A study of teaching presence and student sense of learning community in fully online and web-enhanced college courses (original) (raw)
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Developing learning community in online asynchronous college courses: The role of teaching presence
Journal of Asynchronous Learning …, 2005
This paper builds on the model we have developed for creating quality online learning environments for higher education. In that model we argue that college-level online learning needs to reflect what we know about learning in general, what we understand about learning in higher-education contexts, and our emerging knowledge of learning in largely asynchronous online environments. Components of the model include a focus on learner roles, knowledge building, assessment, community, and various forms of "presence." In this paper we focus on two components-teaching presence and community-and review the rationale and benefits for an emphasis on community in online learning environments. We argue that learning is social in nature and that online learning environments can be designed to reflect and leverage the social nature of learning. We suggest that previous research points to the critical role that community can play in building and sustaining productive learning and that teaching presence, defined as the core roles of the online instructor, is among the most promising mechanism for developing online learning community. We present a multi-institutional study of 2,036 students across thirty-two different colleges that supports this claim and provides insight into the relationship between online learning community and teaching presence. Factor and regression analysis indicate a significant link between students' sense of learning community and their recognition of effective instructional design and directed facilitation on the part of their course instructors-and that student gender plays a small role in sense of learning community. We conclude with recommendations for online course design, pedagogy, and future research.
2010
This study examined the relationship between teaching presence as defined by the Community of Inquiry model and student satisfaction. The participant group of 22 graduate students represented a convenience sample from four fully online college courses. Much has been written about the positive impact of social presence on student interaction and satisfaction in online courses, but recent research is focusing on the importance of teaching presence and its role in online learning environments. The teaching presence construct represents instructional design and course organization, facilitated discourse, and direct instruction. A correlational analysis found a significant positive relationship between teaching presence and student satisfaction, while no significant relationship was found between previous online course experience and teaching presence. T-test provided evidence that age has a significant effect on student perception of teaching presence, Introduction In recent years, as r...
Journal of Legal Studies Education, 2011
I. INTRODUCTION Think of a college classroom and a certain image arises. The professor enters a building, walks through the classroom door, and steps up to the lectern or sits down at the seminar table. A lecture or discussion follows that covers material that students have (presumably) read. The material may be most anything, but certainly literature, history, and other liberal arts come to mind. In addition to this material, the professor brings his or her disciplinary knowledge and experience to the lecture or discussion. 1 The typical college classroom, as described above, depends on the physical presence of an instructor in a brick-and-mortar or physical classroom as a key indicator that one has entered an institution of higher learning. The image creates an impression that, in order for learning to occur, an instructor must be physically present to deliver substantive course content and manage student learning. An attendant implication is that students must be physically present in the same classroom as the instructor, at the same time, to listen, discuss, and become involved in the learning environment. In the online environment, students and instructors are virtually, but not physically, present in the same environment. In the online environment, technology mediates learning: it mediates communications and information transfer between the student and the in
Instructor Impact on Differences in Teaching Presence Scores in Online Courses
The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 2021
Using three interdependent constructs: social, cognitive, and teaching presence, the Community of Inquiry framework is a theoretical process model of online learning. Specifically, teaching presence contains three sub-elements-(a) facilitation of discourse, (b) direct instruction, and (c) instructional design and organization-that work together to create a collaborative-constructivist learning environment. Data from the Community of Inquiry survey from 160 learners in 11 course sections were analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine whether statistically significant differences existed in teaching presence scores between sections of two online courses with identical course design taught by different instructors. Results showed significant differences between individual instructors' teaching presence scores for each of the two courses. Specifically, significant differences were found in each sub-element of teaching presence except for one course's instructional design and organization. Conceptual and methodological explanations of the findings are provided, and implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Online Learning, 2019
Research has demonstrated that social presence not only affects outcomes but also student, and possibly instructor, satisfaction with a course. Teacher immediacy behaviors and the presence of others are especially important issues for those involved in delivering online education. This study explored the role of social presence in online learning environments and its relationship to students’ perceptions of learning and satisfaction with the instructor. The participants for this study were students who completed Empire State College’s (ESC) online learning courses in the spring of 2000 and completed the end of semester course survey (n=97). A correlational design was utilized. This study found that students with high overall perceptions of social presence also scored high in terms of perceived learning and perceived satisfaction with the instructor. Students’ perceptions of social presence overall, moreover, contributed significantly to the predictor equation for students’ perceived...
