Asynchronous courses are a relatively new phenomenon. While online learning has been around since the early 1990s, asynchronous courses didn’t emerge until the mid-2000s. The first major platform for asynchronous discussion boards was Blackboard, which launched in 1999 and quickly became a dominant player. Other platforms soon followed, including Moodle and Canvas.
The popularity of this type of course structure has grown steadily since its inception; today, it’s estimated that about half of all college students take at least one online course during their time at school, while 2.8 million students attend primarily online colleges.
Asynchronous discussion boards, like the ones found in LMSs, have become an essential component for online learning because they allow students to interact with each other and the instructor in real-time and on their own time through messages posted on the board. This allows you to monitor student progress and provide feedback at any time without having to wait until class meets again.
The Rise of Asynchronous Courses
The boost of asynchronous learning came with the development of internet-based technologies, only to be accelerated by the pandemic. The normal delivery of education at institutions changed worldwide, and from this experience has come an opportunity to embrace and apply what we learned to instructional design, resources and tools, and effective online course development processes.
This opportunity includes designing courses with a better mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. Rather than characterizing asynchronous and synchronous online learning as a dichotomy, it will become more helpful to view these learning experiences as falling along a spectrum.
At the synchronous end of the spectrum lie activities, such as live-streaming lectures and participating in video-conference discussions. At the asynchronous end are activities, such as watching pre-recorded lectures, reading assigned materials, and participating in discussion boards. Somewhere in the middle fall hybrid activities that create continuity across these spheres — assigning students a defined task to do offline during a scheduled synchronous session before coming back online and sharing their reflections with the group.
Far too many programs consider asynchronous – synchronous as a binary choice based on instruction method, with the latter assuming lecture-based courses. And while most online learners prefer asynchronous class formats, synchronous sessions are not out of the question.
In fact, in the Voice of the Online Learner — a survey of over 2,400 prospective, current, and recently graduated online college students — 79% of respondents reported they would like some form of synchronous online learning during online courses. This finding presents a major opportunity in online course and program design. We should increasingly view asynchronous – synchronous as a spectrum, with the latter focused on methods to increase student-faculty and student-student interactions, and therefore to increase engagement. Coupled with other engagement techniques, institutions can begin planning for a new wave of blended learning.
Asynchronous Course Activities Improve Student Success
With more and more components of learning moving online, whether it be through flipped classroom models or fully online courses, designing highly engaging learning experiences is paramount for learning success — and the online discussion board is proving to be a powerful tool in that work.
Research shows that active and engaged learning leads to better outcomes in courses and reduces equity-related performance gaps. One of the most impactful ways to engage learners is by blending asynchronous and synchronous learning activities. Doing so fosters better inclusion among all learners, and that often translates into more engaged students.
- Students who are highly engaged are 1.5 times more likely to complete a degree. (Svanum and Bigatti, 2009)
- Engaged students, on average, require one fewer semester to complete their degree. (Svanum and Bigatti, 2009)
- Students who actively participate are more motivated (Frisby & Myers, 2008; Junn, 1994), engage in more critical thinking (Garside, 1996), and show improvement in communication skills. (Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005)
To achieve this, instructional designers and instructors have turned to online discussion boards — often used as asynchronous tools for learning. Research shows that student participation in online collaboration and discussion boards are related to better course outcomes in traditional courses. In fact, in a pilot study conducted by WGU Labs, the College Innovation Network (CIN) found strong promise for increased course engagement and improved learning outcomes at Piedmont Community College, when online discussion forums were used both in the classroom and asynchronously outside the classroom.
Further research from Educause suggests that synchronous online learning better supports personal participation, and asynchronous online learning better supports cognitive participation. Personal participation describes a more arousing type of participation appropriate for less complex information exchanges, including the planning of tasks and social support. Cognitive participation describes a more reflective type of participation appropriate for discussions of complex issues.
The research indicates that synchronous and asynchronous learning complement each other. Instructors might incorporate several types of synchronous and asynchronous communication in a course to encourage critical thinking and active participation for all types of learners. The combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning within a course lets learners and instructors exchange information, collaborate on work, and get to know each other.
