Using Forum for practice or assessment

1. Introduction

You can use a discussion to engage learners to think more deeply about the learning content and its relevance to them. Task-oriented discussions, in contrast to open discussions which have fewer rules, meet targeted learning outcomes by having more guidelines. Rules can restrict the topics, tell when and how to make contributions, require responses to questions, stimulate debate, or force work toward a planned conclusion or decision.

Unit 3 has already explained how to use Forums to give students opportunities for discussion. In this Book, we will focus on another type of Forum, called Question & Answers Forum (Q&A). In Q&A Forums, students cannot see other students' answers before they themselves answer the question posed by the teacher. They must shared their ideas before reading other students' ideas.