Discussions provide a place for you, your classmates, and your instructor to explore course concepts and engage in meaningful online discussion. Let’s take a look.

To access course discussions, select the Discussions icon on your course's navigation bar. Discussions can also appear alongside other course materials on the Course Content page. Your instructor may organize discussions into folders.

Your instructor may also allow you to create a new discussion. If so, you will see the Add Discussion icon at the top of the page. Select the plus and then Add discussion to start a new topic, or select a discussion title to participate in an existing one.

Your instructor may require you to respond to the discussion prompt before you can read other responses and replies. By hiding your classmates' responses before you respond, your instructor is encouraging you to post an original response without the influence of your peers.

If you see grading information in the discussion details, your participation counts for a grade. Your instructor assigns a grade for your participation as a whole, not for each individual post. If your instructor associated a rubric with the discussion, select This item is graded with a rubric to display more information. You can view the grading criteria before you answer the prompt.

Add content and use the options in the editor to format your text and embed images. You can also attach files from your computer or cloud storage. If you’re not ready to post your response, you can select Save Draft to save your work and continue later. Your text and files are saved on the page and when you return, you can resume working. When you are finished and ready for others to see, select Respond.

And finally, you can select Reply to respond directly to another participant, and you can use Find participants locate a specific classmate’s responses.