Syncronous discussions can be great when the students are engaged. I try to keep them engaged by further elaboration of the topic. I sometimes include YouTube videos, or recent articles from the news to further promote the topic & relate it to what they will be doing in the real world. However, I do get discouraged when students wait until the final day of class to post their final posts. I wonder if they are really understanding all of the materials when they only post their initial post, and wait until the final day to make their subsequent posts. To me this is not active engagement, but they still get credit because they submitted their reponses, and did so in the time requested.
