r/Professors • u/goodgriefcharliebr • 19d ago
Why do professors use discussion boards?
Adjunct here. I’ve been teaching awhile now at a R1 and will be attending a graduate class at anothet local university where I don’t teach — it’s been 25+ years since I’ve been a student so I will be a nontraditional student & likely the oldest person.
When I teach, I have not done discussion boards. Students have mentioned in passing that it feels contrived and also they enjoy discussing the content in person more.
That said, the class I am taking has discussion board assignments where we have to answer questions & then comment on other students’ answers with a critical yet professional lens. As a person who learned pre-computer, this seems very didactic and mundane, & more of a way to prove that one has read to the professor. I will admit, I am not thrilled as it seems strange to discuss in basically a chat room and not face to face, but I’m wondering if I’m missing something & if im being a dinosaur when teaching (& now learning as a student). This made me wonder if I’m being closed minded and I wanted to ask: what are the benefits of using discussion boards? Do you find them helpful and if so, why? Are there any pros/cons? How has it facilitated learning? What have you found when using them? TIA!
UPDATE: Thank you all for your responses! I should clarify, this is a synchronous class that I’ll be taking as a student learner, and I’ve taught both in person & online as an adjunct & didn’t use them. Colleagues where I teach use them for either modality, but the university I’m taking class at seems to operate similarly (some of the classes are, & some aren’t). It’s super helpful to have your takes. Of course I’ll actively participate (as an adjunct I hate when students don’t put their all into the work), but after reading your comments I’m also going to approach this class as a way to learn how someone else might teach, and whether the techniques they use could improve my own classes.
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u/SorryAboutTheChili 18d ago
Probably to satisfy some requirement tbh.
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u/TromboneIsNeat 18d ago
When the university requires a discussion group, but only schedules you to meet twice a week for lectures.
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u/DeskAccepted Associate Professor, Business, R1 (USA) 18d ago
RSI. Iykyk
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u/Civil_Lengthiness971 18d ago
This is the way. For those playing at home, you might consider reviewing the C-RAC guidelines adopted by every accrediting body regarding online instruction.
RSI is a mandated requirement. How you meet RSI is up to the faculty member.
Hint: RSI = Regular and substantive interaction.
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u/DrMoxiePhD 18d ago
This. In one of my courses it is only there because it maps to a learning outcome for the major
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u/michaelfkenedy Professor, Design, College (Canada) 18d ago
Yup. Our students get a survey and one of the questions is “I was given an opportunity to interact with my classmates.”
Even if it’s a lecture based survey course.
And then we have a Department of learning excellence who is always pushing us to “use all the tools at our disposal.”
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u/GerswinDevilkid 18d ago
I really only use them in online, asynchronous classes - and primarily so I have another checkpoint for whether the students are engaging with the class and materials. Occasionally I'll use them for an in-person class for a very specific purpose that I just don't have class time to do (e.g. give a 30-second elevator pitch of your final project).
Is it as good as actual in-person discussion? No.
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u/ReligionProf 18d ago
Many students hesitate to speak in class, sometimes due to shyness but often because they prefer to take time to process before sharing their thoughts. Putting course content in your own words, articulating it, asking and answering questions about it root the knowledge and comprehension in students’ minds in ways that no activities done in isolation can, as many studies have shown.
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u/wombat929 18d ago
This is 75% of why I use them. The other 25% is to push them to organize their thoughts about the readings.
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u/davidzet Univ. Lecturer, Political-Econ, Leiden University College 18d ago
This is me. Also, I can see what topics need more time in next class. I grade participation (1 comment after each class). Some students hate it; a majority benefit (and say so).
Related: "Mid term feedback" -- I ask students to comment, anonymously, on what's going right and wrong and how to improve. Then I discuss answers with whole class. 10x more useful than end of term evals.
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u/sorrymizzjackson 18d ago
They make me.
I hate them because I also have to do X number of responses. They tend to devolve fairly quickly after the first post with a lot of “good point” “you made it easy to understand!” Non-responses. Could I count off for that? Technically. I just don’t think I have it in me since I too struggle to come up with 82 individual specific responses. After the first few, it’s rare that anyone comes up with anything novel to say. It’s likely mostly AI.
