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How to Write Questions that Actually Spark Conversation

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How to Write Questions that Actually Spark Conversation

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🎁 In addition to this blog post, we have created a whole free course on this topic. In addition to extra material, the course includes actual discussions, knowledge checks, certification and gives you access to an exclusive community of people working in education. Check out the course here
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Running an online discussion board is a very different challenge from having a classroom discussion. In-person instructors can ask questions on the fly, rephrase themselves for clarity, and direct the flow of a conversation with follow-ups. Online, you only have one shot to ask a question that catches students' interest and compels them to speak up.

The stakes are higher than you think. Sad, empty discussion boards, just like a reliance on dry online lectures, lead to disengaged students and lackluster online experiences.

On the flip side, active discussion boards can elevate an online class from okay to extraordinary. Studies show that participating in classroom discussions reinforces knowledge retention through active learning and strengthens students' critical-thinking skills.

If you can get a real discussion going between students, then you can reap the benefits of community and collaborative learning, even if your class never meets face-to-face.

To do this, you will have to look beyond the dry writing prompts and uninspired reading-comprehension questions that so often sink a conversation before it begins. You'll have to craft questions that inspire students to actually engage and interact with each other in a lively discussion.

Here's how.

Promote Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking, the ability to consider many possible solutions instead of just one, is the key to a lively discussion board. While it's important to assess students' comprehension of the course materials, creating questions with a single right answer shuts down discussion before it starts.

Consider Bloom's Taxonomy of knowledge, which illustrates different levels of learning and understanding. The bottom of the pyramid represents the most basic levels of learning, where thinkers converge on one correct answer. The top of the pyramid, the higher level of learning, is where learners' diverge to create their own unique answers.

source: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
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Analyze: Ask students to examine, classify, or question course materials to draw their own conclusions.

Evaluate: Ask students to form an opinion and defend it; critique or appraise course materials.

Create: Ask students to use what they've learned to construct something new.

Avoid questions that utilize only the bottom three layers of the pyramid: remember (fact recall), understand (explain concepts), and apply (use information to solve or interpret). These techniques are great for tests or essay assignments, but they won't create debate, conversation, or original thought.

Great discussion questions do more than just test comprehension: They turn students from passive receptors of knowledge into active participants in their education.

To push students into exercising higher-level thinking, write discussion questions that pull from the top of the pyramid:

Avoid closed-ended questions, such as those that ask students to list characteristics, define terms, explain concepts, or recall facts. Once the correct answer has been given, there isn't much more to say, so the discussion fizzles out.

Instead, create open-ended questions that don't have a right or wrong answer. That way, each student can give their own unique perspective as they respond to and build on their classmates' answers.
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Encourage Analysis

Ask for Opinions

Ask Relational Questions

Introduce Controversy

Ask Fewer Questions, but Better Ones

Are clear and easy to understand. Avoid acronyms and scholarly language. Most students will not spend five minutes just trying to decipher what you're asking.

Foster a dialogue. Beyond just having no single right answer, a good discussion question leaves room for people to not just answer the question differently but build on those answers to create a back-and-forth discussion as well.

Are inclusive. Everyone in the class should be equally prepared to answer the question, no matter what their background. Avoid questions that include details that are specific to only one culture, economic class, or gender. For example, if you're teaching a class to a group of international students, don't write questions based on the concept of American Thanksgiving.

Align with the course objectives. Just because something is interesting or would spark a lively debate doesn't necessarily mean it's relevant to the course. Your ultimate goal is to encourage students to use and apply the course materials, so your questions should align with that aim.
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It can be hard to know which questions will resonate with students and which will fall flat, but avoid the temptation to pepper the discussion board with questions to see what will stick. This will overwhelm students and result in less participation, not more.

Instead, ask fewer questions, but spend your time crafting truly great ones that appeal to students' higher reasoning skills and spur meaningful discussion.

Great discussion questions:

Writing Great Discussion Questions Is Only Half the Battle

For most students, participating in class discussions is a calculated risk. They're putting their carefully constructed arguments and deeply held opinions on the line, with a real possibility of criticism from their peers. You can encourage more participation and discussion by mitigating that risk and creating a welcoming space for students to share. After you've posed your killer question, continue to moderate and guide the discussion to keep it flowing civilly.

This can be daunting in a very large online class, but an LMS with good moderation features, like the ability to section students into smaller discussion groups, can help.

For more materials on collaborative learning, pedagogy, and creating fruitful online discussions, join our newsletter.

