Discussion Forums in Vector Calculus: Reflecting on the quality of engineering students’ online interactions

As a result of a worldwide pandemic, academics were guided to take their courses online. Making the Vector Calculus course fully online whilst limited to low tech options, all students can access, the aim was to create an engaging and inclusive environment for students to learn mathematics. Acknowledging the important role that mathematics plays in engineering there was an imperative for the online engineering mathematics provision to include in addition to basic knowledge the fostering of skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and communication, all arguably important for the development and expertise of future engineers.Discussion forums have long been used in education enabling students to easily and asynchronously access and respond to what their peers, tutors and lecturers have posted and in so doing creating an interactive online classroom. Although much is written about the use of online discussion forums in higher education, few studies refer to its use and how effective these online interactions are to the teaching and learning dynamic especially in Mathematics courses.This research study rooted in constructivist theories of learning employed a conceptual framework to assess the quality of students' participation in this community of learning. The three-pronged framework assesses content, interaction quality and objective measures.The findings demonstrate the benefits of discussion forums in creating an interactive community of learning in a Vector Calculus course and the lessons learnt could inform future design and best practice for online discussion forum use in higher education mathematics classrooms.