Introduction
The Forum activity in AsULearn is a discussion board where students can create new posts, and/or reply to existing posts from their instructors and classmates. Like the Assignment activity, student work posted in a Forum can be assessed using a Rubric or Grading Guide, as well as points and written feedback.
Forum is primarily used for asynchronous communication or discussion in a course, and can be flexibly configured in a wide variety of ways. For example, some faculty create an ungraded "Water Cooler" forum at the top of their course to provide a space for students to "publicly" ask and answer questions related to course content ("public" in the context of a course or Forum means anyone enrolled in the course can see the content). Others use Forum discussions as a core part of their course, requiring students to regularly engage in discussion with their classmates around a prompt or concept. Forums can even be a helpful, private, collaborative work space for groups.
Forums can be configured to do any or all of the following:
- Assess student work with a grading guide (checklist) or rubric
- Enforce a cut-off date for new posts
- Require students to write their own, original reply to a prompt before they can see what their classmates wrote
- Provide a private (or "public") space for group members to work
- Provide a space for students to log a private, ongoing journal