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How to Write Discussion Questions That Actually Spark Discussions · Eduflow blog

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🎁 In addition to this blog post, we have created a whole free course on this topic. In addition to extra material, the course includes actual discussions, knowledge checks, certification and gives you access to an exclusive community of people working in education.

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Online course discussion is an excellent opportunity for teaching and prompting critical thinking. By presenting challenging open-ended questions, you can engage in a sort of asynchronous Socratic questioning with your students.

Use the following framework to structure your discussion questions or prompts.

Provide a setup. Present a statement, observation, or scenario that requires students to reexamine or apply what they're learning.

Ask students to commit. Ask a specific question, one that won't have an obvious right answer, likely in one of the following categories.

Personal reflections: "What do you think about ___?" "How do you feel about ___?"

Past experiences: "In the past, how have you responded when ___?" "Have you ever had an experience where ___?"

Rational conclusions: "What conclusion do you draw from ___|?" "Of ___, ___, or ___, which choice makes the most sense given ___?"

Process or order: "How would you go about ___?" "In what order would you ___?"

Guesses or estimates: "What would you do if ___?" "What might have happened if ___?"

Superlatives: "What is the worst approach to ___?" "What is the most appropriate ___?"

Ask students to defend their commitments.  Give students clear directions for defending or explaining their responses.

"Why?"

"Why or why not?"

"Explain your reasoning."

"Defend your response through one of the theoretical frameworks in this week's reading."

"Explain your response using data from this week's field observations."

See also:

MacKnight, C. B. (2000). Teaching Critical Thinking through Online Discussions.  Educause Quarterly, 23  (4), 38-41.

Murchú , D. Ó., & Muirhead, B. (2005). Insights into Promoting Critical Thinking in Online Classes.  International Journal of Instructional Technology.

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Online course discussion is an excellent opportunity for teaching and prompting critical thinking. By presenting challenging open-ended questions, you can engage in a sort of asynchronous Socratic questioning with your students. Use the following framework to structure your discussion questions or prompts. Provide a setup.

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Varying Your Discussion Prompts as an Instructional Strategy

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Varying Your Discussion Prompts as an Instructional Strategy

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Key Questions for Designing Online Discussions

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Key Questions for Designing Online Discussions

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These questions have been adapted from "Engaging Students in Discussion Online" (from the Teaching and Learning Bulletin 6.2 [2002] produced by the University of Washington's Center for Instructional Development and Research)

1. What should students gain through participation in the discussion?

Start by establishing your learning objectives for the online discussion and identifying how they relate to the course goals. Communicate these objectives and their relation to the course to the students to motivate them to participate and monitor their own progress. Remember to consider how you will determine if the discussion is successful and students are learning.

Example Goals:

2. How will you start the online discussion?

Introduce the discussion with a prompt that lets the students understand your expectations, their role in the discussion and the basis for the discussion (e.g., readings, in-class discussion, lecture material, personal opinion, new resources).

Tips for Designing the Discussion Prompt:

Example Prompt:

Each student will contribute to the weekly class blog, posting an approximately 500-word response to the week's readings. There are a number of ways to approach these open-ended posts: consider the reading in relation to its historical or theoretical context; write about an aspect of the day's reading that you don't understand, or something that jars you; formulate an insightful question or two about the reading and then attempt to answer your own questions; or respond to another student's post, building upon it, disagreeing with it, or re-thinking it. In any case, strive for thoughtfulness and nuance. To ensure that everyone has a chance to read the blog before class, post your response by midnight the evening before class.

3. How will you facilitate the online discussion?

The instructor's presence online emphasizes the value of the discussion, and helps students to retain interest in the discussion and clarity of its purpose. Therefore, consider periodically responding to individual postings or main themes in the discussion.

Tips for Sustaining Online Discussions:

Encourage risk-taking in the exchange of ideas because the exploration of understandings and misunderstandings is fundamental to the construction of new knowledge.

Encourage students to draw on their unique backgrounds and support multiple perspectives because the exploration of different viewpoints fosters critique, insight and understanding.

Anticipate responses so that you can plan targeted follow-up questions or responses.

Tips for the Process of Online Facilitation:

Example Responses to Students' Posts:

4. Will you assess the discussion?

Identify how the discussion board is connected to the course grade, if you will grade student posts, and how the discussions might prepare students for other graded course assignments & assessments.

Tips for Assessing Online Discussion Boards:

Establish clear criteria for posts; e.g., share models or a rubric with the students.

Provide feedback on student posts; e.g., highlight good examples in class or online.

Collect student feedback; e.g., survey students to find out how the discussion is contributing to their learning.

Example Rubric for Discussion Post¹:

Rating

Characteristics

4

The posting(s) integrates multiple viewpoints and weaves both class readings and other participants' postings into their discussion of the subject. It integrates examples with explanations or analysis and demonstrates awareness of its own limitations or implications.

3

The posting(s) builds upon the ideas of another participant or two, and digs deeper into the question(s) posed by the instructor. It is mostly description or summary, without consideration of alternative perspectives, and few connections are made between ideas.

2

A single posting that does not interact with or incorporate the ideas of other participants' comments.

1

A simple "me too" comment that neither expands the conversation nor demonstrates any degree of reflection by the student.

¹ This example is from Pedagogy and the Class Blog by Mark Sample (August 2009)

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Key Questions for Designing Online Discussions

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These questions have been adapted from "Engaging Students in Discussion Online" (from the Teaching and Learning Bulletin 6.2 [2002] produced by the University of Washington's Center for Instructional Development and Research) 1. What should students gain through participation in the discussion?

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Creating Rubrics for Effective Assessment Management

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Creating Rubrics for Effective Assessment Management

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Articulate the value of rubrics for your online course.

Describe the different types of rubrics that can help you with your grading workflow.

Develop first drafts of rubrics for your assignments and assessments.

The basics

Regardless of whether your course is online or face to face, you will need to provide feedback to your students on their strengths and areas for growth. Rubrics are one way to simplify the process of providing feedback and consistent grades to your students.

What are rubrics?

Rubrics are "scoring sheets" for learning tasks. There are multiple flavors of rubrics, but they all articulate two key variables for scoring how successful the learner has been in completing a specific task: the criteria for evaluation and the levels of performance. While you may have used rubrics in your face-to-face class, rubrics become essential when teaching online. Rubrics will not only save you time (a lot of time) when grading assignments, but they also help clarify expectations about how you are assessing students and why they received a particular grade. It also makes grading feel more objective to students ("I see what I did wrong here"), rather than subjective ("The teacher doesn't like me and that's why I got this grade.").

When designing a rubric, ideally, the criteria for evaluation need to be aligned with the learning objectives [link to learning objectives] of the task. For example, if an instructor asks their learners to create an annotated bibliography for a research assignment, we can imagine that the instructor wants to give the students practice with identifying valid sources on their research topic, citing sources correctly (using the appropriate format), and summarizing sources appropriately. The criteria for evaluation in a rubric for that task might be

Quality of sources

Accuracy of citation format for each source type

Coherence of summaries

Accuracy of summaries

The levels of performance don't necessarily have a scale they must align with. Some rubric types might use a typical letter grading scale for their levels - these rubrics often include language like "An A-level response will...." Other rubric types have very few levels of performance; sometimes they are as simple as a binary scale - complete or incomplete (a checklist is an example of this kind of rubric). How an instructor thinks about the levels of performance in a rubric is going to depend on a number of factors, including their own personal preferences and approaches to evaluating student work, and on how the task is being used in the learning experience. If a task is not going to contribute to the final grade for the course, it might not be necessary (or make sense) to provide many fine-grained levels of performance. On the other hand, an assignment that is designed to provide detailed information to the instructor as to how proficient each student is at a set of skills might need many, highly specific levels of performance. At the end of this module, we provide examples of different types of rubrics and structures for levels of performance.
What teaching goals can rubrics help meet?
In an online course, clear communication from the instructor about their expectations is critical for student success and success of the course. Effective feedback, where it is clear to the learner what they have already mastered and where there are gaps in the learners knowledge or skills, is necessary for deep learning. Rubrics help an instructor clearly explain their expectations to the class as a whole while also making it easier to give individual students specific feedback on their learning.

Although one of the practical advantages to using rubrics is to make grading of submitted assignments more efficient, they can be used for many, not mutually exclusive, purposes:

highlighting growth of a students' skills or knowledge over time

articulating to learners the important features of a high-quality submission

assessing student participation in discussion forums

guiding student self-assessments

guiding student peer-reviews

providing feedback on ungraded or practice assignments to help students identify where they need to focus their learning efforts.

Examples of different rubrics

Different styles of rubrics are better fits for different task-types and for fulfilling the different teaching aims of a rubric . Here we focus on four different styles with varying levels of complexity: single point rubric, Specific task rubrics, general rubrics, holistic rubrics and analytical rubrics (Arter, J. A., & Chappuis, J., 2007).

