Using Forum

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The teacher can set the format of what the student sees under the introduction by selecting the forum type in Forum settings.

Views

A single simple discussion

Students will see the text you have placed in the Forum introduction setting as the first post of the discussion. Below you will find the replies that have been posted. In the example below, the student sees that their reply was rated.

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Student view of "A single simple discussion" forum type

Each person posts one discussion

The view will be basically the same as in the previous case, the only difference being the 'Add a new discussion' option. Viewing a forum page, the student will see the text you have written at the 'Forum introduction' space while creating the forum, and, if there are any, the discussions that have been started.

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Student view of "Each person posts one discussion" forum type

Standard forum for general use

In this forum type, students will see the introduction text in a separate space above the discussion field, in which you will see the information such as the title of the discussion (which means the forum's title), its author, the number of replies and the date of the last post.

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Student view of "Standard forum for general use" forum type

Question and Answer forum

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Student view of "Question and Answer" forum type

In the upper right corner of the home forum screen (above the introduction), the student may see the options the teacher has set for subscriptions to the forum, and the 'Jump to' field, with which you can 'jump' to any part of the course. This is also place where the teacher will find the "Update this forum" button.

See also

• Peer Assessment using a Moodle Forum blog post with screencast

Using Moodle forum discussions:

• Role names showing next to posting photos

Concepts for use in forums

Participation and Scaffolding

Whilst one of the great advantages of e-learning is the flexibility it affords participants, this does not mean that days or weeks should pass without response and discussion in a forum (unless it is appropriate for it to do so). This is perhaps most especially true at the beginning of a course or programme when students and tutors are new to each other and in need of welcome messages/encouragement. Whilst e-learning, and discussions in particular, can support learning that is not always tutor/teacher-centred, your role will be important, especially as an online community begins to develop. It is during these initial stages of introductory material that a group of students can become a community of participants who begin to grow in their understandings of course material and individual contributions to the knowledge construction process.

As the discussions progress and learners become accustomed to the mechanics and the tone of the forums then there are key ways in which your input can be reduced, thereby helping to foster a community that is less dependent on the tutor/teacher. Even then, however, you will probably want to be a presence in the discussions although you may choose to be one of many contributors rather than the font of all wisdom.

Commitment and Participation

Ask yourself if

1. you wish to have involvement in the forum or if you want the students to lead and own the space
2. you want the forum to add value to the face to face environment or have a life of its own in its own right outside the lecture theatre/classroom or seminar room
3. you are prepared to make appropriate contributions to the discussion in order to:
   1. encourage discussion if students are quiet
   2. help shape ideas if students begin to wander off-task
   3. your role will be defined as discussions/a course progresses
   4. you will explicitly but gradually relinquish control of the discussions
   5. you will encourage and support learners to share control of discussions(for example you might ask a learner/group of learners to summarise contributions to a discussion thread/topic or you might ask learners to initiate discussion topics)

Student Centered Forums

With the growing popularity of social networking software like Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and the like, students are leaving schools and coming to Higher and Further Education with a new technological sophistication and with new expectations for communication. And as school, colleges and universities recognise that reflective and life long learning are significant goals in education, student centered learning and the creation of student centered spaces online are also gaining credence in educational settings. We know that effective learning requires access to social and academic networks for both study material and emotional support; as such, online communities can offer a holistic knowledge construction and support mechanism and recognize that affective activity is effective.

Social forums, often called ‘Virtual Cafes’ or ‘Common Rooms’ can be set up for courses or for programmes, depending on the student need. Such spaces provide a common area for students to come together and discuss unlimited topics, including social activities and educational ideas. They are supportive spaces for students, most successful with large first and second year courses where students would not otherwise have the opportunity to communicate with others outside their own tutorial group. It is arguable that students will experience a greater sense of community within and a sense of belonging to an educational institution or individual department having had the experience and convenience of the social forum on their course; this could arguably have implications for retention.

These spaces are typically highly active, especially in first term. Depending on your institution, they are usually self monitored by students, who understand that the same ‘rules’ and ‘netiquette’ that apply to them within any computing space, also apply in Moodle.

The News Forum

Moodle courses automatically generate a News forum which defaults to automatically subscribe all participants in a course. The name of the News Forum can be changed to something more appropriate, such as ‘Important Announcements’ or the like. This is a useful feature and many use this forum in a Moodle course to announce exam dates, times or changes to exams, lectures or seminars, as well as important information about course work throughout a term or special announcements relating to events.

Teacher/Tutor forums

A teacher/tutor-only forum may be added to a course by creating a hidden forum. Teachers are able to view hidden course activities whereas students cannot.

Some forum suggestions to consider

1. If your course is at a distance, if your face to face time is limited, or if you just wish to foster a sense of community in your Moodle course which supplements your face to face course, it is good practice to begin with a welcome or introductory message or thread in one of your forums. This welcome or introduction from you invites participants, for example, to post some specific details to introduce themselves to you and their peers. This can be your icebreaker or you can have an icebreaker separately.
2. If you have two questions for participants to answer, starting the two strands or topics within the forum itself will both help learners to see where to put their responses, and remind them to answer all parts of your question.
3. Remember that you are communicating in an environment that does not have the benefit of verbal tone, eye contact, body language and the like. Careful consideration of your communication is, therefore, necessary.
4. Postings to a forum are always written but they can take different forms and you may wish to consider what form best suits the activity. For instance, you might choose to articulate a form of contribution in order to be explicit. Thus you might say, 'This is a think-aloud forum in which, together, we will try to tease out ideas and possibilities' or 'This is a formal forum in which you are invited to share your ideas on (topic)' and, where you select the latter, you might have already suggested learners plan those ideas offline or in another kind of activity within Moodle.
5. Create a forum where only the teacher can start discussions, but the students can only reply. Each thread you start contains an essay question (or several similar ones). The students make a bullet point plan for the essay and post it as a reply. This works well as a revision strategy as the students can see how others have approached the same task. Once everyone has posted their plan, you can start a discussion as to which plans seem better and why. Creating a scale to use for rating the posts can be useful so that the students can see how helpful other people think their effort were. (Note: At this time, there is no option to hide the "Add new discussion topic" button, so you need to tell your students not to start discussion threads, but to only reply to threads started by the teacher. If you only need one thread, then you can use the "a single simple discussion" format and the "Add new discussion topic" button is not available to the students.)

Grading forums

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The teacher can use the ratings scales to grade student activities in a forum. There are several methods for calculating the grade for a forum that can be found in the Forum settings under grades. There are 5 ways to aggregate ratings automatically to calculate a forum grade for the Gradebook. These include: Average, Max, Min, Count and Sum.

• In older versions of Moodle, only the average aggregate function was available. Teachers often use the Assignment module as a work around in order to manually calculate and then manually give a grade for a specific or all forum activities. The Forum grade would appear in the gradebook as an assignment, called for example "Weather forum participation".

Best Practice and shared discussions

• There are lots of discussions about Forum best use and Forum assessment in the Teaching Strategies Forum http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=41.

• A useful discussion about Forum assessment can be found here http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=66008.

See also

• Using Moodle book Chapter 5: Forums, Chats, and Messaging
• Using Moodle Forum module

Using Moodle forum discussions:

• The philosophy underlying "no editing after 30 minutes"
• Best Practices for grading discussions
• Two Courses, One Forum?
• Using a forum for 1 to 1 teaching
• Technicalities of managing a Forum