Beyond the Vanilla Discussion Forum and Towards More Effective Online Student Engagement and Assessment

By Brian Vatne, Sessional Instructor, University of Victoria

In my early years as an instructor of asynchronous online university courses, I believed that the discussion forum format requiring one post to a discussion prompt, plus one or two mandatory responses to a classmate, should be part of every course. Looking back, I’d now characterize that as a “vanilla” discussion forum format. I took this feature of online courses as a given until one student’s blunt feedback made me reconsider. In his course evaluation, the student said he “hated doing inane, useless discussion posts,” dismissing them as busywork rather than meaningful engagement and learning.

At first I was dismissive of the student’s feedback, but the comment stuck with me. Over time, I admitted to myself that the discussion forum format and assessment method I was using was not always supporting the learning goals of my students.

Discussion forums are widely used in online courses (Horstmanshof & Brownie, 2013; Kipling et al., 2023), and will likely continue to be a commonly used tool in online education. If used well, they can effectively drive collaboration and connection between students and educators.

Too often online courses rely on rigid participation requirements, such as requiring students to respond to a set number of peers, rather than fostering genuine, meaningful dialogue. These forced interactions frequently result in superficial responses (Du et al., 2022) as students post just enough to meet the requirement rather than engage deeply with the material or each other. This realization has driven me to rethink discussion forum design, moving beyond my old model of discussion forums with rigid rules and towards an approach that truly enhances learning and assessment.

In this post, I explore how adult educators can create effective and engaging discussion forums and effective assessment practices in asynchronous online courses. I use insights from education research to examine how forums can provide effective learning experiences and opportunities for deeper learning and feedback rather than just fulfilling a course requirement.

You Need to Know Your Students

To design an effective learning experience, it is important to know your students’ goals, interests, attributes, and motivations. Based on this understanding, you can then design an effective discussion forum format.

Examples of questions that you can ask yourself when assessing the needs and desires of students include (Daffron & Caffarella, 2021):

• What expectations do learners have in terms of learning techniques to be used?

• Do learners have the background and experience to use the techniques? If not, how can the instructor assist with these techniques?

• How does the learning technology influence the usefulness and appropriateness of the instructional techniques?

I have found these questions useful to ask myself when designing a discussion forum approach. In my classes, I often have experienced professionals who expect to be engaged in solving complex problems and who find exchanging perspectives with colleagues rewarding. They also prefer autonomy in how they carry out their communications. I find that using challenging group case studies, where students are expected to work in group discussion forums to solve simulations of real-life problems, is popular with students. Students react well to taking on specified roles and rotating these roles from week-to-week.

It is also important for students to easily see a connection between the course goals and the design of the discussion forum activity (Wilton & Brett, 2020). When students are able to see how their work is building towards a goal for the course, it provides an incentive to engage with their classmates. Instructors need to paint a picture that shows students how their work supports their learning goals.

This approach worked for me; it was specific to the needs and desires of the students who often take the classes I teach. This approach might not work for different types of students so it is important to know the needs of your students before designing a discussion forum format.

Collaboration and Discussion Beyond the Vanilla Discussion Forum Format

Discussion forums can include collaboration and engagement beyond the simple model of having members of a large group each make an initial post to a discussion prompt followed by a mandatory number of responses.

There are many examples of different types of engaging and creative asynchronous online discussion forum-based activities that can support the learning objectives of your students. Below are some examples of activities and the types of learners who might benefit from them:

• The case study: in the first week students are arranged in groups inside a discussion forum. Each group is assigned to take on a case study challenge based on a real-life situation where they are required to assess a situation, jointly develop a solution by the end of the week, and post it in the discussion forum. In week two, members from other groups are required to highlight practices and approaches recommended by other groups that they think are well done (Conrad et al., 2011). This option can be used to support adult learners who need to learn to work in teams of professionals to solve problems.

• Role play: instead of posing questions in a discussion forum without structure and hoping students engage in meaningful learning, assigning roles in a small group discussion forum can enhance the connection between learning and play (Forbes et al., 2024). Specific parts, such as the “discussion leader” who keeps the discussion going and asks clarifying questions, the “storyteller” who uses stories about concepts to make them come alive, the “equity advisor” who reminds people how different segments of a population might experience a topic, and the “eternal optimist” and the “eternal pessimist” who see the good or bad in every idea, can provide all group members with an active role to play. This option may support wider engagement from all members of a group while encouraging students to have fun with their roles (Forbes et al., 2024).