Single point rubric

Sometimes, simple is easiest. A single point rubric can tell students whether they met the expectations of the criteria or not. We'd generally recommend not using too many criteria with single point rubrics, they aren't meant for complicated evaluation. They are great for short assignments like discussion posts.

Example task : Write a 250 discussion post reflecting on the purpose of this week's readings. (20 points)
Example rubric:
Specific task rubric

This style of rubric is useful for articulating the knowledge and skill objectives (and their respective levels) of a specific assignment.
Example task:
Design and build a trebuchet that is adjustable to launch a
Example rubric:
Holistic rubric

This style of rubric enables a single, overall assessment/evaluation of a learner's performance on a task
Example task:
Write a historical research paper discussing ....
Example rubric:
General rubric

This style of rubric can be used for multiple, similar assignments to show growth (achieved and opportunities) over time.
Example task:
Write a blog post appropriate for a specific audience exploring the themes of the reading for this week.
Example rubric:
( Adapted from http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196 )

Analytic rubric

This style of rubric is well suited to breaking apart a complex task into component skills and allows for evaluation of those components. It can also help determine the grade for the whole assignment based on performance on the component skills. This style of rubric can look similar to a general rubric but includes detailed grading information.
Example task:
Write a blog post appropriate for a specific audience exploring the themes of the reading for this week.
Example rubric:
Adapted from http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196

Designing your own rubric

You can approach designing a rubric from multiple angles. Here we outline just one possible procedure to get started. This approach assumes the learning task is graded, but it can be generalized for other structures for levels of performance.

1. Start with the, "I know it when I see it," principle. Most instructors have a sense of what makes a reasonable response to a task, even if they haven't explicitly named those traits before. Write out as many traits of a "meets expectations" response as you can come up with - these will be your first draft of the criteria for learning.

2. For each type of criterion, describe what an "A" response looks like. This will be your top level of performance.

3. For complicated projects, consider moving systematically down each whole-grade level (B, C, D, F), describe, in terms parallel to how you described the best response, what student responses at that level often look like. Or, for more simple assignments, create very simple rubrics - either the criterion was achieved or not. Rubrics do not have to be complicated [link to single point rubric]!

4. Share the rubric with a colleague to get feedback or "play test" the rubric using past student work if possible.

5. After grading some student responses with it, you may be tempted to fine-tune some details. However, this is not recommended. For one, Canvas will not allow you to change a rubric once it has been used for grading. But it is also not recommended to change the metrics of grading after students have already been using a rubric to work from. If you find that your rubric is grading students too harshly on a particular criterion, Also, make sure you track what changes you want to make. You may want to adjust your future course rubrics or at least for the next iteration of the task or course.

Practical Tips

Creating learning objectives for each task, as you design the task, helps to ensure there is alignment between your learning activities and assessments and your course level learning objectives. It also gives a head start for the design of the rubric.

When creating a rubric, start with just a few levels of performance. It is easier to expand a rubric to include more specificity in the levels of performance than it is to shrink the number of levels. Smaller rubrics are much easier for the instructor to navigate to provide feedback.

Using a rubric will (likely) not eliminate the need for qualitative feedback to each student, but keeping a document of commonly used responses to students that you can copy and paste from can make the feedback process even more efficient.

Explicitly have students self-assess their task prior to submitting it. For example, when students submit a paper online, have them include a short (100 word or less) reflection on what they think they did well on the paper, and what they struggled with. That step seems obvious to experts (i.e. instructors) but isn't obvious to all learners. If students make a habit of this, they will often end up with higher grades because they catch their mistakes before they submit their response(s).

Canvas and other learning management systems (LMS) have tools that allow you to create point and click rubrics. You can choose to have the tools automatically enter grades into the LMS grade book.

Rubrics can be used for students to self-evaluate their own performance or to provide feedback to peers.

Resources

University of Michigan

CRLT - Sample lab rubrics

Cult of Pedagogy - The single point rubric

Other Resources

The Chronicle of Higher Ed - A rubric for evaluating student blogs

Canvas - Creating a rubric in Canvas

Jon Mueller - Authentic assessment toolkit

Arter, J. A., & Chappuis, J. (2007). Creating & recognizing quality rubrics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Gilbert, P. K., & Dabbagh, N. (2004). How to structure online discussions for meaningful discourse: a case study. British Journal of Educational Technology , (1), 5-18. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2005.00434.x

Wyss, V. L., Freedman, D., & Siebert, C. J. (2014). The Development of a Discussion Rubric for Online Courses: Standardizing Expectations of Graduate Students in Online Scholarly Discussions. TechTrends , (2), 99-107. doi: 10.1007/s11528-014-0741-x

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Creating rubrics for effective assessment management

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Articulate the value of rubrics for your online course. Describe the different types of rubrics that can help you with your grading workflow. Develop first drafts of rubrics for your assignments and assessments. Regardless of whether your course is online or face to face, you will need to provide feedback to your students on their strengths and areas for growth.

