Discussion forum on TESU

[LevelUP]

Usually, they give 100% grades for forum posts. 

This is assuming that your posts are substantive, include properly researched APA-style citations/references, and there are more than the minimum number of posts? Or are you suggesting that they give 100% without meeting the rubric?

I hate to talk in absolutes, as some professors may have different requirements. Check the professor's introduction forum to see if there are any specific requirements for the course. 

But in my experience with 6 courses taken with TESU:

• There are no APA reference requirements listed in the rubric (I did APA for capstones only)
  
• 1 minimum post is required. 2 responses are the minimum.
  

So, for example, on the PLA-100, my forum posts were only 150 words. I did that entire course of 4 assignments, 4 forum posts in less than 5 hours total. 

In the other courses, I was doing 300-word forum posts. The main thing is, "you address all elements of the discussion activity." 

For the forum responses, I did 2 sentences for each one. Pretty general stuff like, "good point about xyz", and "restate something they said."

I got 100% score on all my forum posts despite always doing the minimum and giving generic responses.

The forum post assignments are usually much simpler than that, like a paragraph or two responding to a prompt, followed by two posts responding to other student's posts. It's very much a participation grade.

I agree it's a participation grade for most professors as they likely don't spend much time looking at them. 

I've seen students get as low as 60% on one or more of their discussions and duplicate reasons why from the professor (it was more a copy/paste of the same reasoning behind the points).

That would suck to not get a 100%. I would avoid professors that don't give easy A's.

Also, if you do get a low grade, ask the professor if you can correct or redo it. Worth a try.  I got less than 100% because I made a mistake and responded to the Instructions for one of the forums instead of responding to a classmate. 

I PM'ed the professor, and the professor raised the grade to 100% after I corrected the mistake.