An effective discussion prompt leads students into a process of inquiry and provides options for exploring, reflecting, analyzing, and contributing a range of responses. If you find yourself posting a prompt that can be fully and completely answered in one response, then you need to ask yourself, "How will this stimulate inquiry and discussion?" Further, when you craft discussion prompts, it's important to think about the back-and-forth "discussion" element that you are seeking as an outcome. If the prompt doesn't specifically require students to "reply" to each others' posts, then you'll see plenty of individual responses but little back and forth discussion or debate (missing an opportunity for critical thinking and higher level learning).

Be cautious however; discussion requirements can quickly become overwhelming for both students and faculty. The instructions for discussion participation have become somewhat standardized: "compose an original post, then respond to two peers." Unfortunately this results in a huge number of posts that students (and instructors) can find a bit tedious to wade through, and would be very difficult to recreate in a traditional classroom. So, consider relaxing discussion participation requirements, for example try an alternate discussion schedule: Split the class into two groups; one week group A creates an original response to the prompt and group B responds. The next week the roles reverse, group B posts the original response and group A responds. This changes the dynamic of the conversations and allows learners to focus on one task at a time reducing cognitive load and providing a deeper learning experience.

Carrying the group idea a little further, divide them into small groups that address each other, rather than the entire class. Change the membership of the groups around as the class progresses so that everyone interacts with everyone else.

In addition, when you ask students to "reply to peers", be sure you give them some direction about how to reply. For example, students could find someone they agree or disagree with and say why. They could be asked to offer additional examples or ideas. Another idea would be to have them write about how they relate to the initial prompt of a peer.