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Southern New Hampshire University Discussion Rubric: Undergraduate

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Southern New Hampshire University Discussion Rubric: Undergraduate

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Here are the Top 100 Tools for learning generated from the 17th Annual Tools for Learning survey. There were a total of 2,022 votes and this year there were more votes from the education sector than last year, which is why many of the educational tools have regained lost ground on this year's list. New tools on the list are shaded yellow in the table below, and tools returning to the list are shaded green. The big news for this year is that ChatGPT has jumped straight into the chart in the No 4 place. 2023 is the year that AI has finally taken off. For a categorisation of the tools (both as a list and in graphical format), take a look at By Category

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Here are the Top 100 Tools for learning generated from the 17th Annual Tools for Learning survey. There were a total of 2,022 votes and this year there were more votes from the education sector than last year, which is why many of the educational tools have regained lost ground on this year’s list. New tools on the list are shaded yellow in the table below, and tools returning to the list are shaded green. The big news for this year is that ChatGPT has jumped straight into the chart in the No 4 place. 2023 is the year that AI has finally taken off. For a categorisation of the tools (both as a list and in graphical format), take a look at By Category

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Create tomorrow together, today

Miro empowers 60M users to shape the future by providing a place where they can create together seamlessly, regardless of location.

Next big thing? No big deal. Three simple keys to the future.

Strategize & plan

Ensure continuous alignment with customer needs and company strategy. Define goals and initiatives, visualize priorities and dependencies, and finally, watch your plans pay off. Everything is easier when you never run out of space.

Design customer-centric solutions

Foster a customer-centric mindset and build a mutual team space, where everyone can capture insights, structure them with diagrams and tables, and share it all in a central spot.

Develop your products & services

Accelerate time to market with a full suite of capabilities designed for innovation, including diagramming, real-time data visualization, and workshop facilitation. Miro also gives you built-in support for common product development processes, with agile practices like estimation and retrospectives.

Connect your entire company in a single, secure platform

With enterprise-grade security at its core, Miro helps organizations approach a Zero Trust Security philosophy. We offer advanced security integrations, robust data residency, governance solutions for sensitive data, and an accessibility program targeting Level AA Success Criteria of WCAG 2.1.

Six core capabilities. Six ways to accelerate innovation.

Miro offers sophisticated bundles of capabilities built for all stages of innovation, from diagramming to workshops to code reviews, in a single integrated workspace designed for large-scale collaboration, eliminating tool silos and costs.

Workshops & async collaboration

Unlock faster, more engaged and more productive feedback cycles for deep collaborative work. By bringing together slides, real-time data visualizations, action items, and diagrams, you'll have everything you need to make good decisions, collected on a single board.

Diagramming & process mapping

One user-friendly, intuitive workspace to visualize complex systems, ideas, and organizational structures, allowing teams to: get started faster, automate time-consuming tasks, and bring products and software to market more efficiently.

Integrated with your favorite tools? Of course.

To make work more efficient, Miro connects dynamically with over 130 tools across your stack. Jira, Azure DevOps, Asana, Zoom, Teams, and Slack are just some of them.

Explore what others like you have created within Miroverse

Discover the proven workflows, projects, and frameworks of the Miro community - or share your own!

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Miro | The Visual Workspace for Innovation

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Miro is a visual workspace for innovation where teams manage projects, design products, and build the future together. Join 60M+ users from around the world.

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Animaker, Make Animated Videos on Cloud for free

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Animaker is an online do-it-yourself (#DIY) animation video maker that brings studio quality presentations within everyone’s reach. Animated Videos, Done Right!

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Open Canvas

Create, organize, and move freely on an open canvas. Create seamless presentations without the restrictions of linear slides.

Ready-made asset libraries

Choose from millions of images, stickers, GIFs, and icons from Unsplash and Giphy.

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Presentations and videos with engaging visuals for hybrid teams | Prezi Present

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Welcome to Prezi, the presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to bring your ideas to life and make you a great presenter.

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Noun Project: Free Icons & Stock Photos for Everything

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Noun Project has the most diverse collection of free icons and stock photos. Download SVG and PNG. Over 5 million art-quality icons and free photos.

