DAY 3: Overview
On Day 3, we will be interacting in our first synchronous session. We would encourage you to come to the session with your reflections about synchronous/asynchronous balance and your approach to fostering connection, which be the focus of Day 3, as outlined below.
Today we will be focusing on helping refine your approach for fostering connection. Teaching presence is a key component of connection that can play an important role and positively impact student online learning, and it is one of the key areas that faculty members have expressed feel uneasy about in the shift to online learning. By definition:
Teaching Presence is the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001).
Learning Objectives
By the end of Day 3, you will be able to:
- Articulate key strategies for fostering connection in both synchronous and asynchronous teaching
- Describe your own philosophy in relation to teaching and social presence.
Guiding questions
- What is your teaching philosophy about your own presence in your courses? (What kind of a teacher do you strive to be and why?)
-
How does your teaching philosophy inform opportunities to develop connection in your regular courses both,
- between you and your students and,
- among peers?
- How might these strategies look different in a blended online learning environment?
Read
Time: 10 Minutes
We have curated a small number of informative readings and resources.
- Pearson. Teaching Presence, Higher Education Services. White Paper: Available at: https://www.pearsoned.com/wp-content/uploads/INSTR6230_TeachingPresence_WP_f.pdf Links to an external site.
- Sepp, S. (2020). Transitioning to Teaching Online: Presence (9:28 min). Video available at: https://youtu.be/84vbvYJn9iQ
Try
Time: 15 Minutes
Try one of the daily course development challenges. The goal of these challenges is to give you a chance to complete short activities to scaffold the changes that you are making to your design of teaching.
- Course assignment hours
- Setting Up and Administrative Discussion Board
- Developing a course sequence
Reflect
Time: 15 Minutes
Reflect on your philosophy of teaching presence in an online blended learning environment