Can we stop with the class discussion boards?

FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP · Jan 26

I'm sorry you feel this way. Class discussion boards can be a great learning experience. It is up to the students to make it so. Personally, I have learned a great deal from my fellow students. It has also been enjoyable to participate in thoughtful discussions and spirited debates. You will get out of this what you put into it.

FiremedicMike, RN, EMT-P · Jan 26

FullGlass said:

I'm sorry you feel this way. Class discussion boards can be a great learning experience. It is up to the students to make it so. Personally, I have learned a great deal from my fellow students. It has also been enjoyable to participate in thoughtful discussions and spirited debates. You will get out of this what you put into it.

Based on my unofficial polling of fellow students plus my own experience through my first bachelors, ADN, and now ADN to BSN course, there aren't a whole lot of people who get a lot out of discussion board posts.

Glad you were able to glean something from them, I find them to be tedious busywork under the guise of showing some sort of proof of course engagement to the accrediting bodies.

FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP · Jan 27

FiremedicMike said:

Based on my unofficial polling of fellow students plus my own experience through my first bachelors, ADN, and now ADN to BSN course, there aren't a whole lot of people who get a lot out of discussion board posts.

Glad you were able to glean something from them, I find them to be tedious busywork under the guise of showing some sort of proof of course engagement to the accrediting bodies.

Try to view it as a learning opportunity. Write posts on topics you care about. The research component, and including APA citations, are good practice for writing research papers. You will have to write some to earn your BSN. If you decide to further your education to the MSN and/or DNP level, you will be doing a lot of researching and writing papers.

Also, this can be viewed as an opportunity to start good discussions and debates. Post thought-provoking questions. Politely challenge viewpoints you disagree with, and be able to back up your arguments. This is a good way to develop your clinical reasoning skills.

Best wishes on your studies

FiremedicMike, RN, EMT-P · Jan 27

FullGlass said:

Try to view it as a learning opportunity. Write posts on topics you care about. The research component, and including APA citations, are good practice for writing research papers. You will have to write some to earn your BSN. If you decide to further your education to the MSN and/or DNP level, you will be doing a lot of researching and writing papers.

Also, this can be viewed as an opportunity to start good discussions and debates. Post thought-provoking questions. Politely challenge viewpoints you disagree with, and be able to back up your arguments. This is a good way to develop your clinical reasoning skills.

Best wishes on your studies

The topics are always chosen for us and the instructions/rubric are tedious. These have become nothing more than an exercise in ensuring the boxes are checked.

FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP · Jan 28

FiremedicMike said:

The topics are always chosen for us and the instructions/rubric are tedious. These have become nothing more than an exercise in ensuring the boxes are checked.

This is an opportunity for you to exercise leadership and work to turn these discussion boards into an interesting learning opporutunity. Give us a couple of examples of these "tedious" post requirements. Perhaps we can help you out to show you how to make these more interesting.

Focus on what you can control. You have to complete these assignments, so instead of such a negative attitude, focus on who you can make these tasks more interesting for you and your classmates. You have the power to have a more positive perspective.

I took an argumentation and rhetoric class once, and one of the assignments was to write a brief paper on a controversial topic and make an argument for one side. As a future NP, I wrote a paper supporting universal healthcare for illegal immigrants to the U.S. This was at UCLA, a very liberal university, but my classmates piled on and were quite upset by my paper! LOL. The professor loved it, because it got a very good discussion and debate going. Personally, when I started writing the paper, I was actually opposed to providing such care, but as I did the research for the paper, I ended up changing my mind.

barcode120x, RN, NP · Jan 30

I didn't care for or against it. It was mindless busy work in both my BSN and FNP program, but it was easy and it was just another task to get my grade. If anything, I was amazed and perplexed about how some just didn't even know how to write an adequate, semi educated paragraph or small essay. Saw this frequently in my BSN program but less so in my FNP, but it was there from time to time.

