ASCILITE 2004 Workshop

Skills in online teaching: Social and cognitive presence

Objectives	At the end of this workshop, participants will have: participated in presentation and discussion activities associated with the discourse of online presence; developed and constructed a set of strategies to both identify and use online presence indicators to enhance the teaching and learning experience; created a personal profile of their online presence to enhance communication with other online participants; and received a set of resources to support ongoing research and analysis of what it means to 'be online'.
Intended audience	The intended participants are both academic and support staff who are either actively engaged in the delivery of online teaching and learning with higher education or are in the process of planning the implementation of online teaching and learning environments.
Facilitators	Rod Sims is Professor and Academic Director of QANTM, where he is overseeing the introduction of undergraduate degree programs in new media (animation and games programming). Dr Sims has over 20 years experience in teaching and learning with technology and has published widely in the field. His current activities include teaching online as well as developing courses for online delivery. Bethany Bovard is the Project Coordinator for the RETA Professional Development program (New Mexico, USA) where she directs the design and development of an online staff development program. Bethany is also a PhD student in an online program for instructional design of online learning. In her role as student, she has been acutely aware of and interested in instructor and student presence and interaction and its impact on learning outcomes.
Details of activities	Increasingly, higher education providers are focusing more on improving communications between teacher and learner in online asynchronous courses. Recent insights into communities of inquiry (Garrison, Anderson & Archer) and communities of practice (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder) have suggested that it is not only social presence (our online persona), but also cognitive presence (our engagement with course content and course participants) that impacts effective online teaching and learning. In addition, research findings are indicating that through better understanding the dynamics of social and cognitive presence, course designers as well as teachers and learners can experience more effective online teaching and learning environments. The aim of this workshop therefore is to address the theoretical framework for online presence from which participants will construct strategies for utilising both social and cognitive presence to enhance the online teaching and learning experience for all course members. Through an integrated set of activities and resources, we will address the following key questions for the online teacher and learner: What does it mean to be 'socially present'? What does it mean to be 'cognitively present?' Why is presence considered a key to effective online teaching and learning? When teaching an online course, how present (socially and cognitively engaged) are you? How present are your students? How does the level of presence impact on teacher and learner performance? What strategies can enhance online presence? Workshop format and activities Workshop participants will engage in discussions, problem-based activities and demonstrations associated with the use of presence as a means to enhance the online teaching and learning experience. The proposed workshop outline is as follows; however, depending on the input from participants prior to the workshop the outline may be modified to address indivdiual interests. Where possible, participants who are actively teaching online will be requested to contribute online feedback data to specific workshop activities. Welcome and introductions Models of online presence Key research foundations Communities of practice Communities of inquiry Social presence Cognitive presence Profiling the online teacher Roles Encounters Presence Profiling the online learner Roles Encounters Presence Indicators of presence and its effect on online teaching and learning Quantitative indicators Qualitative indicators Implications from online evaluation data Strategies for online teaching Personal presence profiles (PPPs) Communicating personal presence Developing personal presence Conclusions and wrap-up
References	Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T. & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking and computer conferencing: A model and tool to assess cognitive presence. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7-23. http://communitiesofinquiry.com/documents/CogPres_Final.pdf Wenger, E., McDermott, R. & Snyder, W.M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Harvard Business School Press.