Using the Framework for Creating Online Presence to Manage Workload

 

Looking at the Framework for Creating Online Presence you see the Being There for the Online Learner model on the left. The model and framework help you become aware of and understand what is necessary to make presence happen online. The arrow running from the model to the instructor represents the instructor’s awareness of how presence occurs online. The arrow from the instructor to the determinants of presence represents the path the instructor takes to design the course with a sense of presence. The determinants of presence are the components of the design process that guide the instructor’s creation of presence in the online environment. The arrows from the determinants of presence to the model and from the model to the determinants of presence show the continuous action involved in using and revisiting the components of the framework.

Let’s look at the determinants of presence more closely:

• the type of content is determined by the course discipline; the focus of content is either process-based or content-based or a mix of both
• the format may be self-paced, group-based, or a mix of both formats
• strategies engage learners with the instructor, the content, and each other and can be instructor-led, logistical and instructional, cooperative, and/or collaborative
• instructor roles are varied, depending on what needs to be accomplished and can include the role of instructional designer, lecturer, tutor, mentor, supporter, facilitator, catalyst, observer, and/or evaluator. In all cases, the instructor is also a learner, interacting with course participants and engaging in course activities
• the type of technology used in the online course can be asynchronous (time delay), synchronous (same time), or a blend of both (asynchronous and synchronous technologies offer different experiences and are used for specific reasons)
• support is critical in the online environment. Learners need both instructional and technical support to function well. Support from the instructor provides psychological and emotional assistance; technical support helps learners overcome deficiencies in writing or lack of understanding about technology.

Next week, our: “Template for Managing Tasks and Prioritizing Time.”

References

Lehman, R. M. & Conceição, S. C. O. (2010). Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Conceição, S. C. O, Lehman, R. M. (2011). Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

7 Steps to Creating Presence in Online Courses - Step 7

Online teaching and learning should be "an experience" where presence is felt by both instructors and learners. How is presence created?  

The seventh step for creating online presence is to use the Framework described in Step 6 to create a Design Plan. Remember, the Framework includes the Learner-Centered Model and the Determinants of Presence. Let's look at an example of how the plan was developed by a science instructor. In her course: 

1. the Content she created was both content- and process-based.  
2. the Format included a blend of individual and group work (more individual in the beginning, transitioning to group work after the first few weeks). 
3. the Interaction Activities she selected supported the Content and fit her students’ needs.
4. the Roles she played as instructor were determined by the level of institutional Support she had, the course Content, and the Format she had created (as a result, she played a number of Roles).
5. the Technologies she chose were to implement the Format and enable the Interaction Activities. 
6. the Support she used included three types: instructional, technical, and self-support. Self-support is an important new addition to this determinant and focuses on setting self-boundaries and taking care of self. This is important not only for the instructor but also for the learners.

The science instructor's Design Plan illustrates this seventh step.

But Step 7 is an expansive step. In online learning you are creating a “learning experience” …so you’re designing in phases; not just when the course happens (during) but also before the course begins, at the end of the course, and even after. In the next weeks you’ll see how our instructor expanded the Design Plan to develop these phases. 

 

Reference 

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. (2010). Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. Jossey-Bass. 

7 Steps to Creating Presence in Online Courses - Step 1

Online teaching and learning should be an experience where presence is felt by both instructors and learners. How is presence created?

1 - The first critical step is to WALK IN YOUR STUDENTS' SHOES - in other words take an online course or two. Unless you’ve been a student in an online course you have no idea what your students will be experiencing. Understanding the experience they will have is critical!!

 

Next week - Step 2.

 

Reference

 

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. (2010). Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. Jossey-Bass. 

Making Sense of Presence: Are You Here or There?

 

The basic difference between face-to-face teaching and learning and distance teaching and learning is the separation of the instructor from the learners and the learners from each other. This separation can cause feelings of isolation, frustration, and anxiety. A way to overcome these feelings in the online environment is through an awareness and understanding of a sense of presence that is followed by creating presence and community through course design. Often in our classes our learners have said that they feel as though they are not separated but are in the same room. Are they “here or there”? Often they really aren’t sure and that is amazing!

