Editor's Notes
- #5: Rovai & Wighting (2005) state “students who feel lonely or isolated will invest more energy in seeking a sense of community and support than in learning.”
- #6: Social presence is important especially at the beginning of the semester when students are getting to know and trust both you and one another. If students can make interpersonal connections with others, they are more likely to engage with the course and the content. Indicators of Social Presence include Affective responses such as expressing emotion and using humor Interactive responses such as continuing a discussion thread, referring to other students in a message or post, asking questions, and expressing agreement or appreciations Cohesive responses such as using other students' names, using inclusive pronouns to refer to their group or class, and engaging in small talk
- #8: Teaching discourse in online environments contains a mark-edly social component that is essential for the meaningful engagement of participants and col-leagues. The teaching presence shown to enable these processes contains regular instances of
- #9: Affective responses such as expressing emotion and using humor Interactive responses such as continuing a discussion thread, referring to other students in a message or post, asking questions, and expressing agreement or appreciations Cohesive responses such as using other students' names, using inclusive pronouns to refer to their group or class, and engaging in small talk
- #14: The teacher will agree a set of rules and social contracts with students at the beginning of the year and the Institute’s Dignity and Respect policy should be maintained in an online setting. It’s not possible of course but try to do it across your courses, agree with all lecturers on your course
- #15: Instead of live chat in Adobe Connect, Teams Meeting, Zoom, email, Moodle messaging, and forum posts, keep all those communication styles together in one app
- #16: Instead of live chat in Adobe Connect, Teams Meeting, Zoom, email, Moodle messaging, and forum posts, keep all those communication styles together in one app
- #18: The technical aspect of such a project may well be the easy part. Creating and nourishing an online community will involve the entire teaching and student population but even small steps can have an enormous impact. Following suggestions from literature there are some very simple strategies to increase use of Social Presence and Teaching Presence pedagogies and tools including: Students need to download the app and login Use simple Ice Breaker techniques when starting with new groups on Community Platforms Encourage the use of personal profiles and photos, in order to help students to feel a more personal connection. Encourage learners to incorporate their feelings, experiences, examples, and ideas on Community Platforms Use video feedback