In most cases online discussion questions in online courses fall into one of two categories. They are either essay posts, or true discussions. At Belhaven, the former is the typical format.
For either format, student engagement in the course and satisfaction with the course and the Instructor is increased when Instructors post responses to student posts. Obviously, posting a response to every post is unrealistic and is actually less meaningful than purposeful responses. Ideally, we would like to see Instructors respond to student posts in three ways:
- If the student’s post is excellent, then responding to that, especially pointing out any parts that were particularly on the mark can have a powerful effect in encouraging students and reinforcing engagement overall.
- If the student’s post is off-target or just plain wrong, then posting a response is a necessity to keep the student from assuming that since you didn’t reply they must have done OK. In this case, the best response is to post a question that has the effect of directing the student toward the right answer or thought process. Alternately, but less beneficial, the response should point out the error and provide the correct information.
- Finally, and this one should be a regular practice, the Instructor posts a reply to the discussion at the end of the week. This can be a recap of the discussion posts, pulling out the best comments from different students, but should at least contain a response that reinforces the correct information for that discussion post.
In some cases, the discussion question is reflective rather than asking for an answer to a specific question. Even in these cases, the Instructor’s engagement in the discussion has a positive effect on student engagement.
I know you are teaching because you care. Since we aren’t policing Instructor responses to discussion posts it might seem like this is an area where you can slide. While there are some who do that, those who are taking their role seriously do not. Just checking the post responses for the last few weeks it is clear to me that more than half of those teaching are making an effort to engage with their students in the discussion posts. I’d love to see that number climb to 100%.
Blessings,
Rick