Introduction

Online discussion boards are a common means of communication in online, blended, and hybrid courses, but they are also a tool used to enhance teaching and learning in a variety of contexts. Use the activities and resources on this page to identify important pedagogical recommendations for effective discussions and to learn the steps for creating and managing discussions in your course.

Recommendations for facilitating online discussions

Visit our Discussions site to explore pedagogical principles and recommendations to help you facilitate effective online discussions:

Discussions site

Find additional tips and guidelines for writing effective discussion questions (from Stanford University's Center for Teaching and Learning):

Designing effective discussion questions

Create a discussion in your course

Practice creating a discussion thread in your Canvas development site by following the steps in any of the resources below; choose to view video or text-based tutorials depending on your personal learning preference.

The first video below introduces Canvas discussions, and the second video includes the steps for creating discussions. The document that follows includes the same steps for creating discussions in your course, but in a text-based format:

Discussions Overview (8 min)

Discussion Creation (5 min)

How do I create a discussion as an instructor?

Follow the steps in the tutorials below if you would like to allow students to attach files to their discussion posts, create their own course discussions, or edit and delete their own discussion posts:

How do I allow students to attach files to a course discussion?

How do I allow students to create a course discussion?

How do I allow students to edit and delete their own discussion posts in a course?

Manage course discussions

Read this tutorial to learn how to monitor and manage discussions in your course:

How do I use the discussions index page?

Click the Next ▶ button in the lower right to continue.