RSA#3: Online Presence Counts Towards Student Learning

The National Center for Educational Statistics (2003) reports that in 2000-2001, 52 percent of institutions that had undergraduate programs offered credit-granting distance educations courses at the undergraduate level, and college level, credit-granting distance education courses were offered at the graduate/first-professional level by 52 percent of institutions that had graduate/first-professional programs.  Public two-year institutions had the largest number of enrollments in distance education offerings in 2000-2001, a trend that has continued since then.  (Palloff, Pratt, 2007)

Online learning is commonplace in 2012.  I’m writing this blog for an online course.  One issue that has cropped up in relation to online learning is the issue of presence, which can be defined “as the degree to which a person is perceived as “real” in the online environment.”  (Palloff, Pratt, 2007)  Presence can be built through synchronous learning applications like Adobe Connect.  My current class utilized this tool at the start of class.  This, along with an introduction post complete with pictures, interests, and goal carried we participants into the course.  I believe that presence was achieved through these means.  This idea is an important one to consider as educators move into creating online learning environments for our own students.  An interesting idea to note in relation to this idea is that an introverted person may have a more successful online learning experience than an extrovert.  Given the absence of social presence, the introvert may appreciate the time to reflect and consider ideas deeply before responding, whereas an extrovert may miss the real, face-to-face interactions and not feel as connected to the course.  (Pratt, 1996.)  I began to wonder, when reading through the research, if building a social presence would equal greater learning.  The research certainly indicates that this is true.

The study preformed by Jennifer Richardson, Phd. Entitled “Examining Social Presence in Online Courses” supports the notion that students perceptions of successful social presence does factor into perceived learning by the student.  “Students reporting higher perceived social presence scores also perceived they learned more from the course than students with low perceived social presence scores.” (p. 73, Richardson, J., Swan, K., 2003)

Creating the opportunity for students to build social presence is key to student satisfaction and perceived learning in an online course.  To accomplish this task, an instructor must build time into the course for student introductions, along with synchronous meetings if that is possible.  The time is well served by increased students involvement, shown through greater student presence, satisfaction, and learning.

Palloff, R., Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: effective strategies for the virtual classroom.  SanFrancisco, CA: Wiley Imprint.

Richardson, J., Swan, K. (2003). Examining Social Presence in Online Courses in Relation to Students’ Perceived Learning and Satisfaction.  http://hdl.handle.net/2142/18713