The Creation
of Adam, Salt Cathedral, Zipaquirá, Colombia. Photo by Jonathan Acuña
Teaching
Presence vs. Teacher Presence in Online Teaching
By Prof. Jonathan
Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty
of Social Sciences
Universidad
Latina de Costa Rica
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Post 314
“Teachers of online courses still need
to maintain an environment conducive to learning and provide instruction that
meets the needs of students from a wide range of backgrounds and levels of
experience” (Pawan, Wiechart, Warren, & Park, 2016) . But how is this
“environment” leading to learning maintained in an online setting and also, how
can one cater for all these “backgrounds and levels of experience” that are
brought by all course participants to the a virtual learning environment (VLE)?
No doubt, part of the answer to all this questioning can be found through one’s
teaching and teacher presence when
delivering a course.
Learning in a virtual environment or
in a brick-and-mortar classroom, as it has always happened, continues to be
acquired in social contexts where a teaching figure is present along with at
least a learner, and this teaching character is meant to be present to signal
the learner path to acquire knowledge. This teaching professional is present by
means of an instructor’s teaching
presence and by his/her teacher
presence as well. Though a learner may be detached from society –somehow-, knowledge is created for
social consumption; information is about and/or linked to human beings making
their learning socially-bound and then consumed (by humans) and consequently
taught by this teaching figure. All this leads to understand that teachers are
needed for the imperative of social interactions “conducive to learning” that
“provide instruction” regardless of the kind of expertise held by learners. And
in an online environment, though an instructor is not synchronously available
for students at all times, the transference of knowledge happens because an
instructional design of tasks (readings, reflections, videos, slideshows, and
so on) has been executed to help learners assimilate information in a VLE
bearing in mind the importance of learning in social contexts designed by the
instructor or instructional designer.
Teaching in an online context can be
circumscribed to two educational constructs that can help us differentiate
teachers’ roles in virtual learning environments: the former is teaching presence, and the latter is teacher presence. So let’s explore what
these two constructs really mean in terms of their individual connotations and
how they cannot be considered synonyms when dealing with online education.
What can be understood by teaching presence?
Based on Pawan, Wiechart, Warren, & Park (2016), teaching presence includes
what Rodgers & Raider-Roth (2006) labed as a) connection to self, b) connection
to students, and c) connection to
subject matter and pedagogical knowledge. To have a better comprehension of
what it is really meant by each of these presence
elements, let’s review the following chart where each of these constructs is
briefly explained.
Rodgers
& Raider-Roth’s (2006) Teaching Construct
|
Pawan,
Wiechart, Warren, & Park’s (2016) labels
|
Prof. Jonathan Acuña’s
insight into the these constructs
|
Connection
to Self
|
Authentic
Self-Projection
|
Teaching as a projection
of instructors themselves as both individual human beings detached from their
career and as professionals within a given area of expertise they hold due to
their jobs, which is part of their credentials for being course instructors
|
Connection
to Students
|
Psychological
Connection
|
Learning taking place as
part of one’s relationship to others (learners) along with one’s ability to
assume the viewpoint of these others (students) and see how the learning
process takes place to provide guidance or assistance for knowledge
construction in the minds of trainees
|
Pedagogical
Knowledge
|
The
Feedback Loop
|
Teachers’ understanding
of the process of knowing the subject matter due to their expertise used to
gain insight into students’ thinking and assimilation of new content to help
them monitor and potentiate their own autonomous learning, develop skills to
deal with course content and job responsibilities, and consolidate
competences to be used in their daily professional (or even personal) life
|
Teaching Presence,
Designed by Prof. Jonathan Acuña based on Pawan,
Wiechart, Warren, & Park (2016)
|
||
On
the other hand, after having reviewed the chart, teacher presence does not necessarily account for any of the above
aspects but instruction alone. And as it has been seen, teaching
presence is vital for an online virtual setting, as well for F2F classroom interactions,
but teacher presence cannot be equated with teaching presence, and it cannot
account for any deeper reflection on the content being studied. It is one’s
teaching presence that helps us move learners into deeper reflective stages of
assimilation and usage of content; our presence as teachers in terms of
instructors is not going to help them move into deeper considerations of what
they are learning and their ulterior application in their jobs.
