Online forums and discussion boards have a dismal reputation for poor student engagement. If these are used at all, it’s either by a small subset of students or as an administrative app for students to seek clarifications or guidance on assessment tasks. Instead, try combining the power of reflection and peer-engagement in an asynchronous forum activity that encourages your students to present their ideas and actively discuss course content. 

In my 3rd year BIOS3011 Animal Behaviour course I created what is effectively a peer-community reflective activity disguised as a forum Q&A (NB: Rogers 2001 provides a wonderful introduction to reflections in Higher Ed that is still relevant for today's teaching). Students are placed into small study groups (8-10 students) and remain in these study groups for the duration of the course. Video lectures are grouped into modules and students are asked to post 2 questions on each module and answer 2 questions from others in their group. At the close of the module (after 2-3 weeks), I add my own clarifications as additional feedback. You’ll find students will routinely exceed the stated requirements of the activity and engage in extended discussions, often exploring literature outside of the course content.

This ‘Lecture Q&A Forum’ works for a variety of reasons. It allows students to create and choose content to focus on, which improves student agency and intrinsic motivation (Riggs & Linder 2016). Having students generate questions and explain concepts to others, especially in small study groups, is a highly interactive and effective means of deep learning (e.g., Smith et al. 2009; Tanner 2013). It is also hugely popular:

“The online forums were the most helpful learning tool, not only did they help me stay up to date with lectures and content, the collaboration of students & lecturers allowed for extended learning by asking and answering questions.” Example comment from BIOS3011 UNSW myExperience student evaluations.

Further evidence comes from UNSW’s myExperience ratings of a student’s ‘sense of belonging to a learning community’, which historically reached a low of 4.0/6.0 (Learning & Teaching Agree) during traditional face-to-face teaching, but ultimately peaked at 5.7/6.0 when the course was redesigned for exclusive asynchronous online delivery. The Lecture Q&A Forum activity was the centre piece of this online learning community.

You can further maximise the sense of belonging to a learning community by having the opening page of your forum as a mosaic of student "hi, this is me!" introduction videos. First, I get all the educators in my course to post their own video. In my case, I introduce myself using a video recorded on my phone at home (an environment where students are also typically accessing the course). I do this strategically because low-tech video achieves a more personal connection than recording in my office (Pacansky-Brock et al. 2020; Cavanagh 2019), and students are more likely to view me as a real person (Creasman 2014). 

Next, students are asked to upload their own videos to the opening page of the Lecture Q&A Forum to introduce themselves to their study group. Although this is not compulsory, you’ll likely find most of your students will take the time to contribute a video. This will demonstrate that you’ve succeeded in creating a safe and inclusive learning environment for the forum task to follow. 

In my course, the Lecture Q&A Forum functions as both a low-stakes assessment (each post accrues 2% towards a student’s final mark) and a facilitator of peer-feedback. I monitor this feedback and supplement it with my own as a means of quality verification and addressing any comprehension gaps. Students have responded extremely positively, as the active participation of an educator in this activity demonstrates their educator’s interest in their learning.

Here’s a 2 minute video of this TiP:

References:

Cavanagh SR. 2019. How to make your teaching more engaging. The Chronicle of Higher Education, published online 11/3/19.

Creasman, P A 2014. Considerations in online course design. IDEA Paper #52.

Pacansky-Brock M, Smedshammer M, Vincent-Layton K. 2020. Shaping the futures of learning in the digital age: humanizing online teaching to equities higher education. Current Issues in Education 21:1-20

Riggs SA, Linder KE. 2016. Actively engaging students in asynchronous online classes. IDEA Paper #64

Rogers, RR. 2001. Reflection in Higher Education: a concept analysis. Innovative Higher Education 26:37-57.

Smith MK, Wood WB, Adams WK, Wieman C, Knight JK, Guild N, Su TT. 2009. Why peer discussion improves student performance on in-class concept questions. Science 323:122-124.

Tanner KD. 2013. Structure matters: twenty-one teaching strategies to promote student engagement and cultivate classroom equity. Life Sciences Education 12:322-331.