Using rubrics in online discussion

My online teaching practices have evolved over the past few years as I have learned, mostly by trial and error, what was more or less successful. One area that has changed quite a lot has been online discussions - how they're structured, what kind of feedback I give, and what I hope students will learn. I've realized that a fair amount of structure helps everyone - it clarifies for me what the learning objectives are and how they should be met and graded, and it gives the students a concrete starting place that they can divert from once they understand what the topic is (and I've learned that understanding the topic is huge!).

I have my students engage in several online discussions in their intro psych class. Students work in groups of 5 to 7 students, and they stay in the same groups for several discussions in order to foster a feeling of community. This past semester, I created a rubric for online discussion to help students understand "how" to have an online discussion, and I match the rubric to the grading criteria. The rubric breaks down 5 components of online discussion into four levels: Exceeding Expectations, Meeting Expectations, Approaching Expectations and Not Yet Meeting Expectations. The 5 components are:

• Understanding - e.g., show understanding of the multiple sides of an issue
• Analysis - e.g., critical analysis using logic and evidence that increases the group's understanding
• Questions - e.g., posing questions that provoke group discussion
• Clarity - e.g., clear writing with few typos or grammatical errors
• Posts - e.g., 3 posts delivered on 3 separate occasions before the deadline

The rubric and associated grading criteria are available here - comments or suggestions are welcome.

I've returned to the rubric at different times over the semester and pointed students back towards it often. This is different to my initial foray into online teaching, when online discussions were largely unstructured and I failed to make my expectations explicit or concrete enough. Now the discussions show more critical and analytical thinking, and the writing has improved (far fewer typos for a start!). We also have more of a real discussion, rather than what I like to call "post and run" :-). Still, while increasing the quality overall, the discussions have showed enormous range - from perfunctory and mundane to amazingly insightful and analytical.

I want to learn more about structuring the discussion to elicit those thoughtful and analytical posts that provoke reflection and discussion. And I need to work on drawing in the more reluctant participants. Some of them lose a lot of marks because they don't engage in all (or indeed, most!) of the discussions. I'm not sure what's going on for them, but it's something I need to work on. And when and where should the instructor chime in?

Lots to keep working on . . .