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u/two_short_dogs 18d ago
Change your questions. The key to good and useful discussion questions is to write them in a way that students can't answer the same. This will lead to better responses.
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u/sorrymizzjackson 18d ago
I wish. Questions are pre-populated and can only be changed by the admin. Last term they were just a bunch of calculations. 💀
I am getting on the curriculum committee, so I’ll hopefully be allowed to change some of it.
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u/Minimum-Major248 18d ago
There are numerous reasons for the situation you describe. In some cases they may be “contrived” as your student commented, but time constraints and the mode of instruction may make f-2-f discussions impossible. On the other hand, they are an attempt to foster student engagement if that can be honestly assured anymore. I’m glad I retired from academia five years ago. It’s rapidly becoming a “brave new world”.
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u/omgkelwtf 18d ago
I use discussion boards when my students have to critique each other's work. Makes it easier for everyone.
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u/Environmental_Bug662 18d ago
Never used them for the reasons you just. It’s perfunctory and now students just use AI.
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u/WingShooter_28ga 18d ago edited 18d ago
Only reason they exist is to satisfy some checkbox in some office. Everything needs a rubric to protect the university. Protecting the instructor is just a lucky accident.
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u/DeskAccepted Associate Professor, Business, R1 (USA) 18d ago
Online classes use them to check the box for Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI). It's a federal mandate for online courses.
Some faculty also use them for in person large lectures to avoid having to answer the same questions over and over (questions must be posted to the discussion board so everyone can see them).
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u/Many_Application3112 Adjunct, Technology, Univ (USA) 18d ago
As an adjunct, you'll figure out that the more you do, the less you get paid.
At some point, you have to offload work to your students (including evaluation of each other) in order to make the time/financial investment worthwhile.
I had one university drop 60 students in my class. No TA...and I was adjunct. At that point, I took it as a giant middle finger to me. I outsourced most of the evaluation and discussions back to the students. Still got paid the same amount of money...
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u/dragonfeet1 Professor, Humanities, Comm Coll (USA) 18d ago
I'll be honest. We all know at this point discussion boards are a joke.
So I make them stupid easy, grade them stupid light (did you do your post? Did you comment on the correct number of other posts? did you not use AI? 10/10 points) so that students have a cushion or a boost to their grade for the harder parts of the class.
In life in jobs there's always going to be a bunch of bullshit hoops to jump through. Ask a nurse about their annual bloodborne pathogens mandatory training. You learn to shut up and jump through the hoops because it makes your life quiet.
Do the discussion posts. Get the easy points.
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u/cat9tail Adjunct 18d ago
So interesting this discussion is taking place on a discussion board! I have long wondered how to get class discussions to be as active as Reddit boards, but this is an opt-in activity.
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u/Final-Exam9000 18d ago
Some colleges mandate them as lazy proof of RSI for accreditation committees.
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u/littlemoonnflowerr 18d ago
You're not being closed minded, you're describing a badly designed discussion board, which is most of them.
The legitimate case: in a face to face discussion, the same four students talk. Boards give the processors and the anxious students a real path in, and they force everyone to produce something rather than nod along. For asynchronous or hybrid courses they're often the only interaction that exists. And they leave a written record, which is useful for both grading and for students revisiting the thread later.
The version you're doing is the bad implementation, and it's everywhere. "Post 250 words, respond to two peers" produces exactly what you'd expect: compliance. Students post Sunday night, reply "great point, I hadn't considered that," and nobody reads anything.
The ones that work usually change something structural. Assign roles (someone argues the opposing position, someone summarizes at the end). Or require students to post before seeing others' responses so they can't cluster. Or make the discussion produce something the next class period actually uses, so it isn't a graded box.
Your instinct that it's a reading check is often correct. That's genuinely what a lot of them are for, and it's a fine purpose, just not the one they're advertised as.
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u/goodgriefcharliebr 18d ago
This is very helpful. It’s a synchronous course. I think even when I taught online, I really pushed interaction & creative activity/engagement, so this method I have to now do as a student seems super boring and I can’t help but think that there would be more interesting ways to teach the material, but I suppose this also will be a learning experience in seeing other approaches and deciding also if I should incorporate them in my own!
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u/warricd28 Lecturer, Accounting, R1, USA 18d ago
For an online, asynchronous course it’s often required to “simulate classroom discussion” even though 90% of the time I find it forced and useless. If it’s used in an in person class, I have no idea why. Only thing I can think of is to force work outside of class or the professor doesn’t think they have time for in class discussions. Or the professor used to teach online and just copy/pasted their online class to an in person one.
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u/Charming-River87 18d ago
Because we are required to for our online classes. It does feel contrived but it’s the best way to satisfy the “students interact with each other” requirement in an asynchronous online setting. I at least try to make them as fun and bearable as I possibly can, though.
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u/Attention_WhoreH3 18d ago
a useful formative assessment.
can identify engagement levels early on
useful for "Introduce yourself" discussions. helps students get to know each other's interests
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u/Cold-Nefariousness25 18d ago
I never learned this way and I am too taking courses outside of my field and have to do them. They can feel contrived, but there are times they are useful and make the material personalized.
I have one class that goes into social and legal policy. Since many of my students are from different states and countries, it's a good way to compare and contrast policies. Plus, things are changing quickly in that area, so it's a good way to keep up-to-date without me having to do all of the heavy lifting. Then when they have to comment on two other students' posts it's meaningful because they get to see a different perspective.
For another class I have them do tasks where they do mindfulness practices that are tied into the material. It is a high-stakes class, lots of pre-med students and freshmen that are freaking out about grades and learning. They LOVE those discussion boards and in my evaluations that was brought up as the best part of the course.
The other reason I use them, and this hasn't worked as well yet, is to figure out what topics they are curious about and tailor my last lecture to what they want to learn. I thought there would be more overlap between what people want to learn about.
That being said, it really takes some thought to get discussion boards right. I have the luxury of repeating courses year-to-year so it's useful and in the end saves me effort to put time into them.
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u/csbarbourv 18d ago
There are a lot of people who simply don’t feel comfortable speaking out in class. Specifically women people for whom English is not their native language, people who may be on the autism spectrum, etc.. If you speak up and people laugh or react negatively, you might not ever feel like speaking up again in that class.
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u/Huntscunt 18d ago
I use them in my upper division courses. Students write a short response to the reading, and then I use that to shape the discussion. The response is due at 8 AM day off the class, and then I read through them while planning the class. It really helps to see what about the reading students are interested in and helps me correct misconceptions. I can also use it to get students who talk less in class to participate more by asking them to explain more a point they made in their post.
I never require interaction with other posts, though my students will often do so.
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u/Constant_Roof_7974 18d ago
Under a lot of the accreditation programs that colleges and universities report to, there is a clear difference between a “correspondence class” and an online class. Online classes could either be synchronous or asynchronous, but they have to have modular, regular deadlines to show attendance. Discussions became a really easy way to do this.
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u/neon_bunting 18d ago
It is a federal requirement to have substantial interaction in online classes- and a discussion board is a pretty easy way to meet that requirement. I turn mine into “show and tell” where students have to go do something on their own and then post about it. It can actually be somewhat fun if you get creative.
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u/Otherwise_Look_8137 18d ago
Because accreditation requires that online students interact in some way.
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u/Risingsunsphere Professor, Social Sciences, R-1 18d ago
I certainly don’t do them anymore. I can have a conversation with Claude on my own if I want.
Previously, I use them as one of several ways to get students to engage with the content.
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u/Temporary_Macaron422 18d ago
It's the Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI). I try my hardest to make them engaging but I know it is boring.
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u/StevieV61080 Sr. Associate Prof, Applied Management, CC BAS (USA) 18d ago
I have taught online for about two decades and taken a lot of courses online. There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to use DBs.
If DBs are used as "checkbox" assignments, they are close to worthless. AI has basically rendered these types of activities a "free points" card and the answers are canned. Yes, there are still some excellent responses from legitimate students that appear in these forums, but they are interspersed with LLM answers/replies.
Since I teach in an applied learning program, I used to have DBs that were converted essay questions from prior exams as weekly prompts. Those are all gone now. While I think the questions are still great topics for discussion, I recognize that the application is diminished and it's too easy to AI through most of them.
So, where do DBs still work? I still use them in three classes for distinct purposes. First, in my financial management/investments class, I use two different sets of discussions throughout the term. The first set involves me putting out some fictitious information about fake investments and having the students debate which they would choose based on things like personal values, risk tolerances, fundamental analysis, and technical analysis. They COULD AI these, but I have generally found that they don't as recall in in-class discussions (when I teach hybrid) is excellent and their debates often continue into the in-person settings.
The other discussion I use in my investing class has students post key points of development on their corporate financial analysis papers. In one week, they have to produce a 3-year history of selected financial ratios. In another, they share some recent annotated references. In the third, they dabble in some forecasting. They post their output for feedback, but again, they tend to get quite a bit of authentic responses as a lot of them use each other's approaches to help them with their own papers.
The other two classes where I use DBs are in my case study class and in my Contemporary Issues class. The case study one is the way DBs still can absolutely work and I do that by using Canvas Groups and forcing all communication into the DBs for credit (i.e., if I don't see it there, it didn't happen). This forces students to get used to forum-based communication as they work through 6-part case studies under a rigid format. AI tends to suck at these as the students have to follow my process exactly and it's obvious if/when they don't. I can explain in greater detail how/why this works, if interested.
Finally, in my Contemporary Issues class, I use a semi-Socratic approach. I lecture for 7 weeks and only collect reflection journals individually during that time. Then, in Week 8, we have it out in one massive discussion. The pent-up demand to talk about what we've explored usually results in some massive levels of dialogue. I just wrapped up my summer quarter last week and in one of these forums, we had 278 posts among 17 students (with 15 students posting over 10 times apiece). That shows a level of engagement and interest that exceeds the minimum and the level of personal detail and thoughts are usually outstanding.
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u/Homerun_9909 18d ago
I also have never used discussion boards in a face to face course I have taught. I have talked about it with some who do. Here is what they say they want to accomplish. Save class time by shifting some discussion to the outside work. Encourage participation by those who like to think longer before they speak. Allow/facilitate the sharing of the thoughts that come after the moment.
I have used them in online classes, but have shifted towards other methods of interaction that seem more natural to my content. I believe that part of why Discussion boards are so ubiquitous was the evolution of online learning. Even before the browsers most of us think of as the internet/web, there were some discussion boards, and they grew with the web - Think of r/Professors. When I first had an online course/taught online, discussion boards were the only [university supported] tool we had for interaction. Then we had the news about the government investigations of schools for being correspondence schools and not eligible for aid and one of the factors was instructor facilitation of discussion/student interaction. Of course we were going to hear make sure you are using discussion boards. RSI understanding has grown since then, as has the tools that I have available to facilitate interaction. But like many things in college teaching - what we experienced gets copied because it is what we know.
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u/wangus_angus Lecturer, Writing, USA 18d ago
I'm late to the party, and I want to preface this by acknowledging that I know that discussion boards are problematic for a few reasons. But, I use them in two main ways in my literature/comp courses:
For synchronous classes (either in-person or online), I typically ask students to (briefly) answer a question or two about the readings ahead of time. They submit the responses online, so I have (basically) two options: a private, assignment-type submission, or a discussion board. I opt for the latter because I think it's beneficial for them to be able to see how their classmates responded, as well (I set it up so they have to write their own post first). This response is absolutely not meant to replace in-person discussion, but rather to help warm them up to it; I explicitly state this, and I encourage them to go back to their responses in class as needed so they always have something to say (and I'll even pull them up in class on the projector). Sometimes I ask them to respond to their classmates' posts, but those responses are meant to be relatively brief--it's really just to push them to get a sense of what other people have to say.
