Online learning has driven more traffic than ever to discussion boards such as Piazza. I’ve had a lot of success with mine – one of my favourite things from this term is how kind and helpful my students are to each other. I know not everyone has the same experience so I wanted to share how I create the conditions for meaningful and productive interaction. Hopefully these tips can help you get the most out of your online discussion forum of choice.
For context, this is a large (~500 students) required introductory course in probability with fully asynchronous delivery.
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Reinforce course material with thought questions
One thing that worked really well to drive traffic to the discussion board was a few weekly “thought questions” on the course material. I used questions that I would normally ask in class (as clicker questions or just a show of hands) and wrote them up as Piazza polls. Students could see the distribution of how other students voted *only after* they voted themselves, and then if they had questions or uncertainties about the correct response they could ask in the follow-up discussion area. The polls never close, so if someone gets behind in the material, they can still answer the questions from previous weeks as they catch up or review for a test. Occasionally I would ask a more open-ended thought question (such as How can probability be used in the world? What’s the most interesting/surprising thing you have learned so far? What are your goals for Reading Week?)
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Let the students answer each other
I made a point for all the course staff (instructors and TAs) to not answer students’ questions about the course material, only administrative questions that only we can answer. I wanted to leave the opportunity for students to answer each other, since explaining things to others is a great way to solidify their own learning, and often an explanation from a peer makes more sense. We do allow students to post privately (for example, if they have a question about a quiz or assignment where we don’t want them sharing with others) and instructors/TAs answer those questions. That also cuts down on email since we refer all questions to Piazza other than personal ones.
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Reward participation with grades
We had 5% of the final grade come from participation on Piazza, or you could do it as a bonus. There are sometimes concerns about requiring participation (particularly from students who don’t feel the need to ask questions) so we have multiple ways students can fulfill this component: asking questions, answering others’ questions, responding to thought question polls, and responding to open-ended thought questions. With so many options to engage, all students have opportunities to do so and each can get what they need from the experience.
I’ve been overwhelmed this term with how well students are engaging with the material and each other. Good luck and I hope you can have similar success!
