Creating a Sense of Presence

 

Creating a sense of online presence enhances instructor-learner and learner-learner relationships. Our definition of online presence is "being there" and "being together" before, during, and at the end of the online experience. Since presence is not a thing but a process, it has a "look" and "feel." Presence looks and feels as though the instructor has placed the learner at the center of the course development and created the course for the learner. It looks and feels as though the instructor is accessible to the learners, the learners are accessible to the instructor and other learners, and the technology is transparent to the learning process.

 

Online presence is created through developing awareness, understanding, involvement through experience, and intentional planning and design throughout the course. Presence helps to break down feelings of isolation, involves participants in the learning process, brings learners together in a virtual community, and is key to learner retention.  

Online presence is more than engagement and includes the dynamic interplay of thought, emotion, and behavior as instructor and learners consciously and unconsciously experience both the real world and the online environment.

Why is it important to understand presence when creating and designing online courses?

 

As the Internet evolves in an informal social direction (Internet-based social networking tools), it points to the importance of creating a sense of presence in the more formal setting of teaching and learning online. Understanding presence and how to create and design presence for online courses is “key.”

There is a difference between creating informal social presence for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media and creating presence for online courses. In the more informal setting, we create presence spontaneously. In the more formal setting of online courses, we need to make a concerted effort to be aware of the intentions of others and their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. We need to use a systematic approach and “intentionally design.” 

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.

Does teaching online benefit face-to-face teaching?

From our own experience and the experience of instructors who we have worked with, we have learned that the instructors often bring the online teaching skills back into the face-to-face classroom. Why does it happen? Because while designing online instruction, they had to think in detail about their own teaching strategies and techniques, philosophy, and relationship with the learners. They also realized how important it is to intentionally plan for interaction. In other words, instructors start thinking about face-to-face presence from a different perspective. 

Does presence mean being constantly online?

 

This is what people usually think. They feel that teaching online they need to be connected 24/7. This need not be the case. It all depends on how the instructor designs and manages the course. Many elements of the course can determine presence such as type and focus of the content, the course format (group-based, self-paced, or a mix), the interactive strategies, the instructor's role, the technology used, and the support (instructional and technical) provided for the learners. How you manage these course elements as part of your task as an instructor will affect how much time you spend online.