By enhancing instructor presence in an online course, instructors can foster a connection with students and build a strong online learning community. This session explores opportunities for creating an engaged online learning community and strategies to build and maintain a sense of instructor presence throughout an online course.
A learning community is built through engagement on multiple levels, beginning with instructor presence. By enhancing instructor presence in the online course, an instructor can foster a connection with students and build a strong online learning community. The presenters will lead a discussion on strategies to build a sense of online instructor presence and explore opportunities for creating an engaged online learning community through an online course.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to: (1) Identify communication strategies for facilitating instructor presence through an online course; (2) Implement instructional techniques fostering student engagement in online classes; (3) Propose a course plan that encourages the establishment of a strong online learning community.
The presenters will prepare a Google Slides presentation of the main concepts. Two 5-minute presentations will be interspersed with activities. Discussions will be initiated by supplying content via Google Docs and facilitating participant interactions through polling, brainstorming, sharing and co-creating. Attendees will experience instructional techniques using selected instructional tools. Similar participant engagement strategies were implemented in the presenters’ earlier online course design and were well received by online students.
This session has implications for online teaching and learning as well as for training and development of online instructors.