Terry Anderson, Liam Rourke, Randy Garrison & Walter Archer (2001)
Assessing Teacher Presence in a computer conferencing context
Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5, 2, p1-17.
Functions of the teacher
have always been multifaceted.
- Designer – planning and administering instruction
- ‘Facilitator and co-creator of the social environment conducive to active and successful learning’, p2
- subject matter expert who scaffolds the learning
p3 ‘Fulfilling the complex responsibilities of a teacher necessitates sustained and authentic communication between and among teachers and students. While control must be shared and choices provided, the discourse must also be guided towards higher levels of learning through reflective participation as well as by challenging assumptions and diagnosing misconceptions.’
Authors argue that due to the lean medium, teaching presence critical
Support in the literature for the three roles
Theory
Berge (1995) ( identified the three roles but added a fourth, namely supporting the use of technology) Paulsen (1995), and Mason (1991) also identify three major responsibilities but present authors p4‘ depart …. In terms of how we construct and define sthe social aspects of an educational experience’ ie the creation of the social environment is the responsibility of the student as well as the teacher. In the authors’ model ‘ only the social aspects of the teacher’s messages that directly relate to the content contributions from the student are included in the teaching presence category’
Evidence
Rossman(1999) analysis of over 3000 student end-of –course evaluations from 154 university courses; comments and complaints clustered into three major groupings – teacher responsibility, facilitating discussions and course requirements.
Design & organization
P5 ‘ Building the course in a digital format forces teachers to think through the process , structure, evaluation and interaction components of the course. Much of the learned expectation of classroom norms is not available for either student or teacher use, and thus the teacher is forced to be much more explicit and transparent’ e.g. ‘designing and organizing an appropriate mix of group and individual activities’, ‘ modelling appropriate use of the medium’,’sense of the grand design’ ‘ We concur with Laurillard et al, (2000) that the teacher’s task is to create a narrative path through the mediated instruction and activity set such that students are aware of the explicit and implicit learning goals and activities in which they participate. Macro-level comments about course process and content are thus an important motivation and orientation component of this category of teaching presence.
Facilitating discourse
P7 ; the teacher regularly reads and comments on student postings, constantly searching for ways to support the development of the learning community’ ‘ this component overlaps with many of the behaviours identified in our larger model of social presence’…..’’our facilitating discourse category is more than the facilitation of social activities, ……facilitation of discourse is usually integrated within direct instruction and in situ design of instructional activity’ ‘There presence indicates the teacher is helping to create a positive learning environment’’ e.g. helping students articulate consensus and shared understanding, when these are already implicit in the discussion’ Authors see the idea of the tutor as ‘guide on the side’ as too laissez faire e.g. Salmon’s idea that the moderator of online discourse discussions requires no more academically than a similar level qualification’ Authors argue that insufficient academic competence on the part of the teacher or a reluctance to go beyond a facilitating discourse role is one possible explanation for the reports that online discussion often does not go beyond the sharing of information. P9 ‘ The design of effective learning activities leads to opportunities for students themselves to uncover these misconceptions, but the teacher’s comments and questions as direct instruction are also invaluable’
Method
Target variable – teaching presence
Categories(3) organization & instruction, facilitating discourse, direct instruction
Indicators for each category based on the literature & practice of teaching & learning
Examples of each indicator
Unit of analysis – message ‘Each message posted by an instructor was coded as exhibiting or not exhibiting one or more indicators of each of the three categories of teaching presence’ p11 ‘ Ultimately, the validity of this system will be judged according to two criteria: Does the procedure facilitate the objective quantification of the insights that an observer would gain from an informal reading of the transcripts? And does the procedure reveal additional insights that are not apparent from an informal reading’
Frequencies and percentages calculated for instructor messages of two graduate level distance education courses, one in health the other in education. ( no further details available)
Results
Table 5
Frequencies of teaching presence categories by instructor
| Health Course | Education Courseb | |||||||
| f | % | f | % | |||||
| Instructional Design | 31 | 22.3 | 12 | 37.5 |
| |||
| Facilitating Discourse | 60 | 43.2 | 24 | 75.0 |
| |||
| Direct Instruction | 107 | 77.0 | 28 | 87.5 |
| |||
Note: a n of instructor messages =139.
b n of instructor messages = 32.
Table 6
Frequency and percentage of messages that included 0, 1, 2, or 3 categories of teaching presence
| Graduate Health Coursea | Graduate Education Courseb | ||||||
| f | % | f | % | ||||
| 0 categories | 1 | 0.7 | 0 | 0.0 | |||
| 1 category | 89 | 64.0 | 7 | 21.9 | |||
| 2 categories | 42 | 30.2 | 15 | 46.9 | |||
| 3 categories | 7 | 5.0 | 10 | 31.3 | |||
Note difference in number of postings by each tutor, one responding to every message, the other allowing some of the students to take over the teaching presence role.
