Providing opportunities for dialogue and reflection

3. Forms of discussion

Discussion forums come in many sizes and shapes. The choice depends on your purposes and intended learning outcomes. 

Open discussion

This simplest and most flexible format for discussion is to leave it open to evolve according to how participants want to take it. Maybe you just ask for specific questions or ask students to share their thoughts, and then see where this leads. However, this does not mean the teacher can give up responsibility. Whether or not you as teacher intend to be the primary contributor, you will still  need to initiate the discussion to give it a goal (see Initiating a discussion), and to guide it to useful conclusions. 

Structured discussion

Structure in a discussion can be simple or highly formal. A debate, with potentially many rules about arguments and responses, is one of the most formal structures. But many other structures are possible in Moodle Discussion forums. For example, you can require a certain number of original posts or responses from each participant, or you can restrict them as well. You can be the lead of the discussion, or you can assign responsibility to individual participants or groups to lead discussion for different topics. You might also create a discussion with a specific goal for a final, collaborative conclusion, such as a list or decision. 

Structure might also be based on roles assigned to participants or the teacher. Will the teacher take on a Socratic role and drive discussion toward a predetermined solution? Will participants be assigned various roles, such as devil's advocate, summarizer, synthesizer, etc.?

The size of the discussion group can also determine its outcome. Moodle allows participants to be assigned to groups so that small group discussions can take place. These may stimulate more participation than large group discussions. 

Evaluating discussions

Like all activities, discussion forums can be evaluated for the level of participation and quality of posts, and can contribute to a participant's grade in a course. This capability is discussed more in Unit 5, Design assessments.