A forum is a great way to foster communication and collaboration between students. In this article we will go over two different types of formats that you can use for your course.
For a detailed tutorial on how to set up a forum, check out the following YouTube video:
1. To start, toggle your Edit Mode button on.
2. Navigate to the week or topic that you would like to add the forum in and press Add an Activity or Resource.
3. Choose Forum from the Activity Chooser.
Standard Forum for General Use
This type forum is the default setting when using this feature. It will give your students the opportunity to create their own discussion topic where they can share their ideas and other students can view their submission and respond.
1. Give your forum a name.
2. In the Description box, type the question that you would like your students to discuss.
3. Under Forum Type, leave the Standard Forum for General Use selected.
4. If you expand the Availability section, you can choose the date you want to make this forum available and a cut off date for the last possible date students can submit a response. Keep in mind that Moodle operates on Army Time.
5. If you expand the Subscription and Tracking section, you can choose the kind of subscription you would like this forum to have. This basically means how often students are notified when a new response is added to the forum. I would strongly suggest clicking the small blue question mark next to the Subscription mode box to see what each type entails. For this example, I have chosen to disable the subscription.
6. If you expand the Whole Forum Grading section, you can put this forum under a category (provided you have set this up already in your gradebook,) and you can also enter in a maximum grade, in addition to a grade to pass.
7. There are additional sections that you can explore within this settings menu. I would strongly recommend checking these out to see if there is something extra you would like to utilize for your forum.
8. Once you have saved the changes to your forum, you will see if show up on your main Moodle page.
Adding a Forum Response
To add a response with this forum type, click Add discussion topic
Give your response a name in the Subject box and then type your response in the Message box.
If you would like to add additional files with your response, press Advanced and use the File Picker in the Attachment section to add the files.
Click Post to Forum
Users can now click inside that specific discussion topic and write a thoughtful response by pressing the Reply button.
A Single Simple Discussion
This type of forum allows you to post a topic that you want your students to respond to, but unlike the default forum type where students have individual discussion topics, this conversation takes place all on one page. The process to set up the forum is the same. Once you get to the forum creation page, you can follow these instructions:
1. Give your forum a name.
2. In the Description box, type the question that you would like your students to discuss.
3. Under Forum Type, choose A Single Simple Discussion
4. If you expand the Availability section, you can choose the date you want to make this forum available and a cut off date for the last possible date students can submit a response.
5. If you expand the Subscription and tracking section, you can choose the kind of subscription you would like this forum to have. This basically means how often students are notified when a new response is added to the forum. I would strongly suggest clicking the small blue question mark next to the Subscription mode box to see what each type entails. For this example, I have chosen to disable the subscription.
6. If you expand the Whole Forum Grading section, you can put this forum under a category (provided you have set this up already in your gradebook,) and you can also enter in a maximum grade in addition to a grade to pass.
7. There are additional sections that you can explore within this settings menu. I would strong recommend checking these out to see if they are something you would like to utilize.
8. Once you have saved the changes to your forum, you will see it show up on your main Moodle page.
Adding a Forum Response
To add a response with this forum type, click into the forum itself from the main Moodle page.
Press Reply under the comment you would like to respond to.
Write your reply in the box provided for you. If you would like to add additional files with your response, press Advanced and use the File Picker to add the files in the Attachment section. Click Post to Forum
