This post was written in collaboration with Julia Sherry from the School of Public Health.
One of the most challenging aspects of teaching an online course is creating opportunities for authentic and meaningful interactions among our students. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, InScribe is an instructional tool freely available at IU that stands out for its ability to garner student engagement, increase learners’ sense of agency, and lower the support needed from instructors to maintain. I asked Julia Sherry (Applied Health Science) a few questions about her use of InScribe to increase student engagement in her online course. Here’s what she had to say:
What made you decide to use InScribe?
I love so many things about teaching, but few compare to the joy of watching students learn from one another and grow as part of a classroom community over the course of the semester.
It’s often easier to cultivate that sense of community and collaboration in face-to-face courses, where active learning strategies naturally encourage peer engagement.
However, I’ve long struggled to replicate that same dynamic in my online, asynchronous courses. Like many instructors, I turned to Canvas Discussions to foster this peer-to-peer learning, and soon found myself in the familiar pattern of grading the kind of dry posts that both instructors and students dread:
- Student 1: “Public health is important.”
- Student 2: “Hi student 1- that’s so true! I agree with what you said about public health being important. Well said!”
Despite experimenting with creative prompts, modeling engagement as the instructor, and tools like peer review, I found myself unable to cultivate the kind of collaborative learning that I wanted in an online course setting.
To this end, I decided to use InScribe for the first time in Summer 2025 in hopes of cultivating a more authentic online community for my students.
How did students respond to using this platform?
I’ve only used InScribe once so far but based on the feedback I received from students and my observations of how students utilized the platform, I plan to incorporate InScribe into all my future online, asynchronous classes. On an end-of-semester feedback survey (separate from OCQs), in which my students have the chance to give me feedback on specific assignments and activities, 85% of respondents (n: 11) indicated that they either agreed (77%, n:10) or somewhat agreed (8%, n:1) to the following statement: “Overall, course engagement through InScribe was helpful to my learning.”
How does InScribe differ from other discussion tools, such as Canvas Discussions?
InScribe offers a far more interactive experience for students than Canvas Discussions. Functioning more like a social media platform, InScribe enables both instructors and students to create posts, react to and “like” posts, share videos and photos, or even create and respond to polls.
Unlike Canvas Discussion boards, where all students typically respond to the same prompt, InScribe allows engagement with a variety of weekly prompts tied to course content. Students can also start their own discussions and participate in polls to quickly share their opinions and insights.
Overall, I found that InScribe cultivated much more authentic and dynamic peer-to-peer learning and engagement than the Canvas discussion boards that I had assigned in the past.
As an instructor, what would you say are the biggest advantages to using InScribe?
The best part of using InScribe is the more authentic engagement the platform can create. Since students can earn engagement on the platform in a variety of ways, the discussions were much more authentic and much less canned. I had students post current event articles related to course content, share personal stories about how the course content connected to their own lives, and post polls to foster debate on ideas from the class. Not only did the engagement feel more real, but so did the learning.
Also, InScribe integrates seamlessly with Canvas to facilitate simple grading for you, and easy access through Canvas for students. Points that students earn in InScribe through engaging and reacting to posts sync automatically with Canvas gradebook, and, you can set weekly goals, a maximum number of points that can be accrued in a week, etc., offering a great deal of control over how engagement is graded. This tool offers a great way to level up your educational technology game, and to cultivate authentic peer-to-peer learning in online, asynchronous classroom environments.
Interested in using InScribe in your own course? You can learn more about the InScribe tool and how to set it up in your Canvas course here. Or, schedule a one-on-one consultation with the CITL to discuss if this tool is right for you and your course goals.
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