A Semester of Teaching Presence

The fall semester is just around the corner! A new semester is a fresh start and I get a chance to think about starting with the basics. Usually these basics for me are the presences from the Community of Inquiry model: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. All three of these presences are important for the course, but let’s talk about that teaching presence.

The teaching presence in a course starts before the first lecture. It starts with the design of the course, the path of the course, the assignments and curriculum. By now, hopefully much of that is already for students.

The other aspect of teaching presence is how you engage with the course, the students, other instructors, and the materials. In a face-to-face setting it’s probably easy to point out how you’re present. That’s me lecturing on the material, that’s me putting questions to students, that’s me responding to student questions and asking for input. When we step out of the classroom, or move to an online one it might be less obvious.

There’s a lot you can do to let your students know that your invested in the online parts of the learning. You might want to record an introduction video with Blackboard Collaborate, or host some weekly recap sessions with examples from what the students have said or done that week. You might want to start the course with an icebreaker such as posting a picture of where they’ll be doing the course. And, of course, engaging students in their discussions as well.

When I take an online course one thing I always look for is the instructor. Do I feel like I’m learning from and with them? Or do I feel adrift with other students?

Thinking about how students see your presence online can help them engage with you and the others in the course. Here’s to a new semester and new opportunities to foster learning and community!