Creating an Effective Online Teaching Presence
Keywords:
Online Education, Community of Inquiry, Teacher Presence, Instructor PresenceAbstract
Against the backdrop of declining enrollment in teacher education programs, high levels of student demand for online education, and student, administrative, and faculty concern over quality and comparability of online programs to traditional face-to-face programs, this article shines a light on one graduate program’s effort to preserve program quality when shifting from a face-to-face (later turned hybrid) teacher licensure degree program to an accelerated, fully asynchronous online program. This case study highlights faculty-led efforts to engage in evidence-based course design based on the Community of Inquiry framework, initially paying focused attention to one element of the framework: teacher presence. The results of this case study suggest that enhanced knowledge and application of strategies that promote teaching presence may be helpful in fostering online student success and satisfaction. The results also offer practical support for educators that turn the tenets of teaching presence as a theory to actions, strategies and behaviors for achieving it.
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References
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