Creating a Discussion Forum

Creating a Discussion Forum Forum is Moodle’s most popular feature. Create a discussion forum to engage students. What’s covered in this tutorial (Cli...
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Creating a Discussion Forum Forum is Moodle’s most popular feature. Create a discussion forum to engage students. What’s covered in this tutorial (Click on the title to jump to the section) What are forums used for? .............................................................................................................. 1 Types of Forums ............................................................................................................................. 1 Creating a Forum ............................................................................................................................ 2 Creating Group Discussions ....................................................................................................... 2 Grading the Forum .......................................................................................................................... 3 Questions? ....................................................................................................................................... 5

What are forums used for? Moodle forums can be used for Q&A, group work, discussions, and more. Some of the popular forum titles include: • • • •

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Post your introduction here Wk.# Reading discussion Post your reflections here Group work area

Any questions about the course? Ask the instructor Student Café

Types of Forums There are 5 forum types you can select when creating a forum. • • • •



A single simple discussion - A single discussion topic which everyone can reply to (cannot be used with separate groups) Each person posts one discussion - Each student can post exactly one new discussion topic, which everyone can then reply to Q and A forum - Students must first post their perspectives before viewing other students' posts Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format - An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time, and in which discussion topics are displayed on one page with "Discuss this topic" links Standard forum for general use - An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time (*Most popular)

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Creating a Forum 1. 2. 3. 4.

Turn editing on. Click ‘Add an activity or resource’. Click ‘Advanced Forum’. Give a name and description.

5. Important settings: • Subscription mode. Subscription is an email notification option for forum updates.

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Optional subscription - Participants can choose whether to be subscribed Forced subscription - Everyone is subscribed and cannot unsubscribe Auto subscription - Everyone is subscribed initially but can choose to unsubscribe at any time Subscription disabled - Subscriptions are not allowed

When read tracking is on, the new forum posts will be highlighted for you.

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Optional - Participants can choose whether to turn tracking on or off On - Tracking is always on Off - Tracking is always off

Creating Group Discussions In the forum settings under Common module settings, select the group mode. You must have

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groups created to use this option. *If you would like to learn how to create groups, see ‘Creating Groups and Groupings’ tutorial document. There are three group modes you can apply. Which are: • • •

No groups - There are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community Separate groups - Each group member can only see their own group, others are invisible Visible groups - Each group member works in one’s own group, but can also see other groups. They are not allowed to post in other groups’ forum.

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If you have a group category such as a Grouping, select the grouping. You can hide the forum until it’s ready by setting ‘Visible’ to ‘Hide’.

Grading the Forum There are many ways to grade a forum. 1. Go to the Forum settings. 2. Under Grade, select the kind of grade type. • None: the forum is not graded • Manual: the forum has to be manually graded by the teacher via the grade book. • Rating: use ratings for generating a grade. Here are some of the commonly used grading methods. •

Giving a single overall grade. With the following settings, you are able to put in a single grade for the overall performance in the Gradebook. Settings:

o Grade Type: Manual o Grade: Out of certain points. Ex. 100, Satisfactory, etc. o Grading Method: Simple direct grading

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Grade by rating the posts. The aggregate type defines how ratings are combined to form the final grade in the gradebook.

o Average of ratings - The mean of all ratings o Count of ratings - The number of rated items becomes the final grade. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade for the activity. o Maximum - The highest rating becomes the final grade o Minimum - The smallest rating becomes the final grade o Sum - All ratings are added together. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade for the activity. Cumulative rating. You can rate each student post and have the average score be the forum grade with the following settings. This way, students need to pay more attention to the quality of their post.

Once you apply this setting, each student post will display a dropdown menu which you can use to easily assign scores. All forum post scores for this student will be averaged out and will be shown in the gradebook.

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Questions? If you are still in need of assistance, do not hesitate to contact the Help Desk. You can reach the Help Desk from Monday to Friday 8am to 7pm. Phone: (973)-596-2900

Location: Student Mall Room 48

Request Help Online: http://ist.njit.edu/support/contactus.php

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