Engaging students in structured discussions in synchronous online classes

Engaging Students in Structured Discussions in Synchronous Online Classes

Picture a successful discussion in an in-person class. What do you see? Often we imagine an instructor standing at the front of the room or walking around the class, guiding students through a series of questions or prompts, asking follow-up questions, and providing feedback on their responses. Students are eager to chime in and share their thinking, and the instructor can capitalize on their enthusiasm and redirect their thinking in productive ways. 

When we teach online courses, we want to have these kinds of lively interactions, but we may worry that communicating online will be a barrier to the kind of discussions we want students to have. It’s true that synchronous online discussions do unfold differently than in-person ones, but there are proven strategies that can help us! 

This article provides an overview of key strategies for ensuring meaningful interactions in online discussions and some examples to demonstrate how these strategies can be put into action.

Help students understand how to participate in synchronous discussions.

Some students may not understand that they need to be fully engaged in synchronous online classes, so it’s important to be clear about your expectations. Make sure you explain that they should treat a synchronous class like they would an in-person class: during class time they should devote their full attention to their learning just like they would in a classroom. It can be helpful to have students make a plan during the first week of class for how they will keep their attention focused during class time. For example, you might have them think about strategies they can use to prevent distractions during class time (e.g., putting away their phones, turning off notifications, shutting down browser windows, etc.).

Be mindful, also, of how you want discussions to unfold. For example, you might explain to students that you’d like for them to turn on their cameras during discussions—and explain why this will help them feel more involved and included in the class. (Keep in mind that you can’t require this, but you can recommend that this will support better interactions and ask students to turn on their cameras when they feel comfortable doing so.) 

It is also a good idea to be strategic about the use of chat. While communicating in chat can be a way for students to participate when they are having technical difficulties, using those tools to have side conversations can be distracting. You might consider limiting the availability of the chat tool to specific moments in class and be very clear about when and how you would like students to use that functionality.

Finally, make sure that students engage in discussions right away—ideally beginning on the first day of class—so that they get to practice the technical aspects of online discussions (e.g., how to raise their hands, how to move in and out of breakout rooms, etc.) as well as the nature of the interactions they will engage in with their peers. 

Help students understand what they should learn from online discussions.

In addition to explaining how they should engage in discussions, help students understand why you are asking them to do this work together. This means articulating for ourselves how discussions will support their learning—and then articulating that purpose to them! When students don’t understand why they are doing the work we ask of them or how they will benefit from doing that work, they are much more likely to disengage. If we want them to devote energy and attention to discussions, we need to explain how the work they do in that space will benefit them. This includes explaining how the work they will do in discussions is connected to other work in the course, to the work of other college courses, and to the work they will do after they leave college. Remind them, also, that the discussions you have designed involve problems and questions that are challenging, meaningful, and exciting!

When students realize that we aren’t just asking them to “jump through hoops” by participating in discussions, they can see meaning in their work. This not only helps them engage more fully in the discussions themselves, but it also helps them feel more connected to the course as a whole. Below is an example of how you might articulate the purpose of a discussion to students.

Provide prompts that focus students’ thinking.

Instructors in any setting express frustration when they pose a question and are met with silence from students. In an in-person class, there are ways that we can subtly nudge students that aren’t available to us in an online setting: even though the students are all together at the same time, the virtual setting slows down the back-and-forth that tends to happen quickly in a classroom. In addition, using prompts that are loosely structured (e.g., “What did you feel was the most interesting part of the reading?”) or that ask students to explain course concepts to each other (e.g., “Describe Durkheim’s notion of anomie in your own words and give an example from your own experience”) typically leads to superficial discussions that flag quickly and don’t have much meaningful interaction.

When we pose open-ended questions or just give students a topic and say “discuss,” we may struggle to manage the discussion that follows because it can be hard to predict how students will construe the questions and how they will respond, since they may come up with answers we had never anticipated. Open-ended questions can be unproductively difficult for students, too, because they must generate ideas; students spend a great deal of mental energy coming up with an answer, rather than coming up with reasoning for that answer. A more focused, structured discussion or activity prompt gives students a limited number of options to choose from, allows us to determine where the discussion will begin, and productively focuses discussion on the factors and issues we want students to work with. These kinds of prompts will also ensure that discussions will surface disagreement and different ways of thinking. 

