Introduction

In this article we will walk you through how to use Discussion on Topic from the perspective of a teacher.

If you’d like more information on how this tool works, you can check out the overview article here:

Discussion on Topic: Overview

Tool In Action

Accessibility

We're devoted to making our tools as accessible as possible for all learners - to read more about accessibility in FeedbackFruits tools, check this article: Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools.

Overall Student Progress

When you open the assignment, you'll see an overview of the overall student progress. This section shows the total grade, the completion percentage for reading the instructions, and the progress of all available steps within the tool, including discussion posts, peer discussions, selecting valuable contributions, and reflections. It offers a clear summary of the learning activity's progress.

Fig. 1: Overall student progress

Fig. 2: Full screen analytics

To edit the activity, click on the three dots in the top-right corner of the screen.

Fig. 3: Edit button

It is also possible to export all the student data into an Excel file. This file contains information concerning student's discussion post, peer discussion etc. You can download this export by clicking on Export Analytics button in the overall student progress window.

Step 1: Instructions

Instructions: Setting up

Here, you can write the instructions you want to provide to your students. If you'd like to include an audio, video, screen recording, or attach a file, simply click the add items icon to do so.

Fig. 4: Instruction: Setting up

Collaboration Options

Directly underneath the instructions, you can select options for student collaboration.

Fig. 5: Student collaboration options

Options for students post:

Individually
As a group

Options for students discuss:

Individually. Students will individually get assigned to anyone.
Within groups. Students individually get assigned someone within their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ option for post is chosen).
Outside of their group. Students individually get assigned to someone, not in their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ option for post is chosen).
As a group. All members of a group get assigned the same work. (Disabled if ‘individually’ option for post is chosen).

This will allow for the following combinations:

Post discussions individually, discuss individually
Use this option if you want students to individually post their discussion and then be assigned to engage with the posts of one or more random peers who have also shared their discussions.
1. Use case: In a class of 20 students, each student is required to post 2 discussion entries. Each student is then assigned 2 discussion posts from other students to engage with.
Post discussions individually, discuss within groups
Use this option if you want students to individually post their discussions and then participate in smaller group discussions to engage with their peers’ posts.
1. Use case: In a class of 20 students divided into 5 groups, each group is assigned a specific topic. Each student in the group individually posts their discussion. When engaging with others, each student discusses the posts within their group.
Post discussions individually, discuss outside of their groups
Use this option if you want students to individually post their discussions and then be assigned to engage with posts from peers outside their group.
1. Use case: In a class of 4 groups with 5 students each, each group is assigned a specific topic. Each student creates and posts their own discussion individually. When engaging with others, each student is assigned posts from students in different groups.
Post discussions as a group, discuss individually
Use this option if you want students to collaborate on a single group discussion post but participate individually in discussions with posts from other groups.
1. Use case: Students work in 5 groups of 4 to collaboratively create and post one group discussion. Each of the 20 students is then assigned to engage individually with posts from other groups.
Post discussions as a group, discuss as a group
Use this option if you want students to collaborate on a group discussion post and then collectively engage with discussion posts from other groups as a team.
1. Use case: In a class of 5 groups with 4 students each, the group collaborates on one discussion post and submits it. When engaging with others, the entire group works together to discuss and respond to a post from another group.

For more information on configuring groups when using FeedbackFruits within Blackboard, Brightspace or Canvas, click here. If it's not possible to sync the groups within your LMS or if you are using the platform, you can find more information about how to create groups here.

Submission Options: Active Assignment

After saving the instructions in the setup, you'll be able to view how they appear to students in the active assignment.

Fig. 6: Instruction: Active assignment

Step 2: Discussion Posts

Discussion Posts: Setting Up

In Step 2, you can create a prompt for students to base their discussion posts on. You can also customize the required number of posts each student needs to submit and specify the desired length for each post.

Fig. 7: Discussion posts: Setting up

Scheduling deadlines: Set the start and end times for student access, including during class sessions. After the deadline, students will no longer be able to make a discussion post. If no deadline is specified, students can access the posts at their convenience.

Fig. 8: Scheduling deadline

You can close the task manually, set it to close on a specific date, or leave it open indefinitely. If a closing date is specified, you can also grant students an extension to make a post after the deadline. By selecting this option (as illustrated in the screenshot below), you can specify which students will regain access to this step and assign them a new deadline of your choosing.

Fig. 9: Scheduling deadlines: Granting extended access

Anonymity: The discussion threads and replies on the video are anonymous, but teachers can always identify the students.

Guiding students (optional): Here, you’ll find the Feedback Coach, an AI-powered tool that provides real-time feedback to help students enhance their discussion posts. Simply toggle this feature on to enable it.

Discussion Posts: Active Assignment

In the active assignment for Step 2, you can monitor the status of each student to see whether they have posted their discussion.

