Establishing Social Presence in Your Online Class
By Brian Nairn
As we begin to settle into our roles of teaching online, starting your online class on the right note is even more important now given the level of uncertainty that COVID-19 has provided us. The information from this post comes from a personal favourite resource of mine, a book called “The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips” by Boettcher & Conrad (2016), which is available at the YorkU Library (full reference and permalink at the bottom of this post).
This is a new experience for many of us, both from a teaching context and from the perspective of your students having to learn fully online. As such, it is important to let your students know of your presence in the online environment, especially for those teaching asynchronously.
It can be argued that having a digital presence in your course is the most important aspect of best practices for online teaching. Not only do students want to know you as the content-expert, they also want to know you as a person and know that you care about their learning. Even without face-to-face interaction, being able to hear you and see you through audio and video posts is an important way to communicate. Using the different tools available to you through eClass, such as Course Announcements, Discussion Forums, and the Feedback tool let your students know that you are there for them and care about their success in the course. Using these tools often shows you are present and engaged in the course, even if the content is being posted as pre-recorded lectures/activities.
Maintaining a daily presence in your course might feel overwhelming and time-consuming, but there are ways to mitigate those pressures. For example, focusing on group discussion forums as opposed to one-on-one emails will save you time and energy. Using time-released announcements that remind your students of due dates can save you time, while creating short video/audio posts on your smartphone is a quick way to establish a positive presence and energy. Contrarily, too much presence can stunt discussion and delay the self-directed nature of online learning. This means that even if you check in daily to your course, you shouldn’t feel that you need to significantly add to a discussion every day.
An example that I used in my own course, a 1st year Anatomy & Physiology class with 350 students, was to post a couple of “Introduction” recordings for the students to view prior to any content being posted. I used a Zoom-recorded screen-share to walk the students through the eClass shell, highlighting key areas such as Course Announcements, how to access the online lab content, and how to choose a group so they can build a smaller learning community amongst themselves.
I also added a voice-over PowerPoint (recorded directly in PowerPoint) going over the basics of the course, but at the very beginning I added a few “About Me” slides. These slides were photo-based, and gave the students a peek into the life of their course director, including where I grew up (Windsor), some personal interests (sports/Blue Jays), and pulling off a COVID-19 wedding over the summer (I had a virtual groomsman on a laptop). While these photo slides showed up in the recorded video, I also made sure to remove them from the posted slide deck to protect some of my own privacy (I will show you photos, but I will not give you photos).
Coming up, my plan is to use their self-selected groups as a way for the students to interact with each other. Starting with an introduction post to get to know one another, I hope to spark conversation about course content and anything else they want to discuss with each other, while only lightly moderating these forums.
We are living in a time where social interaction is at a premium. This is also the time in the lives of young adults in University where these social interactions are critical to their personal growth. As instructors, we are given the platform to help ensure these interactions exist as much as possible, and though they are quite different from a traditional classroom setting, it does not mean they are any less important, and arguably even more so now than ever. So even if your course is completely asynchronous and you just need to drop your content into eClass, don’t forget to try to build and maintain relationships with your students. It’s often these little things that tend to have the biggest impact.
Reference
Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R-M. (2016). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
YorkU Library Permalink: https://ocul-yor.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01OCUL_YOR/sqt9v/cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9781119147701
About the Author
Brian is an Educational Developer with the Teaching Commons here at York and a Contract Faculty member with the Faculty of Health. He is also a York graduate, completing both MSc and PhD degrees in Kinesiology. Brian has worked at multiple institutions both as an Educational Developer and a contracted Course Director, and was thrilled to re-join the York community in the Teaching Commons in 2019.