• Peer partner critique: discussion forums can be used to support students working on a project over several weeks by requiring students to provide peer review of the work of other students on select weeks (Conrad et al., 2011). For example, for a final project you might require students to post a project proposal by the halfway point of the course.  Next, you can assign each student to provide feedback on a peer’s proposal based on course concepts and requirements. Three to four weeks later, students could receive another round of feedback from a different peer on a further-developed draft. This approach can be useful for advanced students with strong academic or professional skills that can be applied to provide feedback to others.

These are just a selection of the many possibilities that move beyond using a vanilla discussion forum with rigid posting and responding requirements.

Assessment Supports Learning, Development, and Reflection

Assessment must be aligned with the curriculum, be easy to understand, have strong methods, and be set up to help students improve (Brown, 2011).

There are several options that can be used to support effective assessment of student work:

• Teacher feedback of process or outcome: there is a wide range of literature debating the merits of assessing online discussions. In general, the literature notes that assessment in discussion forums is likely needed at the post-secondary level to incentivize people to engage in the activity. However, there can be different areas of focus for grading. You can assess students on the process they take in the discussions with less of an emphasis on what their contributions are. Grades can be provided throughout the semester so students get some feedback before getting a final grade at the end of the semester (Warrington et al, 2018). Alternatively, teachers can chose to grade the output of a discussion process such as a group-written response to a case study (Forbes et al, 2024).   

• Peer feedback: peer feedback and assessment mechanisms can be used for groups of students with strong professional skills to support each other’s learning. It is important to consider that instructors will need to provide support and easy-to-use assessment criteria. The payoff can be strong in providing students with the opportunity to be both learners and evaluators at the same time. This type of social interaction can build advanced cognitive skills and promote reflecting learning (Wilton & Brett, 2020).

• Self-reflection: journals and other self-reflective writing assignments can be effective methods, especially when used in combination with a case study activity as described above (Wilton & Brett, 2020). This type of assessment approach can support students in not only assessing their own work but also reinforcing what they’ve learned. You can use prompting questions, such as “What surprised you most about the experience?” or “What surprised you least about the experience?”, [AP2] to guide the reflections (Wilton & Brett, p.18).

One common part of all of these options: it needs to be clear to students and instructors what criteria is being used to complete the assessment, along with a strong connection between the course objectives, the learning activity, and how it is being evaluated (Brown, 2017).

Summing It All Up

• Know your students: understand who your learners are by getting to know their backgrounds, learning goals, and interests. From there you can tailor discussions forums that provide meaningful learning experiences that help them reach their learning goals.

• Design with purpose and share the why: discussion forum design can’t be an afterthought. Align the approach with course objectives and clearly explain to students how participation supports their success.

• Be creative with structure and roles: go beyond the standard post-and-reply model. Use case studies, role-play, or small-group tasks to encourage deeper engagement and collaboration, but be sure not to make the activities too complicated.

• Make assessment meaningful: grading forums are often necessary to incentivize engagement, but it must be done right. Use feedback to guide students and support learning, and consider using approaches that encourage students to assess their own engagement and learning outcomes.

References

Brown, G. (2017). Assessment of Student Achievement. New York: Routledge. Chapter 2 “Embedding Assessment Within Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning”

Conrad, R.-M., Donaldson, J. A., & ProQuest. (2011). Engaging the online learner activities and resources for creative instruction (Rev. ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Daffron, S. R., & Caffarella, R. S. (2021). Planning programs for adult learners (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Du, Z., Wang, F., Wang, S., & Xiao, X. (2022). Enhancing Learner Participation in online discussion forums in Massive Open Online Courses: The role of mandatory participation. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 819640

Forbes, D., Daly, N., & Li, L. (2024). Designing Discussion for Online and Blended Courses : A Forum for Learning in Higher Education (1st ed. 2024.). Springer Nature Singapore.

Horstmanshof, L., & Brownie, S. (2013). A scaffolded approach to Discussion Board use for formative assessment of academic writing skills. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(1), 61–73.

Kipling, R. P., Stiles, W. A. V., de Andrade-Lima, M., MacKintosh, N., Roberts, M. W., Williams, C. L., Wootton-Beard, P. C., & Watson-Jones, S. J. (2023). Interaction in online postgraduate learning: what makes a good forum? Distance Education, 44(1), 162–189.

Warrington, A., Graeber, L., White, H., Saxton, J. (2018). Finding value in the process: Student empowerment through self assessment. English Journal. 107 (3), pp.32-38

Wilton, L., & Brett, C. (2020). Handbook of research on online discussion-based teaching methods. Information Science Reference.