Moodle Resources for Faculty

Forums are a discussion tool that allows instructors and students to post and reply to each other's saved messages within their Moodle course.  Through email subscriptions, students can also receive emails containing content posted to the discussion forums of their Moodle courses.

You can use discussion forums for a wide variety of learning activities such as: 

• class discussions with your students as a supplement to live sessions
• sharing work with peers for feedback
• logistical or technical questions; e.g., a Q&A forum
• communication about course activities and assignments

A simple single discussion: A forum that only has one discussion thread.  

Use case: Students share a summary of a course reading or activity. 

Each person posts one discussion: Each student can create their own discussion thread and others can respond to it. 

Use case: Students share their own perspective of a course reading or activity and give feedback to others. 

Q&A forum: A forum with two steps to use. The forum needs to be created and then the instructions must post a question. Students will reply to the question posted and students can only see answers posted by other students 30 minutes after they have submitted their own answer. 

Use case: Instructor wants to assess individual student understanding about course materials. 

Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format: Students can view everyone's posts and responses in one place. 

Use case: Collect questions for a class speaker. 

Standard forum for general use: The default forum type. Each student can create and reply to as many threads as they would like to create. 

Use case: Students provide an example or analysis of material from a course reading or activity.

Overview

Private Forums are forums where students are in a group by themselves and they cannot see other student posts in other groups.

How to Setup

Create the groups:

1. Open the course and elect the participants link.
2. Select the drop down menu next to Enrolled Users to switch to the Groups screen.
3. Select Auto-create groups.
4. On the next screen set Auto create based on to Members per group and  Member count to 1.
5. For Grouping, set Grouping of auto-created groups to New Grouping.
6. Enter a Grouping name for these groups(Maybe Private Forum?).
7. Select Submit.

Private Forum Settings:

1. Open the forum and select the settings page.
2. Select Common Module Settings set Group Mode to Separate Groups.
3. Set Grouping to the one you created for the groups. 
4. Select Save and Display.

If you would like assistance or support with setting up groups, groupings, or Private Forums please contact us at library@brandies.edu. 

Discussion forums in Moodle can be graded to encourage participation and provide students feedback. 

Step 1: Open the Forum in Moodle and select settings.  Find Whole forum grading and select the grading method.

• Simple Direct Grading 
  • Provide a single numeric grade
  • fast and straightforward 
• Rubrics 
  • Create a set of criteria with levels of performance
  • Provides clear expectations for students and consistent grading for instructors
• Grading guides (Marking Guides)
  • Create a list of criteria, but instead of levels, you set maximum points for each. 
  • Instructors enter scores and can enter written feedback for each criterion.
  • More flexible than rubrics

Select Save and Display.

Step 2: Grade the discussions. Open the discussion forum  and select Grade Users. 

The Grading interface is on the right side of the screen.  Enter scores and feedback and select Save.