Because students learn in many different ways, incorporating an effective mix of synchronous and asynchronous online learning activities into courses provides increased and varied opportunities to engage — leading to higher likelihood of student retention and success.
How to Leverage Online Discussion Boards in Asynchronous Courses for Increased Participation
Engaging students in online courses is a big challenge. Institutions are finding success when they design asynchronous courses in a way that leverages online discussion boards to support active learning. Using asynchronous discussion boards allows for a more natural flow of conversation, as opposed to having all discussions happen at once in real-time. This type of discussion board also allows you to set up different categories or topics within your course that can be discussed separately from one another (for example: “Discussion 1: Topic A” vs “Discussion 2: Topic B”), allowing students the opportunity to engage with each other’s ideas throughout throughout the length of the course.
Adopt Open-Ended, Real-World, Emotion-Based Prompts
While researchers have found that higher-level questions won’t necessarily generate higher-level responses, they also observed that students associate discussion quality with active instructor participation, instructor feedback, and relevant questions that incorporate ideas (Christopher et al., 2010; Dallimore et al., 2010).
The opposite of right or wrong discussion prompts, thoughtful discussion questions are one of the most important factors in creating an engaging discussion board. Craft questions that give students the opportunity to form opinions, build on each other’s insights, as well as provide opportunity for dialogue and debate. For example, Copiah-Lincoln Community College has found success in using emotion-based and real-world applicable discussion prompts that speak to their students.
“We put great care into building our discussion prompts for online courses. We’ll use prompts that reference current events and social justice issues to elicit response from even the shyest of students. We find emotion-based responses come out naturally in the discussions,” said Dr. Amanda Hood, Director of eLearning for Copiah-Lincoln.
This approach gives students a safe space to articulate opinions, understand competing perspectives, and compose thoughtful responses — similar to a classroom setting. It’s also good practice for figuring out how to resolve conflict.
Set Expectations and Guide Peer Interaction
Be clear in communicating discussion board expectations to students. Outline your approach to online discussions in the course syllabus, and continue to reiterate it through course announcements. Make sure that students understand how much participation is expected of them, how their discussion work will be evaluated, and what constitutes high-quality posts.
One of the most effective ways to set expectations and provide clear guidance is through the use of multiple due dates or milestones. With milestones, instructors can specify a number of posts by a certain date as well as additional responses and reactions by another date. This guides students through discussions and keeps them on track, while simultaneously spurring ongoing interactions.
Milestones can also prompt students to revisit discussions, to see who responded to their posts, and to keep the conversation going — preventing the onslaught of rushed, last-minute posts for instructors to sift through.
Expand the Ways Students Can Respond
Text threads are so 2002. We don’t mean to be harsh, but text-based responses not only leave out students who prefer to express themselves through other media, but they’re also boring. When you consider that many of today’s students say they learn by doing, and 80% of today’s teens use YouTube and video to learn something new or improve skills that will help them prepare for the future, it’s a no-brainer that incorporating multimedia will better engage students.
In fact, West Virginia University experienced an increase in organic interaction among students in their online discussions when they expanded the ways in which students could express themselves.
“Students were submitting written responses, creating snippets of audio, making and sending videos, annotating others videos, as well as launching or responding to polls right from within our discussion boards. We got excited about easy-to-use tools that help instructors and students better engage with content and each other. It’s why we’re seeing so much more interaction,” said Beth Bailey, instructional designer at WVU.
When you’re more inclusive of how students learn, you’ll also see improvement in the quality of responses. “The options for how and in what medium to respond is allowing students to express themselves in their own ways, moving us from transactional to more meaningful exchanges,” shared Rick Bebout, technology specialist at WVU.
Implementing discussion boards that are more inclusive of different learning modalities has been effective in creating connection and community online, while building student engagement.
Create a Social Space Students
Fostering a space for students to create social presence, interact, and practice leadership is important for building engagement in online discussions.
Research from the University of Alabama shows that student participation increases when students facilitate online discussions. And in a Baran and Correia’s (2009) study of an online graduate course, researchers found that whether these peer-facilitation methods included highly organized facilitation or practice-oriented facilitation in asynchronous discussion, the methods kept students engaged with the material and relying on student-to-student interaction instead of just student-to-instructor interaction.
