Did you know that allowing for discussions, whether in a classroom or in content, precipitates critical thinking?
Use Case Information
The Thought Industries Discussion Board page type allows you to encourage communication at specific points within a course, normally based on something just learned. When building native Thought Industries courses content, you have the option to turn on the discussion for ALL pages in your course or optionally, just on a specific page.
When creating a discussion board page, it's important to include some sort of prompt that the learners can respond to. Don't worry, comments are only visible to other learners within that course. Should you be concerned about supervising discussions, there are various manager roles in your platform who have the ability to moderate and respond to learners' questions.
How To Incorporate a Discussion In Your Course
Please follow the below steps to configure the Discussion Boards page type within your course:
Here's How to Configure Discussions On One Page In Your Course:
- From your homepage, select Courses > All Courses.
- Click the Content Title for to the course you want to alter.
- Within the course outline, go to the lesson where you'd like to add a discussion board page.
- Click the plus sign in your course outline > hover over the Add Page icon and click.
- Choose the Discussion Board page type.
- Add a page title.
- Click Save.
- Enter the discussion board prompt using the text editor. Note that you can add images, text, headers, etc. to appear above the discussion board.
- You also have these options under Advanced Settings:
- Unlocking for editing by children? - This offers Panorama roles, who have the permission, to edit this page in your course.
- Indentation Level - This allows for the syllabus in the course menu to be indented. When enabled, you can nest pages under each other.
- # of seconds required for completion - Number of seconds required to mark this page as complete. If set, the learner must remain on the page (without refreshing or going to another page) for the number of seconds specified in order to be marked complete.
- Audio Narration File - Although it is not system functionality to record audio in the platform, you can upload audio files.
- Click Save.
Admin View: configuration for Discussion Board on a single page in a course
The Indentation Level is behind a feature flag.
This allows for the syllabus in the course menu to be indented. When enabled, you can nest pages under each other.
Here's How to Configure Discussions On All Pages In Your Course:
- From your homepage, select Courses > All Courses.
- Click the Content Title for to the course you want to alter.
- Within the course outline, go to the lesson where you'd like to add a discussion board page.
-
Click the plus sign in your course outline > hover over the Add Page icon and click.
- Choose the Discussion Board page type.
- Add a page title.
- Click Save.
- Enter the discussion board prompt using the text editor. Note that you can add images, text, headers, etc. to appear above the discussion board.
- Within the Content step, click on the paperclip icon in the left margin.
- Click the Discussions tab and toggle Discussion Enabled to "Yes". By doing so, learners can create or join discussion boards at the bottom of each course page.
- Once Discussions are enabled, you then have a choice to display their discussions in the Tile view or Thread view.
- Another option is to Enable 'liking' of discussion comments?
Admin View: configuration for Discussion Board on all pages in a course
Setting Parameters for Discussions
If discussions are enabled, you also have the option to display discussion rules that learners would see before posting a new thread. To create rules for discussion, please follow the steps below:
- From your homepage, select Courses > All Courses.
- Select Settings > Organization & Display, and scroll down the page.
- In the Discussion Rules text box editor, create the parameters and rules in order for your learners to participate in a Discussion in your course.
- These rules will display for your learners upon them participating in a new discussion thread in your course.
Admin View:
Learner View