How Can Discussion Responses Give Narrative Shape to an Online Class?

Responding in a discussion forum can be a struggle—for instructors and students alike. At its most challenging, it can feel like you’re filling out a form, skimming along the surface, disconnected from any real sense of the direction of the course.

In this 20-Minute Mentor, you’ll discover how you can use your responses to create a narrative for the class—a story that inspires students to move forward by kicking things off with an infusion of humanity. Additionally, you’ll receive guidance on making explicit connections to course and career outcomes, and will finish the program with asking the right questions to spark transformational change.

Learning Goals

After viewing this Magna 20-Minute Mentor, participants will be able to:

• Develop strategies to put an indelible and engaging stamp on the discussion forum
• Establish a larger sense of the discussion-based workflow in the class, and create a series of “context windows” which reflect the student-learner journey
• Consider the different types of questions that can be asked of student learners in discussion responses and create a deployment strategy

Topics Covered

• Connecting with student learners and inspiring them to engage
• Rethinking discussion prompts and recasting them within course and institutional outcomes, and the larger framework of a student learner’s journey
• Asking questions that encourage deeper and more complex levels of critical thinking, but which also launch student learners toward practical applications

Audience

This program will benefit:

• Faculty
• Instructional Designers

Product Code: QM20LA