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Steven Hope, Head of Independent Learning, Leeds City College

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Google Jamboard: Collaborative Digital Whiteboard | Google Workspace for Education - Google for Education

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A collaborative, digital whiteboard makes it easy to create without boundaries and share ideas in real time. Jamboard moves the whiteboard to the cloud.

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Portfolio of Solutions for
Video Engagement

Partner with a leader in ed-tech solutions

Push the boundaries of learning to create new experiences

Get more value from your enterprise learning solutions

"YuJa allows faculty to achieve those goals, no matter the circumstances. It’s the most impactful tool we’ve found that I’ve ever been personally involved with."

“Video is so much more powerful than just a visual. It connects students in another way, adding a personal touch through rich media.”

“YuJa gives us the tools we need to accomplish what is needed in the classroom for video hosting while providing us with the support we need to make sure that happens.”

“We needed a way to manage content and something that was built as a pedagogical tool.”

“With YuJa, each institution of the NDUS has the toolset and flexibility to brand and create its own unique space according to need.”

“Panorama has allowed facilitators, faculty and staff to present content to users with the confidence that it is aligning with WCAG standards. ”

"Accessibility, the ability to attach supplementary resources, the addition of indexes and the ability to embed videos.”

"We have been extremely satisfied not only with the service we’ve been provided, but with the response we’ve received from students and instructors.”

“YuJa helps meet our needs for inclusivity and equity by providing ready access to students who may not be able to come on campus."

“We tried knocking holes in it and couldn’t find anything that didn’t work the way we wanted it to.”

"Having multiple features in a single platform makes everything quicker and easier to use"

“Faculty love it. Staff love it, and it’s easy to use right away.”

POWERING LEADING LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS ALL SECTORS

See News and Events for more

Powering Learning Organizations

Product Portfolio

Solutions to Educate, Engage, Inspire, and Collaborate

Our portfolio includes products for video management, lecture capture, live streaming, video conferencing, digital asset management, video test proctoring, digital media accessibility, digital archiving and compliance, and real-time audience response systems.

Product Portfolio

News and Events

Video CMS

Customer Case Studies

Learn About How Customers Deploy Our Products

Owensboro Community and Technical College

“I look for distance learning technology that’s useful to staff and that allows faculty to engage and work with students. YuJa allows faculty to achieve those goals, no matter the circumstances. It’s the most impactful tool we’ve found that I’ve ever been personally involved with.”

Ed Morris, OCTC eLearning Coordinator

Red Rock Community College

“When we adopted YuJa, we had no idea the students would develop a radio station and use this technology to stream to the college community, which was well out of the scope of expectations. ”

Jon Johnson, Dean of Digital Learning

Lamar University

“YuJa gives us the tools we need to accomplish what is needed in the classroom for video hosting while providing us with the support we need to make sure that happens. ”

Dr. Sherry Wells, Assistant Vice Provost for Digital Learning

University of Windsor

“We needed a way to manage content and something that was built as a pedagogical tool. Other solutions weren’t built for teaching, and we had the opportunity to look to YuJa to fill that gap.”

Nick Baker, Director of the Office of Open Learning

North Dakota University System

“With YuJa, each institution of the NDUS has the toolset and flexibility to brand and create its own unique space according to need. Since adoption and particularly after the pandemic struck in early 2020, YuJa has become an integral part of teaching and learning across the NDUS.”

Randy Wald, Operations Manager, Academic Services and Training

Delgado Community College

“Panorama has allowed facilitators, faculty and staff to present content to users with the confidence that it is aligning with WCAG standards. Accessibility compliance allows access to print, audio, and visual media for users to choose the best medium for their learning needs and to be active members of the learning community.”

Amanda Rosenzweig, Ph.D., Canvas Administrator and Professor

University of Calgary

“In our workshops, we often talk about universal design for learning and these are the features of YuJa that we like to highlight — accessibility, the ability to attach supplementary resources, the addition of indexes and the ability to embed videos.”

Isadora Mok-Kulakova, Online Learning Environment Lead at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Calgary

Aiken Technical College

“We have been extremely satisfied not only with the service we’ve been provided, but with the response we’ve received from students and instructors.”

Kate O’Hara-Goergen, Instructional Development at Aiken Technical College

UC Riverside

“YuJa helps meet our needs for inclusivity and equity by providing ready access to students who may not be able to come on campus. They can learn anywhere at any time.”

