Create a rubric.

It's a simple thing to do, and can go a long way toward helping your students understand how best to engage in online interaction. It will help you, too--you'll have a tool that helps you evaluate the discussion component of an online course and will help you feel less subjective in your approach.

It doesn't have to be complex, but it should be clear. Consider defining words that might be subjective or potentially mis-interpreted. For example, here's a rubric I found from Northeastern University Educational Technology Center. The first line contains two words that I think could be better defined--"insightful" and "on-topic". A simple footnote to the rubric could do the trick.

Make quantity count, too. Here's a rubric format designed by someone at George Mason University. Notice that the rubric contains information about how many times someon should post and when they should do it ("spread out over the week"). Students will complain that they shouldn't have to post just for the sake of posting, and will be incredulous that they're being graded based on how many times they post. If you've created a rubric that includes qualitative criteria as well as quantitative you can tell them that they're mostly being graded on how well they post, but frequent posting is necessary to create a basis for evaluating the quality.

Push for complex, deep, critical thinking. Even with most rubrics encouraging students to post "thoughtful" responses, and to "synthesize" others' posts, the bottom line is that most online discussions remain at a surface level and little critical thinking gets done. Instructors sometimes feel like they can't analyze critical thinking in discussion posts anyway and will leave that for papers or essay questions on exams. Try learning more about how to evaluate critical thinking in online discussions and replace one of your papers with a really deep discussion online. Here's a very good article to get you started. Don't try using the tables in this article as rubrics, though--these are tools for you to begin learning about the complexity and layers of critical thinking in an online discussion. The article does link to a couple more good examples, though.

It's okay to start simple, but one of the best ways to get students--and yourself--thinking about improving the quality and depth of online discussions is to create a rubric that defines what "quality" and "depth" look like.

Do you happen to know of other good examples of online discussion rubrics? Please click "comments" below and share!

Listen to your coach.

If you're just learning to teach online, or even if you've been doing it for a while, it's wise to take advice from someone. Whether you're reading this blog for advice, or you're reading a book about teaching online, or you're working with an instructional designer, or you're simply listening to you're own personal muse--the listening you're doing is important.

As teachers, we get very caught up in the way we like to do things, or the way we've been doing them all along. And for good reason--we are getting caught up in what we know works. We're following our instincts.

But moving to online teaching might mean that our instincts about what works in the classroom don't work as well. Of course, many fundamental teaching instincts do in fact apply to online learning environments. There are new instincts to develop, though.

That's where the listening comes in. You may have been asked to work with an instructional designer to get your course or your teaching techniques ready for online delivery. It may frustrate you to have to work with an instructional designer, given that you've been teaching for a while. Just remember that they're not here to tell you what you don't know--they're here to give you ideas. Listen to those ideas, and seek out others--in books, in professional development opportunities, in blogs like this--wherever!

And just listen for a little while.