How To: Discussions
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How To: Discussions
Setting up your discussions for peak engagement takes a bit of time and thought. Look at these two examples in the image below:
As you can see, the instructor is giving specific instructions and is stating her expectations in the actual prompt. Students will not only know what they are supposed to do to be successful but they have access to resources to go along with the specific questions.
When writing your discussion questions, you should aim for open ended questions that will result in a variety of answers from your students.
Why are open-ended questions so important?
- They require a person to pause, think, and reflect.
- Answers include personal feelings, opinions, or ideas about a subject.
- The control of the conversation switches from the person asking the question to the person being asked the question. It begins an exchange between the teacher and the student. If the control of the conversation stays with the teacher, you are asking closed-ended questions.
Open-ended questions begin in very specific ways, using words such as:
why, how, what, describe, tell me about..., or what do you think about...
Take a look at some of these examples taken from one of our online courses: