Participating in Online Class Discussions

Posting Your Response: Your response will be measured based on three specific learning
outcomes: communication, critical thinking, and Engagement. Discussion questions gives
you opportunity to demonstrate those outcomes.

Engaging Your Peers in the Discussion: This activity is very important in our class; I call it
“going to the class.” When you log on to the class to complete your discussion and respond
to your peers, you are “going to the class.”

 As such, you should prepare before you go to the class by reading the assigned texts,
and you should come out of the class with news ideas and/or understanding, or
knowing that you have encountered your peers with relevant insights that would help
you show mastery of or emerging competence regarding the outcomes.

 You cannot respond to your peers with just a sentence. You cannot just agree with
your peers or “like” what they have said without establishing with an argument the
basis of the agreement and why you like what they said. Such approach is not
substantive.

o There are a variety of ways to do this, including (generally in some

combination over the course of the discussion or within a posting):
● Providing concrete examples, perhaps from your own experience and
relative to the topic
● Describing possible consequences or implications
● Challenging something that has been posted in the discussion – perhaps by
playing “devil’s advocate”
● Posing a clarifying question
● Suggesting a different perspective or interpretation
● Pulling in related information from other sources – books, articles, websites,
other courses, etc.

 If your peer(s) ask you a question, copy the question, and make it the first part of
your response. By doing that, the class will know the context of your response and
the question you are answering.

 I recommend you respond to more than one of your peers at a time—in one response:
use one response to share your insights about what a few of your peers have said;
responding to two or more students in one flow of engagement, you will have an
opportunity to synthesize what they have said and/or compare/contrast their insights.
You will also have the opportunity to enrich the conversations by generating a dialog
among a group of your peers.

Your participation score for a given discussion exercise will be based on the number
and quality of responses you post to that discussion assignment. Participation will be
evaluated in terms of quality as well as quantity, based on the following
characteristics:

Manifest
Communication: demonstrate clear learning and understanding of the
text with clear and supported insights.

Uses evidence from text to generate, validate, expand, or reflect on

ideas, theories, or arguments
• Synthesizes and evaluates information within or across texts
• Draws insightful and logical conclusions from text
• Raises questions or explores important concepts

Critical Thinking: Utilizes, organizes, and synthesizes information from

sources. The problem or question is clearly addressed
Timely discussion contributions: Posts initial response by the due date
Engagement: Responds to peers to extend the discussion with developed
and critical observations
Language: Adheres to textual support requirements; used required
number of sources and required length of paragraphs;
and maintains college level English

 Sources are consistently and comprehensively integrated. All

sources are appropriately acknowledged.