Teachers can use Discussions to create and manage online classroom discussions. Two kinds of discussions are available in Campus Instruction, scored discussions that are aligned to an assignment and unscored discussions that are not. These discussions can be related to course content, group work, and other various classroom activities. Scored discussions are created in assignments and unscored discussions are created in the Discussions tool. An existing unscored discussion cannot be aligned to an assignment.
Students must use Campus Student to respond to discussions, not the Campus Portal. In Campus Student discussions list collects all discussions assigned to the student, both those aligned to assignments and those that aren't. Students can click a discussion to respond to the teacher's prompt or respond to a classmate. Students can also access discussions aligned to an assignment through that specific assignment.
inappropriate content can be flagged, which alerts the teacher that there is content which should be reviewed.
Creating a New Unscored Discussion
Click New Discussion.
Enter a Discussion Name. This name displays in the list of discussions on Campus Student.
Enter a Description for the discussion, such as the opening prompt.
Select a Section for the discussion. Only one section can be selected and all students in that section have access to the discussion.
Modify the starting date and time if desired. The current date and time pre-populate.
Enter a End Date and End Time to suspend student access to the discussion at that point. Students will still be able to view the discussion after this date/time, but they are not able to add posts.
Mark the Allow participants to edit their responses checkbox if desired. Previous versions of edited posts are not available in the discussions tool. This option can be turned on or off at any time.
Click Create when finished.
Click on a discussion to view it. From here, a teacher can:
Make a new post by clicking Create a Post
Generate a printable version of the discussion.
Edit the discussion details.
Reply to students.
Flag student content and resolve flags. See the Flagged Posts section for more information.
If a discussion doesn't have student responses yet, it can be Archived to hide it from the teacher's discussion list.
In an assignment that has a discussion enabled, the Assignment Name becomes the Name of the discussion and the Student Instructions serves as the discussion prompt. Once enabled, time fields are added to the Assigned and Due Dates. Scroll up after enabling the discussion to modify times.
Discussions are limited to a single section. If multiple sections are selected in the Scheduling Alignment area of the assignment, separate discussions are created for each section.
Teachers have the option to Allow students to edit their responses. Previous versions of edited posts are not available in the discussions tool. This option can be turned on or off at any time.
Students must use Campus Student to respond to discussions, not the Campus Portal.