21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion, Part Two – Faculty Focus

The internet has given us many gifts: cat videos, same-day shipping, and the legendary “post once, reply twice” discussion board prompt
that turns your class into a chorus of “I agree with Jasmine!” (Jasmine, meanwhile, is wondering why she’s now carrying the emotional
labor of the entire semester.)

If you’ve ever scrolled through a discussion thread and thought, “This is less conversation and more parallel parking,”
you’re not alone. Students often want discussions that feel meaningful, non-repetitive, and human. The good news: you don’t need to become a
wizard of “engagement” to fix it. You just need better structures.

This article focuses on Part Two of the Faculty Focus “21 Ways” series: four discussion structures designed for
divergent thinkingthe kind of thinking that expands options, sparks creativity, and generates a range of ideas before anyone
tries to crown a “best” answer. You’ll get step-by-step directions, concrete prompts, and instructor-friendly tips you can drop into your LMS
without rewriting your whole course at 2:00 a.m.

Why structure matters (and why “reply to two peers” usually doesn’t)

Unstructured discussion prompts often create three predictable outcomes:

• Repetition: everyone answers the same question the same way because the task rewards compliance, not originality.
• Uneven participation: a few students carry the thread while others “participate” like they’re tapping an elevator button.
• Shallow thinking: students aim for “complete” rather than “curious,” which is the academic equivalent of microwaving a salad.

When you add a structureespecially one that requires students to contribute something differentyou turn the forum from a submission
portal into a learning space. Divergent-thinking structures are especially powerful early in a unit, during exploration, or when students need
to generate possibilities before analyzing, critiquing, or deciding.

The full 21-way menu (so you can mix and match later)

Faculty Focus frames these ideas as a toolkit. Part Two is the “divergent thinking” slice, but here’s the full set of 21 structures across the
serieshandy when you want variety without reinventing the wheel.

1. #Hashtag That Photo Safari – students capture real-world examples and tag them.
2. Virtual Scavenger Hunt – students find and share examples online with commentary.
3. Guessing Game – one student posts an example; peers guess the concept.
4. Forced Analogy – students explain a concept through an unexpected comparison.
5. Flawed Design – students identify and repair errors in a model, plan, or argument.
6. Sticky Note Party – brainstorm on a shared board, then cluster ideas into themes.
7. Wisdom of Crowds – generate ideas, then prioritize them through structured voting.
8. Lotus Diagram – expand a concept outward in layers to reveal related ideas.
9. Mash-Up – borrow solutions from one context and adapt them to another.
10. Report on Live Discussion – meet live in small groups, then post takeaways asynchronously.
11. Give One, Take One – trade statements/ideas to refine values or perspectives.
12. Role Play – argue from a stakeholder position with evidence and constraints.
13. Jigsaw – divide expertise, then teach peers your piece of the puzzle.
14. Case Study – apply concepts to a scenario with messy, real-world variables.
15. Round Robin – contribute in sequence to build a collective product.
16. 3CQ Model – comment, question, connect to deepen exchanges.
17. Fishbowl – some discuss, others observe and reflect on the process.
18. Role Swap – switch positions to practice perspective-taking and metacognition.
19. Muddiest Points – surface confusion points and co-clarify.
20. Karma Points – reward helpful contributions and community-building behavior.
21. Mood Board – represent understanding through curated visuals and short rationales.

Now, let’s zoom in on Part Two: four structures for divergent thinking that make students generate, sort, expand, and remix ideas.

Divergent thinking: the point is “more ideas,” not “the right idea”

Divergent thinking is what happens when students brainstorm, explore, and widen their solution space. It’s ideal for:

• early stages of problem solving (“What could be going on here?”)
• concept exploration (“What all connects to this idea?”)
• creative application (“How might this work in a different setting?”)
• community building (“What perspectives are in the room?”)

Your job isn’t to make students talk more. It’s to make their contributions more distinct, more usable, and more
worth reading.

1) Sticky Note Party (a.k.a. brainstorming that doesn’t devolve into chaos)

A Sticky Note Party uses a shared virtual pinboard where each student contributes one idea per note. Then the group clusters
similar notes into themes, categories, or diagrams. It’s essentially “brainstorm + organize,” which is a delightful upgrade from “brainstorm + forget.”

When to use it

• Students need to generate many examples, causes, solutions, or questions.
• You want to reveal patterns across the class (themes, misconceptions, priorities).
• You want quieter students to contribute without fighting for airtime.

