Teaching presence (first blog entry for module 4)
In the module four presentation and in the readings, we learned about teaching presence. The authors spoke about the good learning environments and that they are comprised of the following elements:
Knowledge centered: “what do we want students to know and be able to do after completing our materials or course?” and “how do we provide learners with the foundational knowledge skills, attitudes needed for successful transfer?”
Learner centered: “they account for the strengths, interests, and preconceptions of learners and help students to gain insight into themselves as learners”.
Assessment centered: “they provide learners with many opportunities to make their thinking visible and to get feedback in order to create new meaning and new understanding”.
Community centered: “they encourage and can benefit from shared norms that value learning and high standards”. “Students feel safe to ask questions, to work collaboratively, and in which they are taught to develop lifelong learning skills”.
Teaching presence in the model presented has three components:
1. Instructional design and organization (setting curriculum, designing methods, establishing time parameters, utilizing the medium effectively, establishing netiquette)
2. Facilitating discourse (identifying areas of agreement and disagreement, seeking to reach consensus and understanding, encouraging, acknowledging and reinforcing student contributions, setting the climate for learning, drawing in participants and prompting discussion, assessing the efficacy of the process)
3. Direct instruction (presenting content and questions, focusing the discussion on specific issues, summarizing discussion, confirming understanding, diagnosing misperceptions, injecting knowledge from diverse sources, and responding to technical concerns)
The results of a teaching presence survey showed that there was a high correlation between teaching presence and student satisfaction.
After reading this article and listening to the presentation, I feel I have a better understanding of the important components of what makes a successful online teaching and learning environment. I am looking at the information presented and trying to incorporate this into my development of the hiking 101 course. How have you infused some of these ideas into your course development project for this course? I feel like I’m working on the instructional design phase first and foremost, but with module four, I’m thinking more about the “facilitation discourse” and getting the learning activities going with this in mind.
Pickett, A. (summer 2008). Teaching presence and class community. ETAP 687 presentation, module 4.
Shea, P., Pickett, A., Pelz, W. (2003). A follow-up investigation of teaching presence in the suny learning network”. Journal of ALN, 7.2.
–Geralynn (3)
4 responses so far ↓
1
alexandra pickett
// Jul 18, 2008 at 11:20 am
: ) remember to use complete sentences that synthesize the main idea of your blog post for your blog post titles. I want to be able to know your viewpoint from the title.
: ) me
2
amyvarano
// Jul 19, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Hello Geralynn,
To answer your question: “How have you infused some of these ideas into your course development project for this course?” This past week, I have been honing in on how I plan to create a teaching presence in my course. I have been focusing on the content, how I will instruct the content, as well as the organization of my course to make it clear and user friendly for my students. I think I am on the same page as you considering facilitating discourse. As I create my learning activities I am trying to foresee how student discussions will develop.
I looked over your course and it looks great! It seems as though you have a handle of developing your modules and activities. Out of curiosity, how are the discussion threads you are developing in your modules going to be different than what the students post on their blogs? I know your course is still a work in progress, but it seems as though the discourse your students are engaging in is about their hikes, is that what they will be writing about in their blogs too?
~Amy
3
bikerlibrarian
// Jul 21, 2008 at 9:02 am
Amy (3),
Thanks for your response. My discussion threads will be about bringing in topics from the course text. I am asking students to find a web site that would be a helpful resource to learn more on our topics from the readings. I’m still developing this but the discussions will be more about what we are reading and learning more from the web on the issues of hiking safely. The blogs entries will be a reflection of the experiences from the past 2 weeks of work. It can be anything new they learned from the course discussions, how they challenged themselves on their hike, what kinds of things they found noteworthy about their hiking experience, how they are growing or changing from the hiking experience. I find as I move through each of my modules, I’m looking for consistency in structure as well as keeping in mind teaching presence, facilitating discourse and organizational design. It’s a lot to think about, but I think it’s coming together in small steps. I’ll probably have to rework some assignments and discussion as we move forward. The challenge for me is that I’m trying to think up the lecture part, read my chosen texts, and then bring it all together for the discussions and written assignments. I’m putting together some “shells” so that as I move through developing these areas, I’ll keep consistent. Does this make sense?
Thank you for your interest and feedback.
Geralynn (3)
4
bikerlibrarian
// Jul 21, 2008 at 9:04 am
Alex,
Thanks for the reminder! “I am still learning” – Michelangelo.
–Geralynn
Leave a Comment