Fig. 10: Discussion posts: Active Assignment

Click on Full Screen to access the complete analytics view for this step.

Fig. 11: Analytics full screen

Step 3: Peer Discussion

Peer Discussion: Setting Up

In this step, you can decide how students will participate:

Assigned Discussion: Students are allocated specific peers to engage with, meaning they can only discuss posts from their assigned peers.
Free-Form Discussion: Students are free to engage with any posts they choose.

Based on your selection, you can specify either the required number of peers for assigned discussions or the required number of posts for free-form discussions.

Fig. 12: Peer discussion: Setting up

You can set a scheduled deadline to limit the time students can participate in the discussion thread. Extensions can also be granted at this step. If anonymity is enabled, replies will appear anonymous to peers, but as the teacher, you will always be able to see the names of those who replied. Guiding students is optional. Fill in this section only if you have specific review instructions for your students in this step.

Peer Discussion: Active Assignment

Step 3 of the active assignment allows you to track which students have been engaging with their peers' posts by reading, responding, and upvoting replies. By clicking the Go to the Discussion button, you can view the entire discussion thread for each student, along with replies from other peers.

Fig. 13: Peer discussion: Active Assignment

Additionally, the keyword insights feature will provide you with the most popular topics or words your students mention in a learning activity. This includes reviews, comments, and discussion threads. If you click on a word, you will see an overview of all the comments that contain this precise keyword. You can click on the comment and be driven to the precise context of the comment.

Fig. 14: Keywords

Finally, click on Full Screen to access the full analytics view for Step 3. Here, you'll get a comprehensive overview of each student's progress in this step, including their participation in discussions, total comments, comments received, upvotes received, upvotes given, and time spent on the discussion thread.

Fig. 15: Analytics full screen

Step 4: Valuable Contributions (optional)

Valuable Contributions: Setting Up

In this step, you can choose whether or not students should select the most valuable contribution. To add a valuable contributions step, scroll to the bottom of the assignment in edit mode and click the plus (+) button in the green circle to view the available learning steps to add.

Fig. 16: Plus sign

Then you can click add to the learning step you wish to add to your assignment.

Fig. 17: Add learning step

In the valuable contributions step, students can select what they consider the most valuable contributions to be graded by you as the teacher. Please note that they can only select comments made by their peers, not their own. You can specify the number of contributions students can submit by setting it to an exact number, a minimum, or a maximum based on your chosen amounts.

Fig. 18: Valuable contributions: Setting up

Valuable Contributions: Active Assignment

In the active assignment, click the Show button to view the contributions that have been selected as valuable.

Fig. 19: Valuable contributions: Active assignment

A star will appear on the right side of the comment if it has received a vote from a peer.

Fig. 20: Star mark

Step 5: Reflections (optional)

Reflections: Setting Up

When setting up the reflections step, you can specify the required length of the written reflection, with a minimum of 1 word and a maximum of 5000 words. You can also set a deadline for when students must complete their reflection and enable features like the Reflection Coach, which provides AI-powered, real-time feedback to help students improve their reflections. This option is available under the Guiding Students section.

However, please note that this step is also optional. If you decide that student reflections are unnecessary, you can remove this step by clicking the X button in the top right corner.

Fig. 21: Reflect on activity: Setting up

Reflections: Active Assignment

In this step, you can view an overview of all student-written reflections. Here, the teacher can view which groups and specific students have made progress in completing their reflections. Only the groups/students who have made progress on this step will be displayed, as shown in the image below. If the teacher wishes to read a specific student's reflection, they can click View next to the student's name to access it.

Clicking the View Reflections button will take you to the reflections playlist, allowing the teacher to easily browse through the entire list of student-written reflections.

Fig 22: Reflection: Active assignment

Step 6: Grading

Grading: Setting Up

Here, You can configure how many points you want to give to each process of the assignment and whether the grade should be published as a percentage or pass/fail.

Fig. 23: Grading: Setting up

By clicking configure, you can customize your grading criteria and toggle certain parameters on or off depending on the needs of the particular assignment you're setting up:

Fig 24: Configure grades

If you added the most valuable contributions step, you can click Configure next to it to set the point allocation for this step.

Fig. 25: Configure most valuable contributions grades

Fig. 26: Configure most valuable contributions grade allocations

Grading: Active Assignment

In this step, you have to access a comprehensive overview detailing the grades of each student within the system.

If the teacher has included grading in the settings, it will be visible after the last step. The image below shows what that will look like. By clicking on the arrow on the right or using the scroll bar at the bottom, the teacher can view the rest of the grade sections (from left to right). On the far right there is also an optional grade adjustment . This allows the teacher to add or subtract points for each student. Click on Fullscreen to get a better view.