A powerful tool in our pedagogy toolbox are discussion assignments using Moodle forums as activities.
This presentation demonstrates what they are for, how to configure them for your course, some best practices and warnings.
This presentation is CC-BY-SA, and the PDF may be downloaded. For the original Keynote files contact me.
2. Discussion Activities with Moodle
Discussion Activities
•Discussion activities can be a powerful
pedagogical tool
•Moodle supports this with the forum activity
•This forum can be used for peer discussion
•These discussions can be required
•These discussions can be graded
• But typically perform well without grading!
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3. Example
Deliverable
A discussion activity as a deliverable at the
beginning of my Digital Influence course
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4. Discussion
Forum
Here we see the activity and requirements at
the top, and the student discussions below
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5. Discussion
Thread
Here we see an example thread, with an
original post followed by two replies,
and a reply to a reply
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6. Creating a
Forum Activity
•Click “Turn editing on”
•Click “Add an activity or resource”
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7. Activity Types •Select “Forum”
•Click “Add”
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Discussion
Activity
Some other interesting
uses of Forums
}Select
“Forum”
8. Name &
Description
•Enter a name and description for this
discussion activity
•Describe any discussion requirements
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9. Forum Type
There are many forum types. I prefer the
default “Standard forum for general use”
but several other types are can be useful
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10. Activity
Completion
•Select “Show Activity as complete when
conditions are met, and…
•“Require discussions” & “Require replies”
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11. Subscription &
Tracking
If students or faculty regularly use email to
monitor new forum posts, I recommend
turning on “Forced Subscription” or “Auto”
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12. Viewing Forums Every course has a Forum page. Activity
based forums are listed as “Learning Forums”
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This is why “Forced” or
“Auto” is useful
13. Grading
You can optionally grade forum activities. This setting
will not pass anyone that with post or reply that “Did
not meet expectations” or was late.
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14. No Grading
However, I find that “peer pressure” keeps
the quality of discussion activities high,
thus grading is not required.
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15. Activity
Completion
It is possible to hide other activities until a
discussion activity is complete. This is useful
for a second, deeper discussion!
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16. Best Practices: Posts & Replies
•Minimum 1 post, 2 replies per week
•A challenge is getting replies to late posts
• Ask students to post early
•Remind them the reward is more attention & better feedback!
• Ask for 1 reply at beginning of week, 1 at end
•2 posts (one early, one late) and 3 replies (one
early, two late) also works well
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17. Best Practices: Quantity of Activities
•Too many discussions forum in a course
can be confusing
• …demonstrate course “Forums” list page
• …recommend only 1 or 2 discussion activities
per week
•Too few are too different
• …if you are only going to do this type of
activity only once or twice, just use the general
course forum
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18. Best Practices: Consistency & Clarity
•Be consistent in activity names and
descriptions
• …I use “Readings & Commentary” in the title
of all my discussion activities
•Use colors, bold, or CAPS to highlight
differences from the consistent standard
•Be clear on topic and criteria
• …my students are asked to connect to
sustainability topics and demonstrate
appreciative inquiry
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19. Best Practices: Visible Attention
•Though grading (ratings) are not required,
some evidence that you are participating is
important
•I call this “Visible Attention”
•Try to show you are watching daily
• Appreciate not only good posts or responses,
but good questions
• Clarify questions
• Connect content to rest of course
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20. Best Practices: Presence
•Forums discussion are best when all members
(both students and faculty) offer…
• Social Presence
•Members share personal stories, express emotions—be “real”
• Cognitive Presence
•Members are able to construct and confirm new meaning and
connections from each other
• Teaching Presence
•Members know and support their learning outcomes, and believe that
they are educationally meaningful and worthwhile
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21. Caveats & Warnings
•Discussions stop at end of activity
• …thus can loose energy & synergy if topics are
relevant to the entire course
•Course culture is important
• …if students can see others slacking or “social
loafing”, quality of discussions will go down
•Reward good behavior with attention and appreciation
•Nip problems early and privately
•May not scale with large number of students
• …as it may become too noisy
•I have used it successfully for courses as small as 12 and as large as
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Additional Resources
Forum Module Help
Managing a Moodle course : Activities : Forum module.
