This is How to Do Well Discussion Forum

Lesson by Andre Moss

Description (for Instructors)

This introductory activity is a student forum in which students familiarize themselves with your syllabus and course policies, ask questions about them, self-reflect, and create community with their peers. Not only does this activity enhance students’ readiness to begin the course, but it also gives you, the instructor, the opportunity to gauge how closely they have read and/or how well they understand your course policies.

You may choose to present this activity as a graded quiz, using the quiz function on your Course Management System (CMS) of choice. However, you may also format this activity as a discussion forum on your CMS to encourage students to share ideas.

Explanation (for Students)

1.) Read syllabus: Read the course syllabus carefully, and tour the course’s Moodle page.

2.) Post to forum: Once you are familiar with the course syllabus, post to the “This is How to Do Well” discussion forum once. In your post, you will include the following:

  • List two policies or elements of the course that you think you will do well on and describe why.
  • List two policies or elements of this course that you think you will have trouble with and describe why.

To post to the forum, click the “Add a discussion topic” button and type/paste your response directly into the text box. You can visit the text editor help page for help inserting an image.

Note: This activity is worth one homework/activity grade.

Student Examples

Student Example #1

  1. Communication-based writing is something I feel I can do well given a good enough context and description
  2. Participating in class is also something I will do well in since its pretty simple
  3. Multiple drafts are something I will struggle with since I tend to overthink when writing and mess up certain aspects as I fix another
  4. Length of papers is something else I will struggle with since I take forever to write papers because I jump all over the place and it’s usually a hit or miss

Student Example #2

Policies or elements I will do well on:

–I think I will do well on the class participation because it is purely effort based. I don’t mind sharing my thoughts, particularly because this class seems to lean towards open-ended questions. 

–I also think I will enjoy the multiple-draft policy this class has. I think writing can always be improved, particularly if someone else gives advice. While the major projects are a big portion of our grades, I think this policy makes those projects seem like learning processes instead of exams. 

Policies or elements I will likely struggle with:

–I tend to have a harder time writing about myself. For example, I would rather write a research paper then a personal statement. After looking at the major projects, I think this will make the onboarding process one of the more challenging ones. I just decided my major, and haven’t picked a particular industry that I want to work in. I also haven’t taken very many major classes yet, as I just finished my freshmen year. I think that because I don’t have a well-defined career path yet, some of the assignments about my major or career may be more challenging to write about.

–Another elements I will likely struggle with is storytelling. I have had more experience with writing based off of sources and synthesizing information. I haven’t done anything like a literacy narrative before. However, I am excited to learn how to do this better, as I know it is a valuable skill. One of the critiques I received for a case competition I did was that my group answered the question but didn’t tell a story with the presentation, and I hope that I will become better at storytelling with practice.