Vignette - Recipe for effective teacher presence
Being a leader of a community bears the weight of setting the tone for how the entire community behaves and communicates. In a learning environment context, it’s the teachers who have the power to encourage or discourage a community from forming at all - from day one.
As the designers of learning experiences, teachers set the tone, frequency and modes of communication used, which instil the values and goals of the learning community. Teacher behaviour models how students will communicate and engage with one another. This teacher presence is so important that it’s one of three ingredients of creating a ‘Community of Inquiry’ (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000).
Unintentional actions
True statement: If actions aren’t intentional, they’re well…unintentional. Recognising ahead of time what impacts your communication may have on learners can help avoid unwanted, negative outcomes.
The master of teaching course I started in 2019 was specifically chosen for its hybrid delivery format - the first two weeks of each semester had an intensive face-to-face class before shifting to online learning. At the time I wasn’t convinced that a fully online program would be right for my needs…
Those first two intensive weeks were great! I met my cohort in person and put faces to names of my teachers. It seemed that when we shifted onto the cloud, we’d still be supported through email, discussion boards and support was always a phone call away. Unfortunately, the reality fell far short of the expectation - the learning community simply sputtered out. Discussion boards went stale, phone calls unreturned and so, so many unread emails! By the time the pandemic hit I was very worried for my engagement…if staying connected was already that bad…what would it be like when everything moved online?
Jumping over to the comms department
The first week of the semester in 2020 was the week I realised COVID-19 was really going to be a thing. By the end of that week, everyone knew it was a thing - the university cancelled all face to face classes and added an extra week to the semester to give students and teachers breathing room to adjust to the new delivery mode/axis of the world.
A saving grace appeared in the form of a social media content creation unit from the school of communications - an elective unit that had been recommended by a fellow teaching student. We bonded over the lack of connection we had been feeling for the past year and he said, “This class is fun, the teacher posts lots of silly videos.” As a media teacher in training, it was a perfect fit anyway…and I’m SO GLAD took my peer’s advice!
‘Effective teacher presence’ created by Lexi Keeton on Canva.
Intentional teacher presence
The welcome video on the unit’s homepage was indeed silly…and welcoming. The teacher set the tone for the unit - that we would be learning by doing, getting out of our comfort zone and not taking ourselves too seriously. Twitter would be the main vehicle of communications for the unit, a welcome diversion from the stale discussion boards I had experienced thus far. I wasn’t experienced with Twitter, but a quick look at the unit hashtag (#unitcode) revealed that students were already connecting with each other, and had already been for many years.
As the whole world began to lock down, I was getting to unlock a door to connection with my fellow learners that I had never seen before, but I knew I always wanted. I could see that my teacher was a real human that liked board games, making videos and loved animals (non-human animals a common feature in his posts.) I had never met him, but I already had an idea of who I would be engaging with and what the tone of communications would be for the rest of the unit.
That first week of the semester we all received a LOT of emails from the university community referring to “these unprecedented times” and assertions that our learning would be supported none-the-less, but it was the video version of that email posted by my social media teacher that helped me visualise just how everything might be okay amidst all of that uncertainty this trimester.
A bit more serious than the welcome video, yet calm and reassuring, he sat with a wall of board games as his video backdrop and clearly explained what would happen in the units that he chairs. As the whole university shifts to online classes, the campus enrolled students in his classes would have as seamless a transition as possible due to the digital nature and use of social media as a teaching vehicle. A zoom session would take over the same time as on campus classes and to direct all concerns to his email.
It’s the end of the video that sparked a real sense of community and belonging for me though - he compassionately reminded everyone that we can’t know what someone else’s experience of this global pandemic is and how harmful comments referring to the pandemic may be for people. He asked that we consider our peers and respectfully not post anything COVID related with the unit hashtag. A small gesture that modelled how compassionate communication can be used to show respect for our peers and community. I felt empowered to help foster a safe space for learning, which myself and my peers did for the entire semester.
Creating a communication strategy before the unit starts can help teachers provide reliable and trustworthy presence for students, potentially resulting in a more supportive learning community.
References
Garrison DR, Anderson T and Archer W (2000) 'Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education', The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3):87-105, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1096-7516(00)00016-6