Tips for Online Teachers: Making your presence felt or not

ByKhaison DuongKristin WaltersPenny Neuendorf

INTRODUCTION

Constructivism

Meaning via discussion and reflection, building

own conclusion

Community of Inquiry

Teaching presence

Social & cognitive presence

Defining Teachers’ Role

Note. From “The good teacher is more than a lecturer - the 12 roles of the teacher” by Harden & Crosby 2000, Medical Teacher, 22(4), 334-

347.

Table 1. Roles of an Online Teacher

Anderson et al. (2001)

Berge (1995) Paulsen (1995) Mason (1991)

Instructional design and organisation

Managerial Organisational Organisational

Facilitating Discourse

Social Social Social

Direct Instruction Pedagogical Intellectual Intellectual

Technical

Adapted from “Assessing Teacher Presence in a Computer Conferencing Context” by Anderson et al., 2001, Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks , 5(2).

Instructional Design & OrganisationText based content

PDFWord Doc

ChartsFiles

To

DIGITAL FORMAT

Facilitating DiscourseThat is an

interesting idea, did you think about the

time that would take?

I think teachers need

to be online all the time to

answer my questions

Direct Instruction

The effect of teaching presence

“What does it mean to have

presence or to be effectively present?”

Issues

“despite the popularity of online discussion boards and chat rooms, there

needs to be a realization that merely putting students together in an online

group does not mean they will engage in meaningful collaborative inquiry”.

appropriate pedagogical strategies are needed to facilitate meaningful engaging learning activities in online discussions.

Can teaching presence have a negative impact on learning?

“negative behaviours by teachers appeared to have more impact

on student demotivation than

positive teacher behaviours had on

motivation”.

STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE TEACHING PRESENCE

Design effectively and clearly

Create a functional and stimulating

community

• Create a ‘community’• Use various

interaction patterns between students and between students and teacher

Time and timing

• Take advantage of momentum

• Be flexible with dates • Honest and up-front

details about time commitment

Know how to make yourself + others

present • Be a model• Facilitate discussion –

pose, respond to, redirect, comment on, refer to and manage learner contributions

• Challenge• Provide feedback on

strengths + weaknesses – be an ‘affirmer’

CONCLUSION