Students can forgive our technological hiccups, they will forget our poor classroom design, and most will be generous about our grading errors if they understand that there really is a human being teaching their online courses. And what does our students' forgiveness, forgetfulness, and generosity really mean - it means that students learn better and are more satisfied in online courses with consistent social, teaching and cognitive presence. Regardless of how instruction is delivered, effective learning is always more about the student and the instructor, and less about the technology. Think of technology as a supplemental tool for the instructor or students to use to amplify their presence and engagement in the learning environment.

Of all the good practices for online teaching, the most important practice is “being there.” Being there is the core of presence, letting your students know that you are there to direct, to guide, to listen and to share your expertise with your learners. This page takes you on a guided tour through an exploration of Three Presences for Online Teaching and Learning — Social Presence, Teaching Presence and Cognitive Presence. These definitions of types of presence first emerged from the work of D. Randy Garrison in 2006 (Garrison, 2006b). Dr. Garrison (see image right) is a retired professor from the University of Calgary and has published extensively on teaching and learning in adult, higher and distance education contexts. He has also won several awards including the 2009 Sloan-C Award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Learning by an Individual.

The next two pages in this module go into depth about Garrsion's theory of online teaching presence.

References

Garrison, D. R. (2006a). Online collaboration principles. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(1) pp. 25-34. Accessed August 12, 2015 at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96.4536&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Garrison, D. R. (2006b) Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Accessed August 13, 2015 at http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ842688.pdf