Trending in Education: Creating Engaging Discussion Forums (Part 2 of 2)

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In the first article of this series, I talked about the different types of discussion formats available in Moodle. Now, let's discuss 8 ways to create more engaging discussion forums. There are a few must-haves you'll need to make your discussion forums more engaging and at the same time, easier for you to administer.

Here they are:

1 Make topics more relevant to students’ lives.

Students love to engage discussion topics that affect them (or can affect them) in some way. This is true even if it is a topic they’ve never heard of. For instance, this past semester, my class discussed the topic of “geotagging”, which is a technology that attaches geographical information to photos taken on a smartphone. During the discussion, the students expressed that they didn’t know much about this capability on their smartphone. This instantly made the forum information valuable to the students and thus encouraged them to engage more. They were motivated to learn how to protect themselves and their personal photos when sharing them online.

2 Emphasize the discussion topic.

Moodle offers an easy to use editing screen for creating your discussion topics. You can make your discussion forums more interesting looking by adding images, colored text and links. In addition, I like to use catchy forum titles instead of just using the textbook chapter and page number. Doing these things helps students focus quickly on the main idea of the assignment. Below is one of the descriptions for a forum I use each semester. Notice how the colored and underlined text immediately draws students to the topic of the forum.

3 Describe the discussion on the course page.

I use descriptions as a way to “sell” the discussion forums to students. For every forum (and every assignment), I try to answer the question “why is this important?”. The goal is to show students how engaging in this discussion will benefit them in some way.

First, start with a catchy or informative title. Don’t just use the textbook chapter and page number. Next, give students information about what they will do in the forum. This way, students know what the discussion is about and can prepare beforehand. Next, use tip #2 to focus students quickly on the topic of the forum. Finally, always end your descriptions with a “call to action” statement for students.

In the example below, I’ve noted the important pieces of the description that help engage students.

4 Mix up the discussion types.

If your class uses weekly discussion forums, don’t just use the same discussion type week after week. Instead, create discussions with variety such as a simple discussion (post/reply), Q and A, peer review or blog format. Read the first article in this series for the different types of forums in Moodle.
Also, vary the way that you ask questions by making them more provocative or open-ended. Perhaps, let the students pose their own questions instead of just responding to your questions. The peer review and blog discussion types would be good choices for doing this.

5 Setup subscriptions to every discussion forum.

Moodle allows several options for subscribing to each discussion forum you create.

I like to force the subscription for all of my discussion forums. Each week, everyone receives an email notification (to their school email address) for any forum activity. I find that this notification motivates students to participate more regularly in the forums throughout the week. I also encourage students to forward their school emails to their personal emails. This way it is more convenient for them to check forum activity without having to log into their school email.

6 Restrict forum access.

I definitely recommend setting up restricted access to your discussion forums. Restricting access gives students a “psychological nudge” to participate. Knowing that a forum is not “open” all semester encourages students to jump in and start engaging during a forum's assigned week. I find that students will actually engage earlier in the week to keep up instead of waiting until the last minute. This ensures that there is enough activity to make the discussion forum engaging for other students.

7 Include attachments for the forum if needed.

Sometimes, I will include a resource sheet or an article attachment to a forum if it is appropriate. It is better to have students click into the forum and then download the necessary materials in the forum area instead of going to two separate areas on your course site. So, once students are in the discussion forum, they are not distracted by going to multiple places. They can settle into the forum area and engage with the material at hand.

8 Embed video in the forum.

Discussion forums in Moodle are great for "video/followup" learning activities. You can embed a video into the discussion window and then ask a series of specific questions for students to answer. Videos do a good job at engaging students’ because they provoke their senses and emotions. The trick is finding the right instructional videos. Read the article on finding instructional videos for your class for tips on choosing appropriate videos. Once you've chosen the right video to use, create engaging discussion questions that encourage students to apply what they've just learned from watching the video.

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