(2014, March 25). - MoodleDocs. Retrieved July 29, 2014,
from http://docs.moodle.org/27/en/Forum_module
Tips
DyversHands. (2013, September 24). How to best use Forum
in Moodle courses: Ideas and tips by professionals. .
Retrieved July 29, 2014, from http://www.mulinblog.com/
best-use-forum-moodle-courses-ideas-tips-professionals/
KEYQUOTE: “A compilation of good ideas for using Forum in a Moodle course, edited out of a
discussion thread in Teaching with Moodle: An Introduction, which is a MOOC course offered
by learn.moodle.net and attracted more than 9,000 participants. Many course participants
shared ideas and tips for how they creatively use various tools in a Moodle course.”
Presence
Lehman, R.M. & Conceicao, S.C.O. (2010). Creating a sense
of presence in online teaching: How to “be there” for
distance learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN:
978-0-470-56490-5. http://www.amazon.com/Creating-
Sense-Presence-Online-Teaching/dp/0470564903/
KEYQUOTE: “The importance of creating a sense of presence in online teaching and learning
environments cannot be overestimated. If you think about the basic difference between
learning in the classroom and learning exclusively online, it is the separation of the instruction
from the learner and the learners from each other. This separation often leads to feelings of
isolation on the part of participants and has been a major cause of learner dissatisfaction.
…Our book focuses on the need for creating presence in the online environment, explores the
concept of presence, and address the ways in which the creation of presence can contribute
to more interactive online teaching and learning.”
!
!
Asynchronous Discussion Forums
Andresen, M. A. (2009). Asynchronous discussion forums:
success factors, outcomes, assessments, and
limitations. Educational Technology & Society, 12 (1), 249–
257. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from http://www.ifets.info/
journals/12_1/19.pdf
KEYQUOTE: “It is clear that asynchronous discussion forums can achieve high levels of
learning, but people in decision-making positions must be aware of the conditions for this to
occur. Asynchronous online courses are not a method of displacing instructors. In fact,
because of the nature of successful asynchronous discussion forums, asynchronous online
courses need to be as instructor intensive (instructor to learner ratio) as the traditional
classroom. And in some cases, namely problem-based learning, the asynchronous discussion
forum does not appear to be appropriate. In other words, there is no one size fits all
application of asynchronous online learning. Consequently, asynchronous discussion forums
may form part of a more generalized model of learning—a blended learning approach.
Though some of the early research on asynchronous learning environments, including the
asynchronous discussion forums, has been accused of lacking in both quantity and quality
(see Wegner et al., 1999, Kyounghee Lim, 2001), this is clearly no longer the case, particularly
for the quality of research.”
Moodle Ratings & Grading
Mendes, M. (2012) Best Practices: Using Ratings to Grade
Moodle Forums. Moodlerooms. Retrieved July 29, 2014,
from http://www.moodlerooms.com/resources/blog/best-
practices-using-ratings-grade-moodle-forums
KEYQUOTE: “Teachers will enable ratings so that they can grade participant’s posts based on
the relevance of a response and the level engagement in the discussions. In today’s post, I am
going to highlight how configure a Forum with ratings and discuss the available aggregation
methods.”
Discussion Board Rubrics
Chinn, ?. (2011, April 14). Discussion Board Tips &
Pedagogy. Central Western University. Retrieved July 29,
2014, from http://www.cwu.edu/~media/cwuonline/
factutorials/Bb9_updated_tutorials/
DisBoard_TipsRubricsPed_rev1-11.pdf
KEYQUOTE: “Develop a grading rubric that encourages class discussion, one that makes the
composition of postings pleasant and informative, but also a rubric that is not overwhelming
for the instructor to use when it becomes time to grade.”
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