What makes a good online discussion post?

Most teachers know how to moderate a good class discussion. They understand that class discussions serve multiple important instructional purposes, including eliciting student understanding (which supports formative assessment), provides students with multiple perspectives, enables students to learn critical 21st century skills of civil discourse particularly on controversial topics, and enable classes to find consensus that mirrors democratic processes. Good online discussion posts start with a commitment by students to be active contributors to this instructional practice. Failing to be an active participant, including being an active listener,  detracts from each student’s individual learning experience constains learning of the class as a whole.

What online instructors should look for in a good online asynchronous (threaded) discussion

Educational researchers had studied online threaded discussions and characterize different types of posts.

For example, threaded discussion posts have been characterized along the dimensions of social to scholarly and supported vs unsupported.

In a typical class many posts are simply opinions rendered without support and do not extend beyond the information already presented. But more should be expected of graduate students. With that in mind, I provide the following suggestions for contributing to a meaningful and productive online discussion:

• Your post should meet the minimum participation requirements (e.g. all students must post an initial & final thought), PLUS…
• The content of your post should often provoke scholarly responses from instructors, TAs, and peers
• Some posts should provide a summary of long threads to enable continued discussion by those who come in later
• Some posts should pose on-task interesting questions that provoke further replies and comments
• Thoughts and opinions should be supported with links to additional and external resources.
• Some posts should include on-task personal examples or reflections from authentic experiences that provide rich context
• Some posts should bring in cross-thread and cross-module connections and links

Please consider these guidelines when crafting your online and video conference contributions. Your instructors will be looking for this sort of active learning from Master’s level teachers in graduate level courses.