How to run it online (LMS-friendly steps)

1. Prompt + solo brainstorm: students add 3–6 sticky notes independently (one idea per note).
2. Share + clarify: in small groups, students briefly explain 1–2 of their notes.
3. Cluster: groups drag notes into piles based on similarity (themes, categories, stages, etc.).
4. Label + shape: groups name clusters and optionally turn them into a diagram (Venn, flowchart, hierarchy).
5. Post the artifact: each group posts a screenshot + 150–250-word explanation in the discussion board.

Four ready-to-use variants (choose one and look instantly organized)

Build a Checklist

• Goal: identify steps in a process and negotiate sequence/importance.
• Prompt example: “Create a checklist for conducting an ethical research interviewfrom first contact to data storage.”
• Deliverable: a numbered checklist + a note on the two most error-prone steps.

Force Field Analysis

• Goal: map forces pushing change vs. resisting change; assign strength ratings.
• Prompt example: “What forces increase vaccine uptake in a community? What forces decrease it? Rate each 1–5.”
• Deliverable: two columns + a short strategy recommendation (“Where would you intervene first?”).

SWOT Analysis

• Goal: explore strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threatsuseful beyond business if you’re creative.
• Prompt example: “Do a SWOT analysis of a renewable energy technology (solar, wind, geothermal).”
• Deliverable: SWOT grid + one “surprising” takeaway.

Fishbone (Cause-and-Effect) Analysis

• Goal: brainstorm causes of a problem and organize them into major categories with sub-causes.
• Prompt example: “Why are customer service wait times rising? Identify major cause categories and sub-causes.”
• Deliverable: fishbone diagram + two highest-leverage causes to address.

Common pitfalls (and quick fixes)

• Pitfall: students dump notes and disappear. Fix: require one note to be explained in a short audio/video comment.
• Pitfall: clustering becomes “whatever.” Fix: provide 3–5 suggested category labels or ask groups to justify their labels.
• Pitfall: the artifact stays on the board and never becomes learning. Fix: require each student to post a “theme + implication” summary.

2) Wisdom of Crowds (brainstorm first, then prioritize like adults)

Wisdom of Crowds starts as a brainstorm (often using Sticky Note Party) and then adds a crucial second move:
ranking. Students don’t just generate ideasthey decide which ones matter most and explain why.

When to use it

• You need students to identify top arguments, best solutions, or strongest evidence.
• You want a class to narrow options before writing, presenting, or building a project.
• You want quieter students to influence outcomes through voting.

How to run it online

1. Generate: each student posts 1–2 ideas (on a slide, pinboard, or thread).
2. Vote: each student gets a limited number of votes (e.g., 3 dots) to distribute.
3. Reveal + discuss: students explain why top-voted ideas rose to the top and what tradeoffs exist.
4. Refine: the group turns top ideas into a stronger argument set, action plan, or proposal.

Two high-energy voting formats

Dotmocracy (dot voting)

• What it does: visualizes support, controversy, and indifference quickly.
• Online setup: use a shared slide deck or board; each student adds colored dots or reactions.
• Pro tip: hide votes until everyone submits to reduce groupthink.

25/10 Crowd Sourcing

• What it does: makes authorship fuzzy so ideas get judged on merit, not popularity.
• Online setup: students add ideas anonymously; each student rates a random set of ideas multiple times.
• Result: top ideas emerge through repeated scoring, then become the focus of discussion.

Example prompt (works across disciplines)

Prompt: “Generate arguments for and against a policy change. Then vote on the top three arguments your side should use.”

Twist: After voting, require each student to strengthen a top argument by adding evidence and addressing one counterargument.

Make it rigorous (not just popularity)

• Require a short justification for each vote: “I voted for this because…”
• Use criteria: evidence quality, feasibility, ethics, cost, equity, clarity.
• Ask for a “top idea + biggest risk” analysis so students practice nuance.

3) Lotus Diagram (concept mapping with built-in expansion)

A Lotus Diagram (often called the Lotus Blossom technique) is a structured way to expand a central idea outward in layers.
Instead of a free-form mind map that can sprawl into the wilderness, Lotus Diagramming forces students to build outward systematically:
concept → related ideas → deeper related ideas.

When to use it

• Students need to explore a concept’s ecosystem (terms, methods, implications, examples).
• You want to surface what students connect to an idea (and what they don’t).
• You want a pre/post activity that visualizes learning growth.

