add to the conversation.
5. Showing students the value of their contributions.  Every three weeks, I ask students to reflect on a topic from a prior week. They describe their thinking before the module work and discussion. They then quote and cite another student’s discussion that had an impact on their learning and explain why that post was important to them. Then, they share where their thinking is now. This frames an expectation of learning from each other, and students can see where their post influenced another person’s thinking and contributed to their learning.

Discussion boards can be a great way for students to connect with and learn with and from each other throughout the term, and each class shapes discussion in its own way. I hope you find some of these strategies useful, and I’d love to hear, via email or replies, what you’ve found helpful for prompting conversation and community in online classes.