The differnece between using asynchronus and synchronous discussions is important. It is not recommended to have synchronous disucssions with more than 5 to 6 students at a time. It is also important to hold multiple synchronous sessions so that learners in different time zones have the opportunity to participate.
Asynchronous discussions requre the instructor to be an active particpant to keep the learning going. It is important that students have a rubric of how the discussion is being graded and the rules of netiquete pertaning to online discussions. One way to do this is to post objectives and rules of class discussions in a rubric for students to read and have handy as they are creating their online discussion posts.
