How to Use Discussions in your Course
Introduction
Discussions allow instructors to create dynamic asynchronous discussions for their students in Canvas.
Tutorial
303 - Discussions Overview (Instructors) from the Instructure Canvas Community
Discussions are a very flexible tool.
- Graded or ungraded: Choose to use discussions for ungraded conversations - such as a Q & A - or for graded discussions
- Customizable: Require students to submit their work before they see peer work, choose to allow students to edit/delete their posts
Some additional ideas for using Discussions are:
- Don't have to be text-based. Discussion replies are created in the Rich Content Editor, so your prompt and student responses do not have to be limited to only written work. Students can submit podcasts, files, images, audio/video submissions, and more!
- Easy to duplicate Discussions from the selector icon in Modules
- Don't miss a thing by subscribing to individual discussions and be notified if a new post is made
- Add a rubric for clear student expectations and easy grading
Accessibility
If you're teaching a large group and requiring everyone to post to a discussion and reply to others, a discussion forum can quickly become a huge collection of text for someone to sort through. For someone using a screen reader, this can be overwhelming. For larger classes/groups, consider breaking them into smaller discussion groups (just as you would in a face-to-face class/meeting), making it more manageable for everyone to review.
More Info
Need more information? Check out these guides: