Research indicates that students learn best when they feel engaged with both their classmates and their professor. For instructors, this means interacting regularly with online students in class discussions: reinforcing ideas, introducing additional resources, encouraging robust dialogue, keeping discussions on track… all without discouraging interaction among peers, of course!
Reading student posts
- Click on Forums tool in left-hand menu
- Click on “Disc1” (or other) title to open topic
- At top of screen, click Display Message Content button
- Scroll down to read all messages
- When all are read, scroll back to the top and click button: Mark All as Read
Responding
- Now you should respond either:
- To a specific student’s post
- Find the post to which you are responding
- Click the Reply link to the right of the student’s name
- Type your response
- Click Post button at bottom of screen
- NOTE: this will be clearly a response to that student, but all students can read it
- To the entire group’s postings so far
- Click the Start a New Conversation button at the top of the read messages
- Type a title and message body
- Scroll down and click Post button
- To a specific student’s post
You may want to also explore How do I grade discussions?