If you keep in mind that making sense of presence in the online environment is based not on what is actually taking place but rather on the way the course is designed and the way you and your learners think, feel, and behave, you will begin to truly “be there” and “be together” with others.

 

Reference

 

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. (2010). Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. Jossey-Bass. 

End of Online Course Activities

 

Instructor presence may lessen during the final two or three weeks of the online course, as learners become more independent, confident, and focused on what is needed to complete the course. During this time, instructors should pay special attention to completing tasks, clarifying issues through announcements, and providing support through individual or group or team meetings. At this point, technology should be totally transparent.

 

End of Course activities may include: 1) end-of-course communication, in the form of announcements (for example, a Welcome to the last Unit Announcement and a Final Course Announcement when everything has been completed); 2) paper critiques in which course participants write a topic synthesis and share it with group members for critique; 3) team project self- and peer feedback for rating individuals in the team and the team itself; 4) whole group discussion that will offer time for reflection and new perspectives; 5) instructor feedback, as a facilitator, supporter, and evaluator; and 6) end-of-course debriefing to help learners decompress and process their online course experience.

 

Reference

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. (2010). Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. Jossey-Bass. 

Modes for Experiencing Presence

 

What modes of experience can you use for learners to help create a sense of presence? Ijsselsteijn et al. (2000) have identified four modes. These modes of presence are realism, immersion, involvement, and suspension of disbelief. We create the "illusion of nonmediation" in each mode, so that we no longer perceive the existence of the medium in our communication environment and respond as though the medium were transparent. 

In realism, there is a close match between the real and the virtual world. In this case, we try to match as closely as possible the elements of the human senses (i.e., vision, hearing, and touch) to those that are used in the online experience to replicate the reality (Argyle & Dean, 1965). Nursing simulators are a good example of creating a realistic experience that closely resembles the actual one. 

In the immersion mode, illusion occurs through virtual reality. The Second Life® 3-D virtual environment is a good example of this mode. Participants experience presence in this virtual world through the creation of avatars. These avatars become their identity and exist in a pre-designed environment, immersing themselves in this virtual world. An illusion is created by the detailed mapping to physical reality and by vicariously moving around in the virtual environment, interacting with others. 

Involvement creates personal, interactive engagement with the learner and others. Through the design of interactive activities, the line between the real and the virtual world is blurred. Think of a student actively in an online team project. She engages in dynamic conversations with classmates through synchronous and asynchronous technologies and senses that she is in the same room with others. 

Suspension of disbelief is a psychological “letting go" of reality. In this mode, the participants are creating the reality in their own minds. They intentionally allow themselves to suspend their analytical faculties. They recognize what is happening but give up what they believe to be true. This mode of presence is experienced whenever we watch a movie, view a video, attend a drama, or read a book.

References

Argyle, M., & Dean, J. (1965). Eye-contact, distance and affiliation. Sociometry, 28, 289–304.

Ijsselsteijn, W. A., de Ridder, H., Freeman, J., & Avons, S. E. (2000). Presence: Concept, determinants, and measurement. In Human Vision and Electronic Imaging Conference, proceedings of the International Society for Optical Engineering, 3959, 520–529.

Presence is Rooted in the Interactive Perceptual Process

Presence is rooted in the interactive (i.e., enactive) perceptual process (Noe, 2005) and should be viewed from different perspectives: social, psychological, and emotional.

Social presence surfaced in the 1970s when Short et al. (1976) wrote about individuals being seen as “real” when communicating using media. In this case, the amount of presence was based on the type of media used. Today, it is believed that the type of media used has little influence on social presence in online environments. Rather, social presence has more to do with how well individuals participating in online learning are successful in acknowledging or disregarding the presence of the medium (Lombard & Ditton, 1997) and feel a sense of “being together” with others (Biocca et al., 2001) as previously mentioned. 

