Discussion Boards for Teaching

Pros
+ Students can enter discussion boards at home and continue their learning outside school
+ Students can learn from each other and help each other succeed
+ Teachers can follow students progress without being intrusive
+ Introduces students to on-line communication
+ Can give teacher control of the discussions by being the administrator
+ Can allow teacher to remove inappropriate content that you couldn't remove if it were a blog

Cons
- Students can get distracted easily on computers with other functions
- Students could misuse discussion board: personal chat, cheating, cyber bullying
- Teacher could over use discussion board and lose real life hands on learning
- Students could mislead each other in projects or make group errors that effect the class
- Students may become dependent on technology for learning and interacting
- Could remove teacher from learning process too much


Five ways to enhance learning with discussion boards:

1. Set up a general class discussion board in the first week of class so that students can interact and learn; have students be required to make posts at certain intervals to prompt use.

2. Make sure to supervise and observe all content and interactions on the site while not intruding on the students; make it a safe and enjoyable place to interact and learn.

3. Set up a new thread for every major project or test. This way you can help guide their discussion topics.

4. Post things that interest your students to prompt use of the site: links, videos, games, pictures, etc.

5. Post things that will help your students learn: examples of work, links to helpful websites, educational programs, diagrams or text to further learn of subjects being covered, etc.