Faculty Forum - April 18, 2025 - In-Class and Online Discussion Forums

On Friday, April 18th, 2025, Academic Technology Services hosted a Faculty Forum on in-class and online discussions, discussion forums, and digital meeting rooms. Whether in the classroom, on UC Davis Canvas, or via tools like the online question and answer hub Piazza, discussion forums can promote peer learning, collaboration, and deep engagement. At this event, we discussed strategies for engaging our students in peer instruction and community building.

In addition to hearing from UC Davis faculty who have created interpretive, collaborative, and goal-oriented forums online, we also enjoyed a presentation by Ryan Bradford from Piazza. Also an opera singer, Bradford, along with his colleague TJ Kidd, shared a 30-minute bonus webinar introducing Piazza and showing attendees how the tool works to connect our students and create a community outside the classroom. You can view the recording of that short webinar.

Selected resources / links shared during the event

• A few perspectives from other faculty about creating community through online discussions, in case folks want to review these later:
• From SITT 2021: “Online discussion board fosters sense of community and contributes to learning in online classes” by Talitha van der Meulen 
• From SITT 2023: “Using technology to foster a class learning community” by Mark Verbitsky
• From SITT 2023: “Comparing Discussion Platforms for Student Engagement” by Debbie Fetter
• If you’d like to dig deeper into Community of Inquiry  
• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Framework
• Support resources from Piazza
• About Piazza at UC Davis
• KB: “How can I use Piazza for class collaboration and discussion?”
• From our Ed Tech Spotlight Series (2023): “Getting Started with Piazza”