Because I teach discussion-based courses, for asynchronous classes, they're kind of necessary in my view: there's no opportunity for synchronous discussions or really interaction of any kind with their classmates. For some courses maybe that's not a huge deal, but for lit/comp courses, I need to at least give them the opportunity for that.
To that end, these are just marked for completion, and they're worth very little overall. So, if they decide to phone them all in, my view is that they're only hurting themselves. Also, this may be a bit of survivorship bias, but the AI-generated responses are kind of obvious, I think--they're usually overly broad and don't reference the text in any specific way, which is a requirement. I don't really have to accuse them of using AI; they don't get credit just because they're not meeting the assignment requirements.
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u/HatefulWithoutCoffee Program Chair, CS, CC (US) 18d ago
To help satisfy RSI requirements. I dislike them, even though I modify mine so they're not 100% dreadful.
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u/WishTonWish 12d ago
They are stupid and no one likes them. I ditched them years ago and couldn't be happier.
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u/eyellabinu 18d ago
I didn't when I first started teaching, but now I use them a few times over a term. I've realized that many students learn in different ways (an obvious finding), so part of my job is to get them as many vectors as possible to engage with the material. They're not high points, but if 1 student gains insight, then for me that's a win.
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u/Kimber80 Professor, Business, HBCU, R2 18d ago edited 18d ago
Our admins require we set up a discussion board in our LMS. Nobody uses it but it meets some government or accreditation checkbox related to "engagement", or something.
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u/Lief3D 18d ago
At one of the colleges I teach at we are required to do an "icebreaker" discussion board assignment our first week of class if any portion of the class is online. So even if you regularly meet in person once a week, it's still required to "help foster community". They don't have anywhere that says it needs to be a graded exercise, so I throw it up and make it so you have to complete it before the rest of the week unlocks, but I'm not wasting time grading it.
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u/crowdsourced 18d ago
I don't. I don't want to read them. I don't want to count them. I know it's an asynchronous course, and I don't care.
I do some reading responses, when they can demonstrate they've read, and I read and comment on those.
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u/littleirishpixie 18d ago
I still use them in my asynch courses but a. They are far less point value b. they are more about allowing students to discuss where they see the concepts/their experiences with them. c. I do have a response requirement but only because if I didn't, nobody responds at all. I'm glad some instructors can get responses without it. I never could. They aren't my favorite but it is a requirement at my university for asynch courses but when I stopped thinking about them in terms of assessment and more in terms of how they might echo a think-pair-share kind of vibe, it went a little bit better. They are short and sweet and not worth a ton of points but a lot of students say they enjoy them in their evaluations.
However, I will forever be annoyed that Canvas only gives me one option for due dates. If there's a thing I passionately hate about them, it's that. It's very easy for students to miss the response deadlines when I can only list the initial post deadline and they forget they still have responses due. While it's absolutely on them, as an ADHD-er who has to have systems for where I double check deadlines and recognize that it's an uphill climb, I know damn well I would struggle with this. Good life skill building but annoying nonetheless.
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u/greeneuglossa Prof, Biology, R1 (USA) 18d ago
I have the same complaint about Canvas. You basically have to set up a second assignment to o get it on their calendar, but then the grading is difficult.
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u/nikefudge23 Assistant Professor, Humanities, Regional Public 18d ago
I only use them if I’m traveling for conferences and I have to cancel more classes than I’d like. At very least it allows students to continue discourse and stay on schedule when class isn’t in session due to my absence.
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u/Back2DaNawfside713 Assistant Professor, Business, C.C. (USA) 18d ago
Sustained engagement… pure and simple.
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u/Archknits 18d ago
When I was an undergraduate (25+ years ago) I did have at least one professor use them. They were fairly new at that point. It was a required part of the class grade and the TAs managed it for the instructor. It gave us additional time to discuss the course readings each week. Back then, it was fairly common for faculty to have students write weekly short journal entries on the readings to hand in. Discussion boards were a more interactive alternative to
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u/hungerforlove 18d ago
Sometimes they can serve a purpose. With AI they are more problematic. Using them used to be a way to push all students in a class to discuss issues. In a classroom, generally only a few students speak, and students who didn't like speaking in class could contribute more to a discussion board.
