Discussion Boards
RUSM ATL Faculty Development & Medical Education Research and Scholarship

The Community of Inquiry Model highlights how we make all community members feel safe through social presence – by making sure everyone understands your perspective, and the purpose of your post. You also give permission to others to challenge you, and ask questions of your classmates about their posts.

	Social Presence We make all community members feel safe to question you and to let you question them
	Teaching Presence This is the guiding force of the community. It comes from the questions that we ask each other and the answers that we give.
	Cognitive Presence Once we have social and teaching presence, we can create new knowledge through cognitive presence

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Have a look at this video that explains the community of inquiry model.

 

Discussion Boards as Graded Assignments

These courses use discussion forums. Almost all of the forums are graded assignments. Your grade will be, in large part, determined by your ability to contribute to your fellow classmates' new learning. You will be expected to contribute to your classmates and your own understanding of the courses by actively engaging in the discussion forums.

You are strongly encouraged to split your time into smaller chunks so that you can ponder and reflect, before visiting the discussion boards repeatedly to have online conversations with your community.

Relate the topic to your own experience and give concrete examples from your practice to support any arguments or opinions you put forth.

Challenge your classmates by asking appreciative, yet challenging questions. If you disagree with a comment, challenge your classmate to prove it. If you agree, challenge your classmate to improve it.

Accept all challenges to your ideas by responding to the challenge with the spirit in which the challenge was offered - the quest for knowledge

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