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Tips for using forums

Forum posts can either be a very effective tool for student communication and engagement or can potentially fall flat. It is one of the harder types of activities to get the right engagement balance. Having too many forums can be difficult to navigate and students lose focus and become confused on where to post. Having none at all can leave no space for asynchronous communication in your Moodle unit.

For forums to be successful they need to feel relevant and meaningful to students. The forum discussion needs to be centered around collaboration as a means to deeper understanding. Get students to build on what others are saying and advance the discussion.

Here are some considerations to help you set up more effective forum activities.

The first step is deciding how you want students to engage in a forum and what purpose it serves. Simply having a general Forum area for students to ask questions may not be enough to garner engagement. It is important to get students to add value to discussions. Here are some questions to consider:
- What does a student need to do in order to post? Do they need to do a reading, review a student's post, do some reflection, attend a synchronous session or something else prior to posting?
- Will the forum be used for students to share original ideas on a topic or project? Or to discuss a topic or to ask/answer questions?
- Do students need to justify or support their arguments with references and examples?
- Will it be used for students to provide peer feedback on other students’ posts or shared work?
- Will students be placed in a group to post or will they be asked to post individually in the larger class? (This will depend on your cohort size. If in a large class you may want to break up discussion boards into smaller groups.)
Remember that you will also need to factor in your marking load and time commitment in contributing to these posts for it to add value and be manageable.
Once you have figured out what you want students to do and the purpose, then you need to figure out what level of engagement is required or suggested. Here are some factors you may need to decide on:
- Will posting in a forum be optional? For example the muddiest points questions.
- Do you require students to answer a specific question in the Q and A forum? If so, how many? Will you set up the questions or do students need to come up with the questions?
- Is it enough to write ‘I agree’ or ‘disagree’ when replying to others?
- Do you require students to post in every forum or selected forums or a choice of a number of forums? This would be relevant if you have forums for every week or topic or if you have multiple forums in your unit.
- Will students be allowed to publish their post contributions all at once or do they need to be spread out over the semester, for example, on a week-to-week basis?
- How will you track completion? Will you use Moodle completion settings or will you manually go through the posts?
- Will students receive a grade for participation or on other criteria?
- Are students allowed to post anonymously?
Remember, whatever you decide, be very clear with students on these requirements and put them in the instructions so they are aware of what is expected of them.
Some research states that providing a grade to a forum can increase engagement in the number of posts and quality of posts. However, make sure that if a grade is provided that it is related to the learning objectives and supports your assessment regime. Simply using it as a participation mark may not lead to the level of participation or discussion you are looking for.
When providing a grade to a forum post, you need to decide what you will be grading. See Forum assessment page for more information on how to do this.
Remember to also consider how you will provide feedback on these posts. It is recommended to use a summary post to close a discussion and highlight interesting ideas. This is especially useful where there is a lot of discussion amongst students.
Once you have structured the activity and know what you expect from students, then you would need to select the appropriate forum type for it to be most beneficial to students. For example, you want to avoid a Q and A forum style if you want students to create their own questions for others to answer. This format is only relevant if you create the questions students must answer. See the overview page to learn the different types of forums.
Inform students about the subscription settings in Moodle so that they can keep track of posts. Students and educators can subscribe to a forum to receive notifications of new forum posts. You can set the subscription mode to optional, forced or auto, or prevent subscription completely.
If notifications are not set up properly, they can quickly become burdensome with too many notifications. That then may make some students turn them off completely or start ignoring them. You want to help students choose the right balance so that they can stay on top of posts and also get notifications on really important topics or announcements. This is also helpful for you as well to help maintain presence.
The final element that can have an impact on student engagement in forums is your own presence. It is important to be active and present in the unit on a regular basis and Moodle Forums are a great way to show you are recognising students' efforts. You can show presence by scaffolding ideas and prompting student responses. You can answer questions that are coming up frequently, whether in the post or by responding to these in a live session. You can private message students who aren’t engaging and encourage them to participate.
There are a variety of ways that you can show your presence. When students know you are engaging in the dialogue they are also more likely to engage themselves. Be mindful of your workload and devise a plan that will work for you in how you show presence. You may advise times that you will be checking the forums, but be wary that this might come to be seen as a chatroom instead. If possible share the load of moderating and responding in forums with your co-teachers.

Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ

Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ

Tips for using forums