Synchronous Options

Perhaps the most straightforward way to emulate live class discussion is to hold a live meeting virtually via Zoom, UNW's preferred live video conferencing tool. You can meet with your class just like you would in the classroom to provide information and have a discussion. If you have PowerPoint slides that correspond with your lecture, you can open them on your computer and share your screen with students so they can follow along. Zoom allows a feature called Breakout Rooms (not available in Teams). This allows you to break your class into small groups for discussions. You can enter each of the rooms to monitor or participate in the discussions.

Follow the directions below to create a virtual meeting and invite your students.

Whichever method you use, be sure to clearly communicate to students the schedule and expectations for participation, especially if and how any synchronous activities are graded.

Considerations for using Zoom vs Teams

• Accessibility (auto-closed-captioning): If your students could benefit from captioning, consider recording a lecture and posting it on Microsoft Stream. Microsoft Teams has an automatic live captioning capability for Teams meetings.

How do I set up a synchronous class meeting online?

Asynchronous Options

If you planned to have students engage in a discussion, you could create an online discussion forum in Moodle.

Create a Forum

If you were planning an in-class discussion, you can use an online forum to facilitate the discussion. Follow these instructions to create a discussion forum:

1. At the bottom of the current week, add a discussion forum. See Add/Edit Activities & Resources for assistance.
2. Give the forum and name and write the instructions in the Description textbox. It is recommended that you include the following in your instructions:
   1. Purpose: Why are students engaging in this discussion?
   2. Context: How is this related to the week’s topic and reading assignments?
   3. Instructions: What are students doing?
      1. Prompt: Clearly state the open-ended questions that students should discuss.
      2. Participation: Describe the criteria for participating in the forum. For example, “Create your initial post by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday and reply to at least two other students by 11:59 p.m. by Friday.”
      3. Expectations: Clearly state how you expect students to reply to each other. For example, “Compare your analysis to your classmates’. Identify areas where your perspectives align and possibly differ.”
      4. Grading: Describe how this forum will be graded. What criteria count, and what are quality contributions?
3. Contact the Online Learning Office for assistance in incorporating this forum into the gradebook.
4. You can adjust the settings if you wish or leave the default settings.
   • You may want to divide the students into small groups to have the discussion. To learn how to setup a group discussion, see /wiki/spaces/IKB/pages/80282763. 

Ideas for Discussions

1. Reflection: Watch a video or read an article provided by the instructor, and write a reflection about it.
2. Response to inciting article or quote: Instruct students to find an article that discusses a given topic. Then, have them post a link to the article and write a reflection.
3. Open Q&A Forum: Allow students to question their peers and/or instructor about the material that they read this week.
4. Role Play: Invite students to reflect on what they would think or recommend from the perspective of somebody in a situation related to your course content. Exploring the perspectives of fictional people can empower more substantive discussion, since students may hesitate to argue for or against their own or their peers' actual perspectives.
5. Debate: Stir some interest by inviting students to debate an intentionally provocative or contentious quote or statement. Set up the discussion forum ahead of time with a thread/topic for posts defending the statement and a separate thread for posts challenging the statement.
   1. Students first post an argument either defending or challenging the statement, in the respective thread.
   2. Require students to reply to posts in the opposing thread with questions, counterexamples, and rebuttals, while also engaging any replies to their own initial post.
   3. Conclude with a third discussion thread asking students "Reflect on how your thinking on this topic changed or refined from the beginning of the discussion to the end.