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The Discussions tool allows for online discussions in your Canvas course. Discussions can be set to be assessable (and seamlessly integrate with the Canvas Gradebook)or simply serve as a forum for topical and current events. They can also be created within student groups.
The following tutorial video (5:18) shows you how to create and manage Discussions.
Accessing Discussions
The Discussions Index page, available from the Discussions link in the Course Navigation menu, has global settings at the top of the page (see [1] in the image below), followed by the Discussion groups [2]. Individual discussions are nested within each Discussion group [3].
Focused and Threaded Discussions
Focused Discussions are short interactions that tend to disappear as the subject progresses, such as a weekly forum for questions related to that week’s activities. It allows for only two levels of nesting – the original post and subsequent replies. Use a Focused Discussion for single posts and related comments. One discussion leader typically posts a message and multiple learners comment on it. Participants may leave a side comment to a reply, but cannot develop the conversation beyond two layers of nesting.
Use Focused Discussions to:
answer a single question (for example, weekly Q&A forums)
share resources amongst peers
collect results from a simple research activity
share solutions to a single problem
correct misconceptions
clarify course policies
get feedback on a work in progress
share insights about a single reading
Focused discussions
Focused Discussions are short interactions that tend to disappear as the subject progresses, such as a weekly forum for questions related to that week’s activities. It allows for only two levels of nesting – the original post and subsequent replies. Use a Focused Discussion for single posts and related comments. One discussion leader typically posts a message and multiple learners comment on it. Participants may leave a side comment to a reply, but cannot develop the conversation beyond two layers of nesting.
Use Focused Discussions to:
answer a single question (for example, weekly Q&A forums)
share resources amongst peers
collect results from a simple research activity
share solutions to a single problem
correct misconceptions
clarify course policies
get feedback on a work in progress
share insights about a single reading
Threaded Discussions lend themselves to the refining of complex ideas. You can have infinite levels of nesting. Responses and different lines of inquiry can be quickly navigated due to its hierarchical structure. Use a Threaded Discussion for multiple posts and related comments. One or more discussion leaders post a message and multiple learners comment on it with the freedom to create any number of related discussion topics and comments (infinite layers of nesting).
Use Threaded Discussions to:
post and answer multiple related or unrelated questions
organize results from a complex research activity
share and iterate upon ideas shared by each student in the course
debate the pros and cons of a single issue or multiple issues
ask multiple questions of a single discussion leader
refine ideas between multiple discussion leaders and multiple learners
facilitate group discussions around multiple topics
facilitate discussions around a discussion (fishbowl conversations)
explore at length the feasibility of different solutions to a complex problem
Threaded discussions
Threaded Discussions lend themselves to the refining of complex ideas. You can have infinite levels of nesting. Responses and different lines of inquiry can be quickly navigated due to its hierarchical structure. Use a Threaded Discussion for multiple posts and related comments. One or more discussion leaders post a message and multiple learners comment on it with the freedom to create any number of related discussion topics and comments (infinite layers of nesting).
Use Threaded Discussions to:
post and answer multiple related or unrelated questions
organize results from a complex research activity
share and iterate upon ideas shared by each student in the course
debate the pros and cons of a single issue or multiple issues
ask multiple questions of a single discussion leader
refine ideas between multiple discussion leaders and multiple learners
facilitate group discussions around multiple topics
facilitate discussions around a discussion (fishbowl conversations)
explore at length the feasibility of different solutions to a complex problem
You can embed discussions in a Canvas page using the Comments Box feature. This feature is only available at UTS, and won’t appear in the Discussions index page. It provides the opportunity for your students to engage directly with content on a Canvas page without leaving it. Use this for simple discussion prompts.
Find out more…
Have a look at the Canvas guides to see how you can make the most of Discussions, for example:
