One Quick Win: Discussion Roles for Community and Collaboration in Online Discussions

As part of the PA 422: Project Management course development this past fall, we considered ways to encourage student engagement and interaction in an online asynchronous course. Recognizing that online discussion boards foster student collaboration, we sought to use discussions as a low-stakes entry point for students to work through the weekly material and interact with peers about their ideas. Yet, the often used “post once, reply twice” model of online discussions sometimes falls flat, with students merely agreeing with one another or making superficial comments, so we were hesitant to adopt this model without adaptation.

Our solution was to implement discussion roles as a part of the weekly discussion post assignment to get students involved in the discussion in a way that encourages collaboration and connection, while avoiding the potential of a stilted conversation. I was first introduced to the idea of discussion roles in an Online Learning Consortium webinar last year. The way discussion roles work is that students first craft an initial post in response to a prompt posed by the instructor. Then, they take on a discussion role – such as devil’s advocate, questioner, synthesizer, or others – and respond to their peers from that lens.

For example, a questioner would encourage others to go deeper and elaborate on their ideas through asking questions, while a synthesizer would make connections between posts, pull comments together, and push the conversation forward.

Just like an effective discussion prompt is needed to get the conversation started, discussion roles ensure the discussion continues, because without replies, there isn’t a true conversation happening. Discussion roles help foster genuine collaboration and community because they give students a direction from which to craft their replies. Oftentimes, students may not know where to start or how to begin a reply to their peers, so they end up writing something superficial just to complete the assignment. Since discussion roles clarify an exact task to accomplish, or establish a method of response to emulate in the reply post, students are encouraged to practice authentic engagement. Furthermore, discussion roles prompt students to consider viewpoints or take on perspectives in their replies that they might not have otherwise, fostering critical thinking and active learning.

In some courses, it might work best for the instructor to specifically assign discussion roles to groups of students to take on, and then rotate the assigned roles each week. In PA 422, we decided to give students full ownership and choice and let them choose their roles weekly.

This is the list of roles we implemented in the course, adapted from the OLC webinar:

• Inventor: Generates fresh and creative ideas and new perspectives on the questions being discussed that have not been brought up yet in the discussion.
• Elaborator: Expands on or provides some support for an idea someone else has already added to the discussion.
• Questioner: Asks others to go deeper and elaborate on their ideas through asking specific questions. Might ask questions such as “Why do you think X?” or “What implications does your point have for Y?”
• Devil’s advocate: Takes a contrary position to one (or more) of a classmates’ ideas and crafts a reasonable defense as to why this is a logical position to take.
• Synthesizer: Makes connections between posts, pulls comments together, and drives the conversation forward (maybe in new directions).We’re excited about discussion roles positively impacting student interaction and collaboration in both PA 422 and future course developments and are excited to share this idea with the UIC community.

For more information or to implement discussion roles in your course or program, take a look at the Discussions Template on the IDMPS website, or book a consultation with an instructional designer.