Contributing to and reading through forums related to course content can help you and your students to clarify topics, introduce interesting new angles and expand on course concepts. Here’s how you and your trainers can make the most of the forum functionality (labelled as Discussions) within your Learning Vault content platform.

Set up your guidelines

It’s a good idea to set up some general rules for your Discussions threads as with any forum. Suggest that students browse back through older discussions and the course outline before asking questions to avoid double ups, and add a gentle reminder that discussion should be kept to the course subjects. While open discussion is good, inappropriate or irrelevant content is not.

Complement the course content

Seen something topical in the news that relates to the course content? Perhaps you’ve been asked for clarification to do with a specific case study or textbook chapter. It’s easy to add in a link to specific course content when creating a new discussion so your students will know exactly what you’re referring to. You can adjust multiple settings for replies in order to control and monitor discussions.

Set up an area for General and Technical Questions

If one student has a question, others may have that same query. By setting up a General Questions and a Technical Questions section within the Discussions area, students can post queries that they think might benefit other students. This saves you from replying to individual messages all day and provides timely assistance to those who need it.

Record and upload your own media

Here’s where Discussions really come into their own. You can record audio or video to expand on course concepts and clarify questions, or upload video and audio files from elsewhere on a computer. It’s also simple to embed a YouTube video into a discussion, so you really can work in a way that suits you.

Gain an idea of student understanding

Your Discussions section is one more place to gain a solid idea of how your students are understanding and interpreting the course content. It can be ideal to encourage students to respond to one another’s questions. This has multiple benefits; not only will you be able to pick up on any potential gaps in understanding, but a flourishing discussion board will also add to the supportive and social online environment for your students.

If you have any questions about using your Learning Vault platform, please don’t hesitate to get directly in contact with the team on 1300 662 443. We’re available for support every Monday to Friday, 9am until 6pm.