Can You See Me Now? Defining Teaching Presence in the Online Classroom Through Building a Learning Community

摘要

Online education is an increasingly popular method of course delivery. Building an effective online environment mandates that faculty consider the core elements of teaching presence and develop teaching techniques that match. Teaching presence or the "design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes"69 must exist in the online classroom. Teaching presence can be achieved in both graduate and undergraduate courses if the online course design includes multiple methods giving students notice of key course items and encouraging faculty-student interaction, student-student interaction, and student involvement with the course material.