Graded Discussions

Faculty create discussion assignments for students to participate in. Discussions also provides a way forfaculty to engage with students. For example, an English teacher might use a graded discussion to create a dialogue between students about the book they are reading for class.

Discussions can be added through the Assignment Center, which can be found under My Day, from the Assignments tab on the class page, or from the Calendar. To add a new discussion, select +Add > Discussion. There are four sections to adding a new Discussion: Details, Evaluation, Attachments & links, and Publishing options.

Details

Title and Discussion prompt are required fields. Everything else is optional including:

  • Show across all published sections - You can continue to make this discussion only available for this class, or all classes where it is published.

  • Show comments to Students - Select when comments show, either after a student has posted, or at anytime.

  • Allow students to add attachments - Enable this discussion to support attachments or not.

  • Assignment Type - Associate this discussion with a particular assignment type.

Evaluation

Under Evaluation, you will need to provide the Max points(this field will pull from Maximum points above), as well as a factor. You can also elect to Add to Gradebook, Add to Cum. Grade, and Publish grade. Mark the applicable box for Extra credit to make this Discussion count as extra credit.

Attachments & links

Under Attachments, you can add Links, Downloads, and/or Embeds. Simply place the HTML code or link in the provided text boxes.

Publishing options

Finally, you'll need to select the sections the Discussion should publish to. Add an Assigned date/time and a Due date/time as well to dictate when the Discussion will be available for students to complete.

Warning: Please remember to use the Publish drop down to select when the Discussion should publish to Students. This drop down defaults to Now, if Now is selected the Discussion will be made available to students as soon as Save and Add Questions is selected.

When finished, select Save or Save & Add Another to save your discussion.

  • From Discussion detail, faculty with access can hide questionable posts, add comments, and filter comments by students in addition to being able to apply a grade. Discussion detail can be accessed by selecting the title of the discussion from the Assignment Center or the Assignments tab or from the Topic the discussion is nested within.

  • Students can participate by selecting the discussion title which will allow them to add a new response, embed a link within their answer, and attach up to three files if the faculty member has enabled the attachments option. Once they've responded, the discussion is marked as completed, even though they can continue to participate until the Due Date is reached.

  • Select add new response to leave a new comment based on the main question. Students can leave a follow up comment on other student's statements by selecting add response under it.

Tip: Graded discussions can be imported or copied as needed.

Deleting a discussion will delete the prompt, responses, and grades recorded for the discussion assignment.

To delete a discussion:

  1. In Faculty,

    Select  My Day > Assignment Center.

    OR

    Select Classes, choose a class, then select Assignments.

  2. In list view, select the context menu next to the discussion > Delete.

  3. Select the sections to delete the assessment from.

  4. Select Yes, delete for the selected sections to complete the deletion.