Online Facilitator's Training

Techniques to foster engagement in discussion forums

• Post the first question to break the ice.
• Ask questions that are more straightforward to start with. Sometimes this can help students become comfortable with responding in an online setting.
• Use warm and friendly language tone to create a ‘low-risk’ environment.
• Introduce team work to foster sense of community.
• Encourage participants to evaluate not just their own but their peers contributions to promote a learner-centred approach.
• Create focus by offering short term goals and provide constructive feedback.
• Craft online discussion questions, not essay topics. Examples include probing into case studies, discussing controversial statements and applying principles/theories in new scenarios.
• Build the discussion by asking participants to expand on their responses based on their particular situations, needs, interests, and abilities.
• Respond to students’ posts within a consistent and reasonable time frame so that students are aware of your presence and active participation.
• Summarise ideas and conversations in order to refocus discussions, remind students of their learning journey, and imprint new information and knowledge.
• Moderate when there are negative influences, such as bad netiquette, non-contributions and monopolies.
• Consider assigning a grade for participation, or making use of the Activity Completion setting to restrict access to future learning resources on the condition of completion.
• Archive outdated discussion, for example by setting expiration date in order to provide a focus to the live discussion boards.

(City University London - CC BY SA)