Israel Fletes, Director of Academic Technology for XCITE, the Exploration Center for Innovative Teaching and Engagement

Johnson County Community College

“We tried knocking holes in it and couldn’t find anything that didn’t work the way we wanted it to.”

Ed Lovitt, Ph.D., Director of Educational Technology and Distance Learning

ArtCenter College of Design

“With YuJa, we had a tool in house that we could deploy quickly for instructors to upload and store files for their classes. While we couldn’t have planned for the pandemic, we had planned for a scenario in which we expanded the use of YuJa throughout the college.”

Kevin Lipnos, Director of Media Production for ArtCenter Online

Bronx Community College

“We did a pilot of YuJa, and the rest is history,” Robinson stated. “Faculty love it. Staff love it, and it’s easy to use right away.”

Albert Robinson

Clarkson College

“The YuJa team is always working on something amazing, and the more innovation they create, the more faculty will be sold on the product.”

Dr. Ricardo Varguez, Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence

Madison Area Technical College

“Accessibility is one of the big features that drew us to YuJa’s products. Because instructors are often time-strapped, auto-captioning and tagging have proven to be well-used tools.”

David Leo, Faculty Technologist

Austin Peay State University

“Faculty have so much to worry about. If we can introduce a technology that isn’t overwhelming, it’s a win, and that’s what we’ve been able to do with this platform.”

Dr. Anna Carrie Webb, Instructional Technology Support Manager

Dallas College

“YuJa is unique and stands above many because we truly feel like they’re our partners.”

Michael Coleman, Senior Manager of Instructional Development

Canterbury Christ Church University

“YuJa’s Enterprise Lecture Capture Platform really meets our need for a robust lecture capture solution.”

Duncan MacIver, Technology Enhanced Learning Manager

Colorado Community College System

“Our faculty find it easy that they don’t need to purchase a third-party video editing software to do video lectures.”

Jennifer Ferguson, Director of Teaching Learning Center and Online Learning

Trent University

“The support has been good, prompt, and overall, a positive experience.”

Jeff Gardiner, Instructional Technologist at Trent University

Indiana State University

“The ability for faculty to review their lectures and use videos as learning tools has helped instructors improve their methods.”

Nick Aballi, Distance Learning Technology Specialist

Customer Case Studies

Lecture Capture Solutions

Lecture Capture Systems Including Video Capture and Screen Recording Tools

Mobile Capture and Viewing

Rich Mobile Applications for Recording and Viewing Content On-the-Go

YuJa’s Mobile Apps for iOS and Android provide capabilities to record content, upload content, and view content. This includes the capability to record at any location including video assignments, conduct interviews, and training for remote work.

Lecture Capture Solutions

Video Conferencing

Interactive Video Conferencing Designed for Teaching and Learning

Use YuJa’s Video Conferencing platform to scale online training and education programs within your organization. Forget the need for expensive hardware or installed software. With YuJa’s video conferencing all you need to participate is a web browser or mobile device.

Engage learners using real-time whiteboards, desktop sharing, and uploaded documents with up to 200 participants. Everything is recorded for distribution after class.

Video Conferencing

Enterprise Accessibility

AI-Powered Enterprise Accessibility Tools That Integrate Seamlessly into the LMS

Accessible content enables every learning to succeed. YuJa Panorama integrates seamlessly into all major Learning Management (LMS) products to improve the accessibility of digital media and course content.

By incorporating market-leading Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning into the accessibility process, it means that instructors and technologists alike have a digital accessibility expert to automatically make content more accessible.

Enterprise Accessibility

Digital Asset Management

Test Proctoring

Secure Video Test Proctoring Tools for Online and Hybrid Course Delivery

Secure video exam proctoring tools along with live and post-test human review ensures that YuJa can be a one-stop-shop for all your organization’s video workflows.

Our test proctoring capabilities enables users to initiate controlled recordings during active test taking, requires acceptance of configurable Terms and Conditions, captures imagery of government-issued photo ID, and records all available sources during test activity. We offer options for both live and non-live human review of proctored tests.

Test Proctoring

STUDENT RESPONSE SYSTEM

Transform Your Classroom With a Student Response System

Get insights into students’ comprehension with an LMS-integrated Student Response System. Created for higher education, YuJa Engage is a Student Response System (SRS) that transforms any course into a more active learning experience for students and allows instructors to gain actionable metrics. Students can use any device to answer polls and view responses.

