TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Discussion Board Overview
• Accessing the Discussion Board 
• The Main Discussion Board Page
• Create a Thread
• Reply to Threads
• Subscribing to a Discussion Forum
• Search and Collect Discussions

Discussion Board Overview

The Discussion Board is often used in place of the traditional face-to-face classroom discussion. Discussions can serve as an online meeting place, a medium for collaboration, or a way to demonstrate the understanding or application of course material. A Discussion Board forum is an area where participants discuss a topic. Within each forum are threads (or discussion topics), which contains each participant's post and replies to the post. Course members can log in and post responses to each other at any time of the day allowing flexibility for non-traditional students and time to reflect for more difficult concepts. 

See Discussion Board for more information on using the Discussion Board or view the short Use Discussions video tutorial on how to access discussions, manage your posts and reply to posts.    

Accessing the Discussion Board 

To access the Discussion Board, click on Discussion Board in the course menu.

Don't see the Discussion Board in your course menu? Click on Course Tools in your Course Menu. 

This will bring you in to the Tools area of your course. Select Discussion Board.

The Main Discussion Board Page

When you first navigate to the Discussion Board you will see a list of Discussion Board forums. Depending on the way your course has been set up, you may see a list of forums or only forums dedicated to the current week's topic(s).

Click a Discussion Board Forum to view, create, or respond to threads. Your instructor may or may not have created a description for the forum, containing instructions for posting.

To the right of the forum you will notice how many posts are in each forum, the number of posts you have not yet read, and the total number of forum participants.

Create a Thread

In the Discussion Board each thread serves as a different point in the conversation. Participants may create new threads for different ideas or topics within the conversation.

To create a thread, navigate to the Discussion Board area of the course. Select a Discussion Forum to join the conversation.

You will be brought into the Discussion Forum. Click a thread to read a participant's post or select Create Thread at the top of the page to create a new thread.

Give your thread a subject and use the text/content editor to add text, links, images, video, etc. See Using the myLesley Text/Content Editor for more information.

Click Submit to post your thread.

For more information see Discussion Board: Threads.

Reply to Threads

Once someone has created a thread in the Discussion Board, you may reply to the post, thus creating a conversation around the post. 

Select a Discussion Thread and click to open.

Read the post and click Reply beneath the post.

Reply to the post using the the text/content editor to add text, links, images, video, etc. See Using the myLesley Text/Content Editor for more information.

Subscribing to a Discussion Forum

In many cases your instructor will give you the option to subscribe to a Discussion Board Forum. If you choose to subscribe you will receive an email alert every time someone posts in the forum. To subscribe, click the Subscribe button at the top of the forum page to subscribe.

Search and Collect Discussions

In the Discussion Board you can search for specific text or collect your posts for easier reading. See Search and Collect Discussions in myLesley for more information