Reflective Questions: Promoting Metacognition Through Discussion Board Prompts

During two semesters, a numerical methods course for mechanical engineering students at a large US southeastern university used discussion board questions to promote reflection and metacognition. The course covered eight chapters, each with a related discussion question. The students could choose to answer these questions and receive 2% extra credit for the course. This was intended to help the students who missed some of the 30 online homework assignments that comprised 15% of the final course grade. The questions were also meant to encourage the students to think deeply and creatively. The students could see other students’ responses after they posted their own. The questions ranged from making a meme, writing a nursery rhyme, and explaining a complex or easy concept. Only 64% of the total possible responses were submitted by students, and there was a small-to-medium practical but no statistical significance between the levels of participation among the high- or low-performing students. The submissions were analyzed and determined to be at the low level of Bloom’s taxonomy. They identified complex topics to inform future instruction.