Consider varying the group size of discussions too. It creates opportunities for more students to lead discussions, and it also helps those students who are more comfortable sharing in small groups. But to create a space that can support these kinds of activities, you have to have the right tools.
For example, tools with a user experience that mimic familiar experiences often have the highest usability — think features like tagging/mentions, reactions, in-app and email notifications, and social media-like interfaces. If a student or instructor logs in and can connect the screen they’re viewing to something they are familiar with from their personal lives, they’re more likely to engage.
Don’t make technology one of the barriers to participation. Capabilities for creating smaller and student-led discussion groups, tagging instructors or other students, and flagging questions for more feedback all lead to increased student activity and engagement.
The Benefits of Online Discussion Boards in Asynchronous Courses
The value of this kind of online social interaction among students and with instructors should not be underestimated. There are several key advantages to asynchronous online discussions, including better academic outcomes and behaviors for students.
- Online learning can be isolating or overwhelming for students, which can lead to decreased motivation and increased attrition. Discussion boards are a way to provide connection to others.
- Asynchronous online discussions allow for wider participation and deeper, more thoughtful treatment of the topic. Students have time to think before responding and to edit their responses before sharing them with others, especially helpful for learning outside of face-to-face class time.
- A good online discussion provides a collaborative learning experience that supports deeper understanding. Collaborative learning opportunities increase levels of student engagement and can help students improve their ability to transfer learning to new contexts.
- Discussion boards are also critical for creating social presence and community online. Presence and community foster emotional connection — and these elements are key in improving engagement and, in turn, academic outcomes.
In fact, results from a landmark meta-analysis that looked across 213 studies involving more than 270,000 students found that social and emotional learning (SEL):
- Increased students’ academic performance by 11 percentile points.
- Increased students’ ability to manage stress and depression.
- Improved students’ attitudes about themselves.
Why Engaging Students Remains Challenging
That said, not many institutions are able to fully realize these benefits yet because they continue to rely on the basic built-in discussion forums of learning management systems.
These forums are typically text-based and can be challenging to extract deep engagement from students. They are also notoriously difficult for instructors to track and grade student participation. In fact, in a survey of over 350 educators, 61% said that they spend more than two hours each week attempting to grade discussions, noting their biggest challenge on this front was searching through threads from last-minute participation.
From a usability and visual design standpoint, the way an LMS presents discussions is challenging and unengaging. Text-heavy threads and conversations are tough to follow, and the LMS itself doesn’t do a great job of pushing students toward being better collaborators nor instructors toward being better facilitators.
From the student perspective, even well-meaning participants can struggle to have their voices heard during discussions. Students are limited in how they can respond, and the LMS generally lacks feedback mechanisms that can help students self-measure their own engagement quality or simply raise their hands for more help.
The origin of discussion forums in learning management systems — institution’s centralized course management system — makes sense. However, while the LMS has evolved significantly over the years and continues to be essential for supporting teaching & learning, they’re hard pressed to try and do it all. That’s why this area remains a gap in those systems — but this doesn’t mean your online discussion boards have to fall flat.
All-in-One Online Discussion Boards for Asynchronous Courses
Today’s standard LMS discussion forums are not built to support student engagement. Leveraging the power of social-based learning and analytics in ways that weren’t possible even five years ago, institutions now have an opportunity to implement online discussions that not only meet the needs of today’s students but actually excite them about learning.
What does that look like? The following spotlights showcase how courses across disciplines – from physics, the social sciences, gender studies, and the arts to English, criminal justice, and math – use online discussion boards in their asynchronous courses in ways that have improved student engagement and supported teaching effectiveness.
When you take advantage of asynchronous learning activities in your course as well as emerging media and the kind of technology built to facilitate online learning, you’re able to increase the quality and quantity of student-to-student, student-to-content, and student-to-instructor interactions. This, in turn, boosts engagement and can power a new wave of blended learning — one that puts better equity, inclusion, and student engagement front and center.
Harmonize is a suite of online collaboration and discussion tools that integrate seamlessly with your LMS to facilitate a more engaging online learning experience. It’s everything an instructor needs to increase student engagement online and promote inclusive learning, while saving time and eliminating manual tasks.
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