In the second perspective, according to Lombard and Ditton (1997), presence is a psychological state in which the technology becomes transparent to the user who no longer recognizes it in the learning experience, an illusion in which the technology seems to disappear and people and locations that are in reality separated, perceive and feel that they are present together in the same room.  

The third perspective, emotional presence, is the ability to genuinely show feelings through words, symbols, and interactions with others in the online environment. In this process, learners and instructors are emotionally present when they connect with others in an authentic way during the online learning experience. Throughout the perceptual process, emotions affect our behavior and thought and impact our experiences of presence. Emotions are key to perception; they guide us to focus on particular aspects of a situation, enable us to concentrate on that situation, connect the affective to the cognitive, and allow us to arrive at thoughtful and appropriate decisions for our actions (Alcañiz et al., 2004).

References

Alcañiz, M., Bañoa, R., Botella, C., & Rey, B. (2003). The EMMA project: Emotions as a determinant of presence. Psychology Journal, 1(2), 141–150.

Biocca, F., Burgoon, J., Harms, C., & Stoner, M. (2001). Criteria and scope conditions for a theory and measure of social presence. Paper presented at the Presence 2001: Fourth International Workshop.

Lombard, M., & Ditton, T. (1997). At the heart of it all: The concept of presence. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3(2). 

Noe, A. (2005). Action in perception. Cambridge. MIT Press.

Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications. London: Wiley Press.

Why is Presence So Important?

 

We are basically social by nature and when that social aspect is absent, we crave it and look for ways to accommodate absence and create presence. This social nature is deeply embedded in our perceptual process when interacting with others, not only in the real world, but also in the online environment. It is through the perceptual process that we interact with information and others within the online environment and require others to relate to us and work with us - this happens at the behavioral level.

Individually, each of us needs to make sense of information for our use, for sharing, and for further interacting with others. This refines and expands our knowledge. Individually, we search for appropriate resources to challenge, support, and enhance our experiences. We then re-examine the entire process by refining what we have integrated, and then circle back to repeat the process - this happens at the cognitive and emotional levels. We continuously go through this process in the online environment from an individual point of view; in other words, perceptually (Lehman, 1996; 2006). Because this process occurs at the subconscious level (Noe, 2005), it is difficult to notice when it is happening.

When thought, emotion, and behavior work together in our real world experiences, we believe that we have created a successful perceptual experience and a sense of presence. Often, we do not realize what happens when we are, for example, assigned to a small group in a face-to-face class (the environment); interacting with group members (with emotion); and focusing, following, and completing the group assignment (with thought, based on group behavior). This perceptual experience parallels the online learning experience, with the exception that in the online learning experience the instructor and learners are not in the same physical space. It is, therefore, necessary to intentionally rethink and redesign the course, incorporating the dynamic interplay of thought, emotion, and behavior to influence the perceptual process and create a sense of presence within the online environment.

References

Lehman, R. M. (1996). The essential videoconferencing guide: Seven keys to success. Instructional Communications Systems.

Lehman, R. (2006). The role of emotion in creating instructor and learner presence in the distance education experience. Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, spring/summer issue. Available at www.jcal.emory.edu.

Noe, A. (2005). Action in perception. Cambridge. MIT Press.

Research on co-presence and social interaction

Our interest in the concept of presence is particularly focused on the online environment. However. we are open to perspectives from different fields such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology, among others. In one of our presentations, a colleague mentioned the work of Erving Goffman. Goffman's work centers on social interactions and the meaning of co-presence in the face-to-face world.  His work explores the social organization of gathering and the presentation of self in everyday life. These concepts relate to our work on creating online presence. In the online environment, "being there" and "being together with others" is based on co-presence when individuals are interacting with each other.  We are only beginning to learn about Goffman's work and would like to explore more his concepts of co-presence and social interaction, and how they relate to the online environment. Our blog is open for anyone to chime in about this topic.

 

Goffman, E. (2021). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor.