Imagine embarking on a trip from a train station. Every train in the station is going to your destination, but every train is different. Some trains are faster. Some trains are flashier. The interior amenities very greatly. Through the windows you can see passengers engaged in activity that you have been dreaming of. On the walls of the station, posters for each train catch your eye and make you feel like a hungry dog in a butcher shop.
It all looks so good!You feel excited by the energy in the station and at seeing others board trains so confidently, talking of their great plans. At each ticket booth, the station staff each have a different opinion about which train is best. The benefits and features you overhear make it harder to determine which line to be in. The more you hear the more you question which train is right for you. Others around you start shuffling lines in indecision. Worse yet, looking at a destination mapped with the ubiquitous “You are Here”, you notice that the final destination gets farther and farther from your current location.
Searching for the RIGHT Destination
I don’t know about my readers, but just typing that scenario made my blood pressure rise. I had a similar experience reading "ELEARNING CURRENT SITUATION AND EMERGING CHALLENGES" by Bari, Djouab, and Hoa (2018). Their article described the vast challenges faced by educators in learning about, choosing, and using technology for online and blended instruction. They emphasized that the development of quality practices and pedagogy for elearning is stymied by the broad nature of elearning. From rapidly changing tools for communication and resource management, to implementation practices like gamification and blended learning, Bari, et al. (2018) suggest that there are too many focal points.
Even in sitting to write this post, my research felt enormous. I felt lost on how to capture the changing landscape of elearning let alone help readers find a path through the quickly evolving environment.
If you read my last post, you saw that ample amounts of research point to teacher presence as one of the leading indicators of elearning efficacy. In 2006 Shea, Sau Li, and Pickett published the results of a longitudinal study on the impact of teacher presence on the learning community. Their work clearly highlights teacher presence as a key factor in elearning efficacy. Given this, it would seem that the best way to embark on the journey toward effective e-teaching would be to start with the practices that make the most impact.
That being said, the remainder of this post is going to focus on how to work toward best practices in elearning by focusing on how to use evolving technology to improve teacher presence.
*Tip #1 - To increase your presence as an educator, use the tech tools that will best help you express emotion when giving feedback.
Research: In 2017 Borup, Thomas, and West (2017) conducted a study to investigate practices that have the biggest impact on student perception of instructor presence. Their work revealed that the real game changer was an instructor’s ability to convey emotion. With this understanding, it is easier to understand why their work revealed that video feedback had the greatest impact due to the richness of the medium. (Borup, et al. 2017)
Implications: The best part of this news is that emotion can be expressed in low tech ways with punctuation and emoticons. Teachers can also focus on identifying tools that allow them to incorporate video and audio clips of themselves for feedback, check-ins, announcements, etc.
*Tip # 2 - More is better. To build social presence meet with students frequently.
Research: In 2018, Lee and Huang (2018) tested the impact frequency of teacher/student interactions had on perceived social presence. Their work showed a direct correlation between the number of instructor interactions with students and the perceived instructor presence.
Implications: This research should direct eteachers to find ways to use their current tools to engage with students. This could be scheduling synchronous classes with web meeting technology. This could be incorporating and personally engaging in asynchronous class discussions. Video check-ins with tools like Flip Grid, scheduling student meetings, and providing assignments where instructor feedback gives guidance are also all ways for instructors to meet frequently with students.
Tip # 3 - To increase instructor presence, find ways to maximize non-verbals in the online environment.
Research: In 2016, a team from Purdue University embarked on a study into uncharted territory. They created an experiment to identify and measure the impact of non-verbal communication in an online learning environment. Typically, when a person thinks about non-verbals, they consider body language and tone of voice. In an online environment, Dixon, Greenwell, Rogers-Stacy, Weister, and Lauer (2016) identified non-verbals as tone, chronemics, and feedback.
Implications of Tone - Text-heavy resources convey a cold tone. Whereas video resources express a warm tone. As teachers build out resources for students in their online courses, using a blend of resources conveys a positive tone to students.
Implications of Chronemics - To build instructor presence in online classes, instructors should focus on timely responses when answering student questions and when providing feedback. They should also take the time to ensure their messages are well crafted and show students that time was taken to craft the message.
Implications of Feedback - This study reiterated the work cited by Thomas et al (2017). To increase social presence, teachers should focus on providing feedback that is meaningful, specific, and rich. Again, Dixon et al (2016) define rich as multi-sensory (video and audio).
The Final Word
In online teaching, developing quality practices is a challenge given the need to understand tools, methods and technologies that keep evolving. Focusing on tactics that are proven to increase student engagement and perception of learning is one way of narrowing the scope of work on the journey to become an effective e-educator. In fact, when reviewing the research, the scope becomes very narrow when looking at what technology a teacher needs to develop fluency in:
Since many of the best practices rely on low-tech aspects such as timing and frequency, an easy first step for instructors is to begin their journey by finding ways to increase media-rich encounters with their students.
Happy Travels Friends
References:
- Bari, M., Djouab, R., & Hoa, C. (2018). ELEARNING CURRENT SITUATION AND EMERGING CHALLENGES. International Journal of Social Sciences,4(22), 97-109. Retrieved October 21, 2018, from https://grdspublishing.org/index.php/people/article/view/1395/1178.
- Borup, J., Thomas, R., & West, R. (2017). An analysis of instructor social presence in online text and asynchronous video feedback comments. The Internet and Higher Education, 33, 61–73. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2017.01.003
- Dixson, M., Greenwell, M., Rogers-Stacy, C., Weister, T., & Lauer, S. (2017). Nonverbal Immediacy Behaviors and Online Student Engagement: Bringing Past Instructional Research into the Present Virtual Classroom. Communication Education, 66(1), 37–53. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2016.1209222
- Lee, S.J. & Huang, K. (2018). Online Interactions and Social Presence in Online Learning. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 29(1), 113-128. Waynesville, NC: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved October 20, 2018 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/173242/.
- Shea, P., Sau Li, C., & PIckett, A. (2006). A study of teaching presence and student sense of learning community in fully online and web-enhanced college courses. The Internet and Higher Education, 9(3), 175–190. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2006.06.005