How to run it online

1. Center concept: put the main idea in the middle (e.g., “Quantitative Analysis”).
2. First ring: Group 1 adds 8 related concepts (or 5–8, depending on your template).
3. Second ring: Group 2 picks one concept each and expands it with 5–8 related ideas.
4. Relationships layer (optional): another group adds arrows/labels (“causes,” “requires,” “contrasts with”).
5. Discussion prompt: each student identifies a missing/misplaced concept and defends the revision in the thread.

Prompt examples

• Psychology: Center “Classical Conditioning.” First ring: terms. Second ring: examples + limitations + ethical issues.
• Economics: Center “Inflation.” Expand into causes, measures, distributional impacts, policy tools, tradeoffs.
• Computer Science: Center “Recursion.” Expand into base cases, stack behavior, classic problems, risks, optimization.

Quality control (so it doesn’t turn into a word dump)

• Set minimum contributions: “Add at least 5 concepts with short definitions.”
• Require sources for 1–2 items per student (textbook page, article, lecture note).
• Grade the revision argument (why the addition belongs) more than the number of nodes.

4) Mash-Up (steal like a researcher, not like a plagiarist)

Mash-Up is creative problem solving through analogous inspiration: find a different context that solves a similar problem and
borrow the underlying moves. Think: “How does a theme park reduce fear?” then “How could that help a pediatric MRI experience?”

When to use it

• Students are stuck in one way of seeing the problem.
• You want inventive solutions that still connect to course concepts.
• You want students to practice transfer: applying learning across contexts.

How to run it online (clear steps reduce panic)

1. Define the problem features: What makes this hard? For whom? Under what constraints?
2. Write a “How might we…?” question: e.g., “How might we make financial counseling feel less intimidating?”
3. Find analog contexts: where do people solve something similar (gaming, hospitality, museums, coaching, retail)?
4. Extract tactics: list specific features that work in that context (progress bars, scripts, onboarding, rewards, storytelling).
5. Remix solutions: adapt 2–3 tactics into your original context; explain the logic and likely tradeoffs.
6. Share + iterate: post your best prototype idea; peers comment with “one improvement + one risk.”

Prompt examples

• Nutrition/Public Health: “Design a healthier school lunch experience. Borrow one idea from farmers’ markets, one from meal kits.”
• Engineering: “Reduce failure risk in a process. Borrow reliability practices from aviation or manufacturing.”
• Education: “Increase student attendance. Borrow behavior-change tactics from fitness apps or loyalty programs.”
• Biology: “Represent a biological process as code or a workflow; find inefficiencies and propose improvements.”

Make it academically grounded

• Require a short “transfer rationale”: what exactly transfers, and why it should work here.
• Require constraints: budget, ethics, equity, accessibility, compliance.
• Ask for a “failure mode”: what could go wrong if we copy this idea too literally?

Instructor playbook: keep these structures from turning into a digital pile of spaghetti

1) Use smaller groups (your future self will thank you)

If your class is bigger than a dozen, split discussions into groups of 6–8 so students can actually read one another’s work without needing a
second monitor and a therapy animal.

2) Stagger deadlines to prevent “Sunday Night Posting Olympics”

A simple fix: require an initial post by an early deadline (e.g., Monday) and responses by a later one (e.g., Wednesday/Thursday). Students get time
to read, think, and respondrather than firing off rushed replies like they’re defusing a bomb.

3) Grade quality with a rubric (not just quantity)

If students think you’re counting posts, they’ll produce countable posts. A basic rubric can reward evidence, clarity, connection-making,
and respectful engagementwithout forcing you to become a full-time discussion archaeologist.

4) Assign roles (light structure, big payoff)

• Summarizer: posts the group’s themes and highlights.
• Connector: links ideas to readings/lectures.
• Challenger: respectfully questions assumptions and asks for evidence.
• Applicator: turns ideas into a real-world scenario or recommendation.

5) Model the tone you want (especially in Week 1)

Early on, demonstrate what a strong post looks like: concise claim, specific evidence, and a question that invites replies. Students copy what they see.

A plug-and-play mini rubric (steal this, please)

• Distinct contribution (0–3): adds a new idea, example, or lens (not a rephrase of someone else).
• Evidence & reasoning (0–3): uses course concepts, data, or credible sources; explains “why.”
• Engagement (0–2): responds meaningfully to peers (builds, challenges, connects).
• Clarity & professionalism (0–2): readable, respectful, organized.

Optional upgrade: add a “community builder” point for posts that invite others in (“Here’s a question,” “Here’s a resource,” “Here’s a synthesis”).