Back in the day, the motto was, "C's get degrees"

JKL33 · Jan 30

FullGlass said:

Give us a couple of examples of these "tedious" post requirements.

In a number of my courses the platform being used did not support the formatting that was demanded (and being graded), for one example. Various suggestions were given by the instructor to try to work around this, such as creating one's post in a separate document, then copying and pasting it to the area. When that did not work (because any formatting was not able to be preserved), then the next suggestion was to simply upload the external document as an attachment to the post, so that in order to read the discussion one needed to open all the attachments. And then there was no visible context for one's reply, which also needed to be in attachment form so as to preserve the APA formatting. I suspect that when the OP says tedious, he/she actually does indeed mean things that make one want to tear out one's hair, rather than a simple matter of not finding a topic interesting or something like that.

FiremedicMike, RN, EMT-P · Jan 30

The class I just finished was by far the worst when it came to tedious DB post requirements, unfortunately I can't access the course material anymore, but each week you generally had 5-6 bullet points you needed to address, at least 2-3 "scholarly references" cited, and the initial post must be between 150-250 words (excluding reference section)- less than 150 words is a fail, exceeding 275 words was a fail.. I believe the worst week had 12 different bullet points that had to be checked within our 250 word post.

It is not a recipe for creating discussion, it is a framework for stringing together words that meet the 8-10 requirements laid out.

We can sit here and pretend that discussion board posts weren't created when school moved online to replace the discussions that used to occur during in-person class, but it would be academically dishonest to do so. We can also sit here and pretend that DB posts actually succeed at replacing that experience, but based on my experience and offline discussions with other students in my life, that would be demonstrably false.

It's possible that FullGlass found a curriculum and instructor group that unlocked the secret to making DB posts a worthwhile replacement to face to face discourse, but I'm 2.5 degrees in between 3 different respected brick and mortar colleges and have yet to have this experience.

FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP · Jan 31

FiremedicMike said:

The class I just finished was by far the worst when it came to tedious DB post requirements, unfortunately I can't access the course material anymore, but each week you generally had 5-6 bullet points you needed to address, at least 2-3 "scholarly references" cited, and the initial post must be between 150-250 words (excluding reference section)- less than 150 words is a fail, exceeding 275 words was a fail.. I believe the worst week had 12 different bullet points that had to be checked within our 250 word post.

It is not a recipe for creating discussion, it is a framework for stringing together words that meet the 8-10 requirements laid out.

We can sit here and pretend that discussion board posts weren't created when school moved online to replace the discussions that used to occur during in-person class, but it would be academically dishonest to do so. We can also sit here and pretend that DB posts actually succeed at replacing that experience, but based on my experience and offline discussions with other students in my life, that would be demonstrably false.

It's possible that FullGlass found a curriculum and instructor group that unlocked the secret to making DB posts a worthwhile replacement to face to face discourse, but I'm 2.5 degrees in between 3 different respected brick and mortar colleges and have yet to have this experience.

I am sorry that the OP and others have had such difficulties. I admit that sometimes those discussion board posts seemed tedious. However, students have to get through those and trying to cultivate a more positive outlook might help. After all, you have to do the assignment and can't control that, but you can try to view it as a learning opportunity.

As OP pointed out, these posts are to replace decreased classroom interaction. In addition, here is what else is learned:

1. Writing. While the posts are short, it is still academic/scholarly writing practice, which is an important part of nursing education. The best way to improve one's writing is to practice writing.

2. Research. Again, short posts, but it is practice researching. It is also practice using the APA format, and that is important for nursing education.

Here are some suggestions:

1. If your school is receptive to student feedback (mine was, fortunately), provide feedback on ways to improve this type of assignment or ways to replace it with something more useful.

2. Responses to other students can support their post, present an opposing view, or expand on the original post with additional information that was not covered. Doing the research to write these responses can be a good learning opportunity - you could learn something new. I generally learned something new by reading other student's posts and supporting research.

Bottom line, you just have to get through this. I feel your pain. ?