An adapted excerpt from Google Course Builder

 

 

Community discussions

Depending on the software, you can set up your very own web forum to communicate and collaborate, safely and securely, with others online. You can use forums to post important information such as answers to frequently asked questions or to host online discussions. You can set up your group to be published for all to see, or you set it as a private group and share only with those of your choosing.

1. You'll find that students ask the same question many times. There are a couple of techniques for handling this:
• In your forum, choose one instance of the question as the main question. Mark all other instances of that question as duplicates. Point the duplicates to the main questions.
• Create a "canned response" for the question. That is, answer the question once and put that answer somewhere the other tutors will look. Then all tutors can copy and paste the same answer when the question comes back.
2. Prioritize the questions you respond to; you don't have to respond to everything.
3. Encourage students to answer each other.
4. Consider waiting a while before posting, to give students an opportunity to answer their peers, but do respond if the information being passed around is problematic.
5. Try and give hints rather than full answers, so that the questioner has a chance to learn in the process.
6. Admit mistakes -- you'd be amazed how long people spend trying to justify incorrect course material.
7. Trust your instincts (tutors tend to be hesitant).