Creating Your Instructor Presence Online
Establishing an instructor presence means creating a learning experience for students to progress through with instructor facilitation, support, and guidance. Being flexible and showing empathy and care for students helps create a good learning environment.
Online students need the same amount of engagement as you would provide in a face-to-face course. In online courses, especially asynchronous courses, creating an instructor presence helps students identify you as their instructor and contact you if they need help. Moreover, creating an instructor presence in an online course helps students feel less isolated and promotes interactive, engaged learning.
Schedule a certain amount of time each week for activities that will help you be visibly present and engaged in your online course.
Practical Strategies for Instructor Presence
Create a Welcome Video.
Welcome students to your class and provide information about what to expect from the course. The welcome video should be used to show students your support and to help reduce their anxiety in the online learning environment.
Use online discussions.
Engaging students in online discussions helps build a learning community and promotes higher order thinking. Throughout the week, monitor discussion posts and be responsive to student questions. Examples:
- Use discussions at the beginning of a course for students to introduce themselves.
- Use discussion prompts throughout the course to explore concepts in depth. Avoid asking agree/disagree type questions.
Facilitating discourse involves regularly reading and providing feedback on student postings, encouraging participation, moving the discussion forward when it stalls or gets off track, identifying and drawing out areas of agreement and disagreement, pointing out linkages, and helping students articulate shared understandings.
Communicate with students frequently.
In addition to keeping your students informed, establishing a regular pattern of communication can help your students feel more comfortable reaching out to you when they have questions.
- Use Canvas announcements/emails to remind your students of the upcoming week’s topics, activities, assignments, and due dates. Alternatively, record short audio/video messages and distribute them at the start of each week.
- Reach out to your students regularly: email all students/individual students, both to find out how they are doing and to show that you care about their learning.
- Respond to students' emails based on your promised turnaround specifications (Suggested: a 24- to 48-hour turnaround time).
Hold Virtual Office Hours.
Use Zoom to hold regular virtual office hours. You may offer virtual office hours, particularly before exams, to clarify any issues and to address any questions or concerns that students may have.