Investigation into Undergraduates’ Experiences of Social Presence in Online Learning
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET)
Online learning always piques the interest of scholars because of the potential outcomes. Social presence is associated with the degree of participation, interaction, and performance among collaborative group members and, therefore, is considered a critical variable for learning. Researchers have observed that for online learning to work well, students must feel connected to their peers and teachers. Social presence connects the real and online worlds, putting an online learner in touch with the teacher and other online learners. This study aims to investigate the interrelationships between social presence dimensions and cognitive presence, explore the critical social presence dimension influencing cognitive presence, and explore students’ experiences of social presence in online learning. The findings showed that social presence greatly influenced cognitive presence. However, affective collectiveness, open communication, and a sense of community were correlated and positively impac...
Establishing the Importance of Interaction and Presence to Student Learning in Online Environments
With the growing trends in favor of online course offerings in higher education, it is important that researchers continue to focus on investigating the components vital to effectiveness. Using a survey design, the elements of interaction and presence, and their relationship and influence on student learning in an online course is examined in the current study. The findings of the study suggest that students perceive instructor-learner and learner-content interaction to be more important to their learning as compared to learner-learner interaction. In addition, teaching presence plays a more important role in student learning followed by cognitive presence and then social presence. Again, when it comes to the combination of the factors of interaction and presence, the factors that students perceive to have the most influence on their learning are teaching presence and learner-instructor interaction with the least important factor being learner-learner interaction. Overall, the results of this empirical study have implications for online course design and delivery to ensure student learning in online environments.
Instructors’ Perceptions of Instructor Presence in Online Learning Environments
The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 2016
As online learning continues to grow significantly, various efforts have been explored and implemented in order to improve the instructional experiences of students. Specifically, research indicates that how an instructor establishes his or her presence in an online environment can have important implications for the students' overall learning experience. While instructor presence appears to be an important aspect of online learning, more research is needed to fully understand this construct. The purpose of this study was to consider online instructors' perceptions related to presence, beliefs about actions, and the perceived impact of instructional presence. Using an explanatory multiple-case study approach, this research considered the perspectives of 13 instructors teaching in an online master's program at a large Midwestern public university. Results indicate instructors viewed instructor presence as an important component in online courses but their reasons varied. Furthermore, the instructors discussed a number of communication strategies they used, the importance of using such strategies to connect to students, and the potential impact of these strategies on student participation and learning. Additional themes from the interview data are discussed, and implications for online teaching and learning are suggested.
Building Communities in Online Courses: The Importance of Interaction
This paper discusses course design factors affecting the success of asynchronous online learning with a specific focus on the social development of learning communities through online discussion. It reports on an empirical investigation of correlations between 22 course design factors and student perceptions of satisfaction, learning, and interaction with instructors and classmates using data collected from 73 courses offered through the State University of New York Learning Network (SLN) in the spring, 1999 semester. Data analyses revealed that three factors were significantly related to student perceptions – clarity and consistency in course design, contact with and feedback from course instructors, and active and valued discussion. An explanation for these findings may center on the importance of creating opportunities for interaction in online learning environments. In this vein, preliminary findings from research on the development of community in online course discussions is presented. Drawn from content analyses of asynchronous discussions in an online graduate course in education, this research examines the ways in which course participants use verbal immediacy indicators to support the development of online community. Findings support an equilibrium model of social presence in online discussion which suggests that as affective communications channels are reduced, discussion participants use more verbal immediacy behaviors to support interaction among classmates. Taken together, the findings support the importance of interaction for online teaching and learning.