Other Uses of Discussion Groups:

Discussion groups also enable teachers to use some threads for teaching purposes. Provided the course has been enrolled in by lots of students, it is advisable to divide them into groups (the seminar groups created under the course may perfectly serve this purpose) and assign a discussion thread to each of these.

Here are two model situations demonstrating other possible uses of discussion groups:

A teacher regularly posts under a certain thread some problems that he/she wants his/her students to solve and rewards them for correct solutions as well as well-founded criticism of someone else's solution.
A teacher asks each of his/her students to post a problem of his/her own (e.g. a chemistry experiment designed for a certain grade of elementary school) and assess the problems posted by the others. Eventually, the teacher evaluates the quality of the student's feedback.

Utilizing discussion groups for the aforementioned activities proves useful when you have some experience of moderating your students' discussion since each of them may make multiple contributions and the total number of these may turn out to be rather overwhelming. If this is not the case, you might want to use homework vaults or e-surveys instead.