Questions to Stimulate Virtual Discussion

With some much learning shifting into the virtual space, how do you stimulate the rich discussions that happen in your classroom space?  Normally, discussions might have popped up when a student shares something in class, but with some classes fully virtual or hybrid, these opportunities don't appear to pop up as frequently in synchronous learning sessions. How might we leverage virtual platforms to promote discussion? 

I've been seeing lots of "Which on doesn't belong?" questions popping up online and thought that simple questions with open responses would a great way to stimulate discussion online! So it was experiment time! I created a twitter poll to see what engagement would be like with the my own version of #WODB! Like many of my tweets, blog etc. there is always a typo/grammar mistake that I only noticed after you press publish, so please ignore that! 

How I created this question was to think of something that could be categorized together. I know I wanted to use emojis as a quick way to represent things, but an easy entry point for as many people to participate as possible. Searching through the different emojis, I settled on different treats - more specifically - a cookie, doughnut, (slice of) cake and a cupcake. In selecting the different options, I tried to think of what would be a reason one of these wouldn't fit with the others. To stimulate discussion, I wanted there to be answers for any of the options. When this question was created, I thought that cookie wouldn't fit in because of its crunchy texture, the doughnut as it was yeast-based and bread, the slice of cake because of its layers and the cupcake wasn't added because of its distinctiveness, but thought it could be used as a reason on of the others would belong. 

There was great uptake with this little experiment with many surprising perspectives on which one was unique.  I really enjoyed reading all the responses and replying/liking everyone's replies. It was great to have a space to discuss and have people reply to each other (see the thread here). In our virtual spaces, we need to consider whether our questions have the ability or we are permitting discussion between students. In Google Classroom, one of the underused features is Questions found in classwork. Questions must be answered first before seeing the replies which makes it a great choice for these types of quesitons.  To create a question, select short answer question and allow students to respond and reply to each other.   One of the big take aways from this was a response from @CarolAubrey1 who suggested in using inclusive language when asking "Which one doesn't belong" to "Which one is unique".  I've been thinking about it and I like the phrasing as "Which one is distinct". Finally without asking, many of the educators used curriculum concepts to explain their reasoning such as discussion about fractions, letters of words, shapes or even cooking/baking methods. I can't think of a better minds-on activity that can be used with students to get them hook and use as a jumping off point to connect it to curriculum.   

So, what's next? I've been thinking of other question types that could be used. It seems like #WODB is a great go-to and place to start. Where my mind went was to think about patterning and if we could predict what would go next. This is definitely a work in progress but I think it has potential.  What do you think? Leave a comment and share what's next in the pattern? or how I could improve on this question.