I have heard tales of the discussion board post as a graded assignment in classes. Often these classes are online, and so the discussion board is meant to take the place of actual out loud verbal interaction between teachers and students, and between students and their classmates. I’ve also heard of these being used to supplement in class discussions for humanities and social science classes. It’s not a brand new idea. 

Context

I tried using mandatory online discussions in an intro to proof-writing course, which my institution calls “Transition to Advanced Mathematics.” 

• The prerequisites for the course are Calculus 2 and Linear Algebra. Only a few of the students in this class actually met the prerequisites. Some were taking Calculus 2 concurrently; some were taking Calculus 1 concurrently! 
• All students in the course were math majors or math minors. Often a class like this is “Discrete Mathematics” and it simultaneously serves math and computer science students. We don’t have a computer science major at our institution so this course is pure math, and only for (aspiring) math students. 
• There were fewer than 15 students in the course. 
• The students were all highly motivated to do well in the course. They wanted to take it, they had to take it for their major/minor, and it’s only offered every other year so they really only get one chance. 

This is the first “real” math course that our students take. It’s definitely the first course they take that is primarily theoretical. So, they need a lot of practice writing. I gave graded homework and exams in the class, but I felt like they needed something else. Enter the discussion board. 

In Practice

I divided the class into three groups. Each week, I posted a problem set. One group would be responsible for writing and posting solutions to the problems (one problem per person), one group would be responsible for replying to the posts the first group made (asking a question or making a suggestion for improvement), and the remaining group would have the week off. The next week the groups would rotate responsibilities. 

Preliminary Results

I think overall it worked very well and it fulfilled the basic goals I had for the activity. The students got extra practice reading and writing and critiquing mathematics. They got to learn from each other instead of only seeing MY writing all the time. They got to help each other, instead of only hearing MY feedback all the time. It gave them some easy grades, because I graded the posts on effort not on correctness of the writing. They had a low stakes assignment where they could fall flat on their face, but pick themselves up, learn from it, and their grade wouldn’t suffer. 

For what it’s worth… Online discussions always carry some risk of “trolling” but that didn’t happen at all with this group of students. 

Lessons Learned

I would definitely do this with this course again. In fact, I would be tempted to integrate discussion board posting into any advanced undergraduate math course in the future. Getting feedback on writing is crucial for students, including mathematical writing. 

I wouldn’t even change my strategy/approach that much. I’d just like to close the loop and bring the discussion back into the classroom at the end of the week. I’d always intended to do this, but I just didn’t make time for it the first time around. It’s also delicate, because you don’t want to keep calling out students’ mistakes in front of the class. Mistakes are learning opportunities, but not every student will appreciate their stumbling with material being made into a “learning opportunity” for the masses. I’m sure I could find a way around this concern, but it’ll take some thought and planning.