Student Discussions

FirstClass Teaching & Learning Migration

A threaded discussion that you may have had in FirstClass can also be achieved in Blackboard through the use of a "Discussion Board" feature.

My Course -> Discussion Board -> Add Forum

As an instructor for your course, you have the ability to add and modify the discussion forums by clicking the "+ Forum" button.

You can create as many forums as you wish.  Each forum can have separate settings to achieve your learning objective.  Forums can be created to achieve different results such as:

• Conduct a standard open discussion between students
• Restrict the ability for your students to delete what they have posted.
• Allow file attachments so students can hand-in assignments and comment on other students' projects.
• Allow students to start a new topic
• Assess (grade) the forum and link to the Blackboard grading tool (Grade Centre)
• Allow students to make anonymous posts
• Let your students "subscribe" to the forum, which sends them an email every time there is a new post to the thread.

It is a good idea for the course instructor to begin each forum with the initial post in the discussion with suggestions as to how you wish your students to proceed.  This will clarify the direction you want the post to go in.

Below is a display of the various Blackboard Forum options and default settings:

Return to the FirstClass migration menu.