How to manage online discussion boards for online classes

Have a group project due in one of your online classes? Managing a group of students that may be located in different regions and have different schedules may be a challenge. As a survivor of many online classes below find my tips to maximizing the partincipation in your online group

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• email
• patience

1. Make sure everyone is on the same page with the expectations of the assignment and due date. Create a "contact sheet" where each member includes thier name, phone number, IM address, and email address, to maximize communication
2. If the instructor assigns a multi part problem, disect the problem into managemable components and create a discussion topic for each part of the question. Let your group members know via the subject line of the question that the ability to answer that particular part of the question has a deadline.
3. After all the questions have been answered and each member has given feedback. Take time to create a summary for each section, so that each part of the question is answered. Post the summary so others can edit and make revision. Put a deadline.
4. If the instructor requires that students rank or grade the participation level of other students in the group, its easy, simply divide the participation points by the number of question parts and assign a point possibility for each section. For each area a student contributed they earn points for that section.

Tips & Warnings

• Email out an expectation sheet, deadline sheet, and contact info for each student. If the deadline is coming to an end and a student has not participated in the group, email out a summary and cc the instructor before the assigment is due.
• you may come across as a homework natzi, but at least your group will know what is expected of them and things will get done.