Conclusion: structured doesn’t mean stiff

The best online discussions don’t happen because students type more. They happen because students have a reasonand a routeto contribute something
unique. Part Two’s four divergent-thinking structures are especially good at that: they push students to generate, sort, expand, and remix ideas in
ways that feel purposeful.

Start small. Try one structure for one week. Then watch what changes: fewer repetitive posts, more genuine interaction, and (surprisingly often) a
better classroom vibeeven when the classroom is a collection of browser tabs.

Experiences related to these strategies (composite instructor stories)

The following “experiences” are composites based on common patterns instructors report when they shift from generic prompts to structured formats.
They’re not single-classcase studies; they’re realistic mash-ups of what tends to happen in actual online courses.

Story 1: The Sticky Note Party that rescued Week 3

In a first-year sociology course, Week 3 discussions were historically rough: students posted definitions, nodded politely, and left. The instructor
switched to a Sticky Note Party with a simple prompt: “What factors shape someone’s access to healthcare?” Students added notes anonymously first.
Within minutes, patterns emergedinsurance, geography, language, discrimination, time off workplus a few unexpected angles like transportation and
digital literacy. The key change wasn’t just the brainstorming; it was the clustering. Once students had to label themes, they
started arguing (in a good way) about which ideas belonged together and why. The follow-up thread asked each student to choose one cluster and propose
a “two-step intervention” that could realistically reduce barriers. The instructor noted that students who rarely spoke in class were suddenly visible
in the boardbecause the structure rewarded specific, bite-sized contributions instead of long, confident paragraphs.

Story 2: Wisdom of Crowds turned “hot takes” into “supported claims”

In a business ethics course, debates tended to become opinion wars. The instructor introduced Wisdom of Crowds: each student posted one argument for a
case decision, then dot-voted on the top five arguments using a shared slide deck. The twist was the rubric: votes required a one-sentence
justification tied to a course framework (stakeholder impact, duty-based ethics, or consequences). Students quickly learned that vague arguments
(“It’s wrong because it’s wrong”) earned no votes. After voting, groups had to rewrite the top argument into a tighter claim with evidence and one
anticipated counterargument. The instructor’s favorite moment: a student publicly changed their mind because a peer’s justification exposed a
consequence they hadn’t considered. The voting didn’t reduce complexity; it made complexity discussable.

Story 3: Lotus Diagram exposed misconceptions without embarrassing anyone

In an intro statistics course, students could recite terms but struggled to connect them. The instructor used a Lotus Diagram with “Correlation” in
the center. The first ring included “causation,” “confounding,” “spurious correlation,” “scatterplots,” and “Pearson’s r.” The second ring forced
deeper expansion: what causes confounding, how to detect it, how to control it, and what mistakes occur in interpretation. When students posted their
“missing concept” revisions, the instructor got a treasure map of misconceptions: several students placed “p-value” as a direct measure of effect
size. Instead of calling anyone out, the instructor used the map as a class artifact: “A few people placed p-values herelet’s test that idea with a
dataset.” Students said the map helped them see learning as a web, not a list.

Story 4: Mash-Up generated surprisingly practical design ideas

In a nursing program, students were tasked with improving patient adherence to post-discharge instructions. Standard discussions produced the usual
answers (“Provide education,” “Follow up”). The instructor tried Mash-Up: “Find a non-healthcare context that gets people to complete multi-step
tasks.” Students pulled ideas from meal-kit services (step-by-step cards), airports (wayfinding signage), fitness apps (streaks and reminders), and
even video games (quests with progress indicators). One group proposed a discharge “quest card” that broke instructions into small wins, paired with a
check-in text system and a visual progress tracker. Another group flagged a risk: gamification might feel patronizing. That tension became the best
part of the discussionstudents debated how to keep the design respectful and culturally appropriate while still being usable.

Story 5: The unexpected benefitstudents started reading

Across many courses, instructors report the same surprising shift: when posts become non-interchangeable, students actually read them.
In a literature seminar, a Lotus Diagram on “unreliable narrator” produced threads where each student revised the map using a different text example.
In a cybersecurity course, a Fishbone Analysis of breach causes led students to compare categories (human error vs. system design vs. policy). In a
public administration course, Dotmocracy revealed which policy proposals were popular and which were controversialand why. The common thread: the
structure created stakes. Students weren’t posting to satisfy a requirement; they were contributing to a shared artifact (a map, a ranked list,
a redesigned solution). And when the artifact mattered, students behaved like their thinking mattered too.