What is a Discussion Forum?
A forum allows students and teachers to exchange ideas by posting messages asynchronously. Depending on the type of forum in use, posts can generally be read and replied to by all staff and students on a study module.
A forum can contribute significantly to successful communication and community building in an online environment, and be used to encourage discussion around learning activities or materials. They also work well as an accompaniment to collaborative tasks.
The following guide outlines the process for creating a forum in Moodle.
Depending on the activity it can be worthwhile to try and scaffold discussions by providing some form of prompt or questions to be answered. Staff can then facilitate discussions by steering the dialogue back on track if required.