Increasing Thread Engagement Visibility

[D-Elizondo]

I've seen a post or two highlighting the difficulty of seeing student responses in discussion board threads. This is problematic and seems like a missed opportunity to encourage interaction-oriented pedagogy in the LMS. These threads are where we are most likely to find the "human element" that is so essential for creating communities of inquiry in virtual learning environments. So anyway, here's a random and unsolicited idea that might help increase the visibility of threads with high and low engagement:

Color code them with a simple spectrum from red to blue. Make threads with high engagement appear  "warm" and threads with low engagement appear "cold". This would not only make thread engagement more visible for course instructors, it might also serve as a helpful prompt for students. Instructors would be able to instruct students to direct their feedback to blue posts, so that everyone gets to experience peer feedback and interaction. 

You could leave this as simply an off/on setting. Or you could allow instructors to adjust the thresholds themselves as an advanced setting. You would also need to pair it with some other indicator to ensure accessibility, but that shouldn't be difficult. Probably a dumb idea, but figured I would throw it out there. Anyone else have thoughts about how to increase thread engagement visibility?

[a1224143]

Yes - anything to make threads easier to sort has been a "wish item" for our academic teachers. Colour coding like this would help.

[CindiKerns]

Thanks for sharing this idea! This seems like it would be a great visual cue for both faculty and students. I agree that it would need to have an additional cue to improve accessibility. Addressing this pain point could help increase buy-in. It's a barrier when the new tool lacks a component perceived as critical to feasible workflow. 

[Jeff_F]

I had previously shared the notion that it would be useful to have a filter that enables quick identification of those initial posts that I as the instructor have not yet replied to.  I suppose the unread filter helps in this area.  Presumably, If I hadn't yet read a post I certainly didn't reply to it.