E. Mitchell's Communicate 4.2.3 – Discussions Quest

• What role or purpose do discussion forums serve in the online classroom and are they effective?
• I believe the role of discussion forums is to supplement traditional classroom dialogue.  I believe if structured correctly, they can be effective.  It is imperative to have a challenging prompt, guidelines on participation as well as scoring of responses.  When students wait until the day the discussion is due to post, I feel then discussions are not effective.  
• How do discussion forums function as a teaching tool?
• Discussion forums serve as a place I can clarify information and provide guidance.  For example, the discussion my students are engaging in now is about psychological disorders.  With recent changes to the diagnostic criteria, there are numerous sites that students may reference in gathering their information that is incorrect.  Forums allow me a chance to clarify information that I feel a student may be unclear on--like there are no longer subcategories of schizophrenia, as I had to comment this evening.  
• How could they be used effectively and ineffectively? Furthermore, what are some best practices for facilitating forums online?
• I think they can be effective when students have deadlines to make their initial post to the prompt and then a differing deadline to comment to classmates.  I feel so many students wait until the due date and complete their response and then make comments without taking the time to read through multiple posts.  I do like now disabling their ability to post before they make their first one.  I feel then their posts are more authentic.  I think a best practice is definitely active engagement by commenting at least once to EVERY student in the class as well as having a clear scoring guide to establish expectations.