Course Activities: All About Discussions

For assistance considering ways of modifying course content and assessments for alternate modes of delivery, contact Stacy Evans (sevans@berkshirecc.edu), Faculty Lead for the Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation, or Lauren Goodman (lgoodman@berkshirecc.edu), Dean of Teaching and Learning Innovation.

Discussion boards can offer a rich and interesting way of having students engage with content and each other asynchronously. Discussion boards are well-suited for open exploration and discussion of an open-ended question. These can be facilitated by:

  • Taking an idea or concept that is complex and/or that students struggle with and ask them to dissect the concept into its smaller parts, by creating examples or gathering outside data.
  • Referring to or link to an article, TED Talk, YouTube video, podcast or textbook reading and ask students to share their critical thoughts, questions and further research on the topic through the lens of their learning.
  • Offering students a controversial prompt and have them debate, discuss and challenge each other’s opinions
  • Ask students to research, locate and share an article, video, interesting site that adds to their classmate’s learning on a specific topic.

For an overview of best practices and key features of discussion forums, watch our CTLI guide: All About Discussion Forums [Video – 10:47]:

We recommend Moodle discussion boards, specifically Open Forums. Open forums can be graded or ungraded.  

Best Practices for Creating and Facilitating Discussion Forums

Discussion don’t have to just be text based either. VoiceThread is an asynchronous online discussion tool with an audio-visual presentation as the base response material.

Creating instructional videos using VoiceThread on Moodle: