Using Discussions

Introduction

Large-enrollment classes can pose challenges for managing discussion boards effectively due to the large number of students interacting in threaded or focused conversations and associated difficulties with grading.

On this page, you will find solutions to address these questions:

      1. How can I easily read discussion boards in a large-enrollment class?
      2. How can I efficiently grade discussion board participation?

 

How can I easily read discussion boards in a large-enrollment class?

The visual appearance of the discussion boards in Canvas can pose readability challenges for students and teachers, especially when large numbers of students are interacting with a given discussion or when students are asked to respond multiple times within a given discussion board. Two ways you can help address this problem are: creating a set of standard expectations for student posts and utilizing group discussions.

Standard Format and Length Expectations

Setting standard expectations for how students engage in discussions can help make your course discussions more readable and easier to follow. Here are some examples of the expectations you may choose to convey to your students:

  • Students should accurately title each discussion post with a standardized title format. For example: student name_topic of discussion
  • When responding to an existing post, students should quote the original text they are responding to at the beginning of their response post.
  • Students should limit the length of their posts/responses to a specific number of words or paragraphs.

Group Discussions

Group discussions are self-contained discussions within a group space in your course. If you use student groups in your course, creating group discussions (rather than whole class discussions) can reduce complications since smaller numbers of students will be interacting in each discussion board. You can create the same discussion topics across all student groups or even assign different discussions to each group.

Review this tutorial to learn how to create group discussions in your course:

 

How can I efficiently grade discussion board participation?

Grading discussion boards in a large-enrollment class can be time consuming, but there are some strategies to help reduce the complexity of evaluating student participation in course discussions.

Consider the Number of Posts/Responses Expected

In addition to the standard expectations for formatting discussion posts described above, you may also want to consider how many posts you ask students to submit to a single discussion board/how many times you ask them to respond to classmates within a single discussion. Requiring students to post or respond only once or twice in a given discussion board and creating a larger number of more focused or "chunked" discussion boards can significantly reduce the difficulty/complexity of grading student participation in those discussions.

Use Rubrics

Creating and using a rubric to grade discussion posts makes grading faster and makes expectations and feedback more transparent to your students.

Learn more about creating and using rubrics in the Canvas Learning Path:

NOTE: Visit Communicate and Discuss Module in the Canvas Learning Center for more information and best practices for using discussions in Canvas.