Moving into
Deeper Reflection
Do we want our learners to just be in
an exploration mode while dealing with content in a VLE? Without proper
teaching presence, students in an online environment do not necessarily feel
motivated to go deeper into the exploration of the subject-matter being stated.
Based on Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001, also quoted by Pawan, Wiechart, Warren, & Park, 2016), “often
students will be more comfortable remaining in a continuous exploration mode;
therefore, teaching presence is essential in moving the process to more
advanced stages of critical thinking and cognitive development.” If an
instructor is just there exercising his/her teacher presence (instruction), it
does not necessarily mean that learners will go deeper into topics, theories,
and ideas after being introduced to them by an instructor; they need to be
pushed by other means to take the quantum leap into the “real” integration and resolution associated with the subject-matter covered in class (or
in a course). To conclude, teacher presence is not enough to activitate
learners’ cognitive interaction with new content to do into deeper critical and
proactive thinking of new content.
Teaching
Presence
|
Practical
Inquiry Model Stage Description
|
Triggering
|
Instructor’s design of
activity introduces a new topic / concept / idea to be considered by
participants for later application in course tasks. This usually comes with a
supply of bibliography to be read, analyzed, and understood by course
learners.
|
Explanation
|
Participants cognitively
interact with content in a series of tasks such as forum discussions and
debates where the sharing of ideas and collaboration to build their knowledge
are implied. Learners are meant to participate in discussions seeing the pros
and cons of using these new data.
|
Integration
|
Through the collaborative
process, participants incorporate the new concepts along with ideas shared by
peers in innovative ways to make meaningful use of new knowledge. The
generation of new ideas can trigger new, positive, and proactive used of new
information in their areas of expertise.
|
Resolution
|
Participants are asked to
get proactive in the use of their new knowledge by incorporating it into
their daily working life. As part of their deeper critical and cognitive
reflections with content, learners see the potential uses of new data in
their current working processes to improve them.
|
Teaching Presence,
Designed by Prof. Jonathan Acuña based on Pawan,
Wiechart, Warren, & Park (2016)
|
|
As
conceived by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001, also quoted by Pawan, Wiechart, Warren, & Park, 2016), a way to
deal with this surface exploration of topics is by means of their Practical
Inquiry Model (PIM). PIM components, as shown in the table above, are a
necessity in online education where, for instance, the instructional design
includes parcipation in forums to move participants to deeper critical, and
cognitive reflections on what is being studied. A mere teacher presence, which
–as stated above- accounts only for instruction, does not push learners into a
real reflection on course content to integrate it into their way of working and
to proactively use it to (re)solve problems they can face at work or just to
simply improve the existant processes.
Some Concluding Remarks
“The concept of presence in teaching
has not often been taught in teacher education programs (Liston, 1995), largely
because it is difficult to define and concretely demonstrate” (Pawan, Wiechart, Warren, & Park, 2016) . Though elusive as
it seems to be, teaching and teacher presence are constructs that must be
clearly defined to help virtual instructors to better deal with students in
online learning settings. What Rodgers &
Raider-Roth (2006) defined as teaching presence, which includes connection to self, connection to students, and connection to subject matter and
pedagogical knowledge, is an imperative in the search for more deeper and
critical participation of students in online education. Its ulterior assocation
with Garrsion, Anderson, & Archer’s (2001) PIM is an excellent
element that can be used to spice up any instructional design model that can be
used to create learning tasks for students in virtual learning environments.
Finally, making room to find the difference between teaching and teacher
presence is another must in the pedagogical implications of one’s presences in
online education. Instruction, or teacher presence, is not enough to trigger
student critical and cognitive reflections on the subject-matter but how those
reflections can be used for proactive uses of content in their areas of
expertise at work.
References
Garrsion,
D., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical Thinking, Cognitive
Presence, and Computre Referencing in Distance Education. American Journal
of Distance Education 15(1), 7-25.
Pawan, F., Wiechart, K., Warren, A., & Park, J. (2016).
Pedagogy & Practice for Online English Language Teacher Education.
Alexandria, VA: TESOL Press.
Rodgers, C., & Raider-Roth, M. (2006). Presence in
Teaching. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 265-287.