Instead of asking students to show us what they know about the course content, we need to have them use the course content to take a position, make a decision, solve a problem, analyze a situation, etc. Short cases, scenarios describing real-world situations, or conceptual problems can work very well here because you can ask students to use what they are learning in the course. These realistic challenges ensure meaningful interaction between students because they require multiple perspectives to be fully analyzed. Most importantly, we need to ask students to explain their thinking. When we design prompts in this way, we are giving students a genuine reason to see what other students have to say and respond. 

Finally, we should make sure that students understand what we are asking them to do and can refer to our instructions while they are working. This means that we need to post the discussion prompt and instructions on a slide that we explain to them before they do their work, giving them the opportunity to ask questions. If students will be working in small groups in breakout rooms, post the prompt and instructions in the chat so they are visible to them throughout their discussions. 

Below are some examples of effective prompts for a synchronous discussion.

Provide structure to guide students’ thinking and interactions. 

Writing a good prompt is an essential first step, but we also need to make sure we are providing structure to guide students’  interactions so that they can make the most of a focused prompt and learn from each other. There are several ways that we can create these productive conditions for synchronous discussions.

Make sure students commit to their own thinking first.

Students need to articulate and commit to their own thinking before they hear what others have to say. If they can hear other students’ ideas before they have formulated their own response, they may not take the time to fully engage their own thinking. For example, if a particularly confident or articulate student speaks first, disagreements are not likely to emerge because their peers may not feel comfortable expressing a different perspective. This will shut down a discussion before it even begins! 

To ensure that students are expressing their own ideas to start the discussion, give them time to answer the prompt in writing. Most importantly, have them write some notes explaining why they chose the answer they did using the concepts they have been learning in class or reading about. Having this thinking available will help them participate in the discussion more productively and will help you diagnose their thinking. Let students know that they will be asked to share and justify their choices. If you want to make sure that students really commit to their individual answers, you can ask them to share those in a private Zoom Chat with you or in a poll.

Have students begin their discussion in small groups.

Having students articulate their thinking to a smaller group of 4-7 peers first can make them feel more comfortable sharing their answers with the whole class. These small-group discussions help students begin to analyze their own thinking by seeing how it compares to that of others. In addition, working with a smaller group of their peers, especially when we use the same groups throughout the semester, can help students develop relationships with each other that will help them feel more connected to the course and less isolated in their work.

Make your expectations for the small-group discussion clear.

Before you move students into breakout rooms, make sure you explain exactly how you want them to work together, sharing the prompt and explicit instructions on a slide. Be clear, also, about how long they will spend in their discussion. This may seem overly directive, but sometimes students struggle to get started once they are in their groups, and they will wait for someone to “take charge.” This dynamic can shut down the discussion very quickly—or can mean that no actual discussion takes place! Instead, providing a clear set of steps will help students jump into their work immediately. Be sure to post these instructions in the chat as well so that students can refer to them when they are in their breakout rooms. Below is an example of effective instructions for a small-group discussion. 

Make the most of the whole-class discussion.

After students finish their small-group discussions, it’s important to use those responses to continue the work of the whole class. Ideally, you’ll want to have them share their group’s answers simultaneously, either in a poll or in a chat with you. This allows you—and them—to see the range of responses across the class. 

Next take a moment to note the patterns you see so you can articulate those for students and use them to probe their thinking further. For example, you might say, “This is an interesting set of responses. It looks like C was a fairly popular choice, but several of you also chose A and B. Ariana, I see that your group chose A. Can you tell us why your group thought that was the best option? What ideas from the reading helped you make your decision? Were there any important disagreements as you were trying to come to consensus?” Make sure to ask all groups to share their rationales and highlight important differences in thinking or disagreements that surfaced. 

Finally provide closure for the discussion by offering a recap that helps students trace the trajectory of the discussion, and then offer additional insight about which responses were more on target than others. You may, at this point, want to offer some additional concepts that might shape their thinking in a focused, 10-minute mini-lecture. 

Resources

• Barkley, E. F. and Major, C. H. (2022). Engaged teaching: A handbook for college faculty. SocialGood.

• Darby, F. and Lang, J. M. (2019). Small teaching online: Applying learning science in online classes. Jossey-Bass.

• Herman, J. H. and Nilson, L. B. (2018). Creating engaging discussions: Strategies for ‘avoiding crickets’ in any size classroom and online. Stylus.