STUDENT RESPONSE SYSTEM

Digital Compliance

AI-Powered Storage Management Capabilities with Risk Analysis

YuJa Himalayas is built in the cloud to review large data workloads and identify compliance issues, manage risks, and enable e-discovery scenarios. YuJa Himalayas provides automated ingestion from video conference conferencing including chats, polls, and transcripts. This enables detection of audio and video content, workflows to help reviewers identify media content for deeper analysis, and the ability to define data policies.

Digital Compliance

Total User Support, Staff Training and Implementation Services

Customer service is included with every deployment license. Thisincludes live, total user customer service, dedicated Account Management staffing and consistent Customer Success support…all backed by our award-winning Product Engineering and Operations team.

Total User Support

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YuJa provides enterprise media solutions to leading universities, K12 districts, corporations, non-profits and government organizations.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.

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Your browser either doesn't support Javascript, or you've turned it off. To use Mentimeter, please make sure to turn Javascript on. How do I enable Javascript?

Gain valuable insights from everyone around you with Word Clouds, Polls, and Quizzes.

Unlocking success with Mentimeter

For work

Maximize the value of your work-related meetings. Gather valuable input, feedback, and insights from your colleagues to make better decisions together!
Read more

For education

Enhance learning outcomes and engage every student in the classroom. Experiment with modern teaching methods using Mentimeter's features!
Read more

Works with your favorite apps

Turn tough crowds into engaged audiences

Build an immediate connection with your audience and make them a part of your presentation.

Create an interactive experience letting everyone vote, ask questions, and interact throughout.

Create truly unique presentations

Use a wide range of interactive slides to pose questions, gather feedback, and connect with your audience.

Build an impressive slide deck in minutes, craft an insightful icebreaker instantly, or find a new and creative way to engage your audience!

Millions of voices have already been heard

"Mentimeter allows everyone to ask questions, to get clarification or a clearer understanding on subjects resulting in a more fulfilling learning experience." Teresa Delfin, California State Polytechnic University Explore more stories

Want to become a better presenter?

Impress with Interactive Presentations

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Interact with your audience using real-time voting. No installations or downloads required and it's free!

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Open Author helps you build and publish Open Educational Resources for you and for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.

Learn more about creating OER

Groups provides a flexible environment to organize, create, share, and discuss resources with others in your network. Collaborate with group members, tag and add resources to shared folders, create your own collections, all within a public or private group.

Groups

Search through collections curated by our digital librarians

Collections

Common Core resources organized for your needs

Common Core

Hubs

A Custom Resource Center

Projects, districts, states, and initiatives make use of Hubs to bring groups of educators together to create, organize, and share OER collections that meet their common goals. Explore Hubs

Microsites

Custom Digital Libraries

Microsites are custom, flexible sites that include all the features available on OER Commons. Microsites allow your users to search resource collections using a custom taxonomy at a unique URL. Contact Us

Our award-winning OER Professional Learning programs support instructors and curriculum specialists to gain the necessary skills required to find, adapt, and evaluate high quality open materials.

In-person and virtual OER workshops help focus instructors to develop a "commons" mindset, to experience the benefits of open processes using the platform's tools, collaborative features, and workflows. This can include using Open Author for creating, remixing, and publishing shared curriculum.

Learn More

How to Search OER Commons

View all How-to videos

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OER Commons is a dynamic digital library and network. Explore open education resources and join our network of educators dedicated to curriculum improvement.

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MIT OpenCourseWare | Free Online Course Materials

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MIT OpenCourseWare is a web based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity

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Open Textbook Library - Open Textbook Library

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Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. Download, edit and distribute them at no cost.

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The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.

MERLOT is an international community of educators, learners, and researchers.

Add a Material

Submit an online learning material you've found or created to the MERLOT Collection.

Create your own materials, add materials to the MERLOT collection, and be a part of the community. All for free!

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The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers. MERLOT is an international community of educators, learners, and researchers. Submit an online learning material you've found or created to the MERLOT Collection.

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Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. Use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

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In the Edit Rating window, complete the rating criterion description. By default, the Rating Score field displays the point value between the two existing ranges [1]. To change the point value for the rating score, enter the new point value in the Rating Score field. Points can be whole (1, 5, 10) or decimal (0.3, 0.5, 2.75) numbers. However, if you are using a range, point values should be whole numbers.

In the Rating Title field [2], enter a title for the rating.

In the Rating Description field [3], enter a description for the rating.

Click the Update Rubric button [4].

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If you cannot find a rubric you want to use in your course, you can create a new rubric. Once you create a rubric, the rubric is saved in your course for future use. You can add the rubric to an assignment and use the rubric for grading and adding comments.