Things to have in place when requiring a discussion board in your course:
- Points should be assigned to every required posting
- A rubric should be developed and communicated with your students
- Explicit posting procedures should be communicated to students:
- Naming conventions for posting
- How many classmates they should reply to
- Types of replies that are required
- Be explicit about what students should expect of you in the discussion board
- Summarize and close each discussion once the due date has arrived
- Have students and/or student groups moderate & summarize discussions
Blackboard tools to use:
- Set up threads or forums so that you can grade postings directly from the board.
- Have students rate other students’ responses using the Blackboard star system as well as reply to postings.
- Use the Collect tool to easily combine and read all posts related to a single thread
- Use the Search field to easily find threads with keywords
Question crafting ideas:
- Select an interesting topic, one that gets them thinking and wanting to read other responses.
- Think about questions/discussions that are difficult for student to spontaneously answer/discuss in class.
….And be sure to….
Log into the discussion board daily in order to keep abreast of new postings.
Resources:
Moderating & Facilitating Online Discussions
Developing Discussion Board Ideas for Your Class - worksheet
Another Discussion Board Rubric
Getting Started with Discussion Boards in Blackboard
Doing More with Discussion Boards in Blackboard
175 comments:
Post a Comment