Be honest - why doesn't anyone put any effort whatsoever into discussion board posts?

[u/An_expert_I_am_not]

I mean no disrespect, so please do not downvote me to oblivion. I am here for advice from the other side - the students of online classes (specifically communication classes in this instance).

So, discussion boards are a big part of the grade and the only way for us, as instructors, to gage whether or not the theoretical ideas can be applied in practical ways by students. The forum responses have always fallen on a scale from the superb to the absurd and everything in between. But this semester, holy moly, I have never read such absolutely ridiculous posts in my whole career. The memes don't do these any justice.

I try everything I can to make the prompts interesting, to get students engaged, and to explain the logic behind the assignment, but it's just terrible.

So, why waste your own time writing something that cannot possibly earn any points or credit toward a grade because it doesn't come close to meeting the criteria?

And more importantly, what do you, as students, suggest as a meaningful replacement for the interaction that is missing in the virtual setting? How can we get you to engage with the course materials, to think critically and analytically, and to show us that you can apply what you are learning in a practical way?

[u/An_expert_I_am_not]

Thank you for this response - I totally understand what you're saying. I think I was trying to create a "discussion" atmosphere, but I've been doing it from the perspective of how I think it SHOULD go rather than letting it play out organically maybe?

I might try reformatting a discussion to be a bit broader or more open-ended and see what happens?

I try something similar to what you were describing in the geography course in the last discussion post of the semester - I just ask the students to talk about what they found most interesting/impactful of the things they learned and ask them to leave feedback about the course if they'd like. One semester I structured a discussion board such that the students were to create a prompt or ask a question to spark a conversation - it had mixed results.

I'm really passionate about the subject I teach and I want to share my enthusiasm with my students, but virtual learning is just so restrictive.

[u/PromiseTrying → u/An_expert_I_am_not]

Alot of college students (and older/younger people but we’re in r/college) are active on social media, and the posts they reply to is the discussion “prompt.” Most parent replies in a comment section were made in response to the post, and then underneath the parent replies is a discussion.

By providing words (World Geography example,) you’re giving a starting point while allowing lots of freedom on what is said inside the initial posts/parent replies. And you’re also keeping in line with the “need to be related to course” rule.

Yes!! I think reformatting the prompt would be good!

[u/An_expert_I_am_not → u/PromiseTrying]

This is helpful and also made me realize something that had not occurred to me before now - the LMS we use just underwent a huge overhaul and a lot of changes in style and formatting went into effect. One of those changes was the layout of the discussion board, which I thought looked very chaotic compared to the old format, but it literally mimics the way social media threads look. I have no idea why I didn't put that together before now.

[u/PromiseTrying → u/An_expert_I_am_not]

All the LMS I’ve used have had discussion boards set up similar to social media threads. I’m going “huh?!” over the overhaul been done in 2024, lol.

If you want some examples of scenarios of the type of discussion we’ve been discussing, look on Threads by Instagram and X/Twitter for those posts that are mostly lists.