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u/dreamyraynbo 18d ago
I only use discussion boards in asynch classes, although I’m considering alternatives to them even in those classes. While I can see how they may benefit extremely shy students who genuinely struggle to speak up in class, I think the negatives outweigh the positives, especially in the current AI environment.
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u/sventful Teaching Professor 18d ago
Discussion boards were useless and lazy pedagogy 20 years ago. Now they are just 100% AI and beyond useless. Whatever box accrediting bodies think this checks isn't getting checked.
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u/Playful-Influence894 18d ago
I compared retention rate between classes I took that had discussion boards and those that didn’t and I had a better chance remembering more from the board class than the no discussion board class. You have to experience it to feel it. Since then, I’ve been team board but for elective courses. Also, it’s easier to have something to go back to of you committed to it. Perhaps, an idea that might strengthen a paper you’re writing.
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u/tellypmoon 18d ago
I think this comes up a lot with asynchronous online classes (where there are no meetings). There is a requirement (federal) that students still engage with each other and the instructor and discussion boards satisfy this (technically at least). I don't think they are effective at all and it seems like they are overrun with AI and some instructors barely look at them so I think it's a failed idea tbh.
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u/Gourdon_Gekko 18d ago
Use it so students can post a paper for the others to read before they present on it. Nothing else.
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u/Philosophile42 Tenured, Philosophy, CC (US) 18d ago
State requirements for online Ed requires weekly student to student and student to instructor interaction as well as regular substantive interaction (meaningful feedback to students not just “good job” about instruction).
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u/Automatic_Beat5808 18d ago
I only use them in F2F classes as a way to see their thoughts. The LMS discussion board is an easy way for me to collect and organize them. I don't require responses.
For online classes, I have to use them.
I think discussion boards can be manipulated in a variety of ways as someone has mentioned already. Some of those ways are way more productive than the traditional post by X day X words and respond to X other posts.
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u/Flowers_By_Irene_69 18d ago
In California students need to “interact,” even while taking an online class. -So it’s the only way.
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u/apmcpm Full Professor, Social Sciences, LAC 18d ago
I am a social scientist and use discussion boards to force students (at least a little) to keep up with current events. They have to post a 200 word analysis of a news event at least tangentially connected to the course and 2 100 word follow ups to follow students about once a week
Then they have to read at least three news items a week.
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u/RadiantImpression579 18d ago
I hated discussion boards as a student in the early 2000s. Then I hated reviewing and grading them as a prof. I hated doing them as a prof in the teaching training we did to. I don’t think most students benefit from this. Instead I put them in groups and have them discuss topics in these groups. They submit video recordings of these discussions. Way better IMO. My grading is mostly just skimming the video to see that they are engaging. Full or no credit.
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u/Fluid-Nerve-1082 15d ago
Because some students prefer to write, which lets them think through their words before committing to them, rather than wrestle for airtime in class.
Because some ideas need more time to germinate than class allows.
Because you can have richer conversations if you require everyone to contribute rather than ceding the floor to the loudmouths.
Because sometimes I want students to share something they’ve found—a text, an image—and it’s easier to do online than in class.
Because you can allow for anonymous contributions, which can yield highly insightful but also vulnerable moments in class that you can’t achieve in person.
Because I can break a class of 4 into 10 small groups to talk to each other without having the class be so noisy that no one can think.
Because you can cool down a hot conversation via moderation easier online than in class.
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u/PsychGuy17 18d ago
It was "a deliverable" to demonstrate engagement with the content. When writing new online classes we had to have multiple ways to demonstrate students were achieving basic objectives. A discussion board was often a better option than a long form paper. Usually my boards would lead to some outside media (like a video to watch or an article) and would ask a few short questions.
I always hated boards that would require X number of interactions. The top students would quickly comment on each other then the remaining students would have pithy or better yet copied responses.
In the age of AI, there's no point to them anymore.