Instructors of online and hybrid writing courses face an uphill battle of encouraging student engagement in discussion boards. As most instructors realize, recreating in-person interactions via online discussion boards is difficult. While hybrid and synchronous courses have more options for engagement, there is still a need for improving discussion boards for student learning. 

From conversations with seasoned online instructors, we’ve rounded up the top three tactics for cultivating student engagement in discussion boards.

1. Guiding Questions: The level of prescription in assignments is an interesting topic for writing studies. Some instructors want prescriptive assignments so that students hit certain benchmarks, while other instructors, especially those from creative backgrounds, want students to inductively figure out how to craft an assignment submission. Regardless of which camp you fall in, there is a case to be made for providing students with guiding questions in discussion boards. For example, instead of asking students to simply “respond to two peers,” a more prescriptive approach would be to provide guiding questions. Say the discussion board prompt asks students to find and analyze a piece of research. The response requirement could ask students: “How similar are the pieces of research you and your classmate selected? What sources did your peers choose? Why or why not are those sources trustworthy or appropriate for your peer’s purpose and audience?” This approach promotes more metacognitive reflection rather than surface-level responses. 
    
2. Smaller groups: Another approach to fostering student engagement in discussion posts is to divide students into smaller discussion groups. This can be easily done in a few clicks of Canvas. Instead of asking students to follow a large discussion of 25 peers, you can assign smaller groups of say 4-6 students. Ideally, there’s more chance for an actual conversation with less people involved.
    
3. New Technology: While there doesn’t seem to be an ideal technology product for discussion boards, there is some buzz with a program called Harmonize. This education-focused product is meant to be more interactive on mobile devices (think Instagram) than a typical LMS like Canvas. The app boasts easily to schedule due dates or milestones for more frequent engagement, while increasing student and instructor engagement. While currently being used at a handful of institutions (according to the Harmonize website institutions include Brown and University of Michigan), the product can be integrated into LMS’ such as Canvas.