I’m not sure if this sub is the right place to ask this question, but I’ll start here and will gladly take advice on where to go next. 🙂

I occasionally enroll in online courses related to my profession for purposes of professional development and continuing education. I’ve learned a lot from some of these courses, not a lot from others. Often my employers will pay some or all of my registration costs, but occasionally I’ll foot the bill for something that seems interesting.

I’ve never had a problem keeping up with assignments and projects in these courses, but I consistently struggle with one aspect of them: mandatory discussion posts. Often these courses will have some kind of requirement to, say, make one post about a reading and reply to someone else’s post. These particular kinds of assignments cause me a lot of anxiety–I often don’t feel like I have anything important to say and often resort to the most banal observations and “Yes, I agree with what you said” responses.

I recognize this is very much a “me” problem, but that it can also be a sign of bad pedagogy and lazy instructional design. Nevertheless, it’s something I have to power through, and I’d love to have some tips on how to approach these assignments in a way that makes me feel a little more engaged and a little less self-conscious.

Thoughts?