5 Simple Strategies for Maintaining Instructor Presence
Time to read: 6 minutes
Although it can be challenging, being present is a skill we can hone with practice, specific teaching routines, and strategies despite all the distractions.
When I aim to replicate my in-person teaching persona in my online class, it results in approachable, relatable, and involved communication with my online students.
Instructor presence is a term used to describe the approaches, strategies, and framework that demonstrate we are available to our students in an online course. These interactions are the foundation for developing a vibrant learning community.
It starts with an introduction. Creating a course orientation video is a tried-and-true way to enhance a course and start the semester strong. This video welcomes the class and allows students to get to know me as a real person. Students better understand my perspective and how I approach teaching and learning when I briefly discuss my background, why I enjoy teaching, and what I find particularly fascinating about my field.
As I introduce myself (utilizing both my webcam and screen capture), I invite students to respond in various ways. These interactions significantly contribute to a sense of belonging and create a sense of community between learners with common interests and values.
Once the discussion board closes, I try to select course material, tailor examples or create assignments loosely based on the interests or comments made in those introductions.
However, an introductory video and discussion board are just the beginning.
My course materials include a variety of interactive components, such as games, graphs, memes, wikis, and downloads, to avoid turning every interaction into a TEXTBOOK reading assignment.
I encourage my students to create, share (and even turn in for a grade) various learning artifacts. Grading one more paper isn’t always as refreshing as reviewing their infographics, animated explainer videos, or course projects — students aren’t the only ones who need variety!
Once we get past the introductory stages of the class, regular communication patterns can begin to emerge. Predictable instructor presence can be established and maintained through the use of weekly announcements and emails, module overviews, instructor-created items like videos, and regular, substantive, personalized feedback. Several of these techniques have easy, turn-key strategies for enhancing simple forms of communication into consistent and intentional instructor presence.
5 Strategies for Creating Consistent Instructor Presence
1. Adaptive Release**
In their end-of-course evaluations, students share with me that they value clear, consistent communication every semester. That doesn’t surprise me, but I must plan my communication pattern.
Things to Consider:
What information should prospective students be aware of?
What needs to be emphasized to students on a regular basis?
Which unit or module causes students the most ‘heartburn’, and what kind of encouragement might they need to persevere?
A simple strategy for planning for this type of communication is to compare the course syllabus to the academic calendar and create future course announcements and email templates that coincide with important dates and reminders. The LMS holds these items until they are ready to use and can send them out when needed. I leverage the heck out of adaptive release every semester!
2. SLOW DOWN
Knowing my capacity for connection and engagement is a big part of how and when I interact with my students. As a high-functioning introvert, people both energize and exhaust me; but if I’m honest, I tend to recoil and pull back my communication processes under pressure. Stress impacts us all! If I’m not careful, I’ll silently brush past aspects of my course or student interactions that should have caused me more pause, engagement, or reflection.
Things to Consider:
How does stress impact the ability to communicate?
How does stress manifest in teaching?
What do we need to do to refocus?
Setting aside time to create various forms of engagement with students will go a long way in keeping them motivated and interested - even during seasons of high stress.
3. Keep It Current
I can recycle materials with the best of them, especially when I’ve found just the right research article, resource, or TED Talk, but my pie-in-the-sky-wish-I-had-these-every-semester kind of materials are those that are accurate, easy-to-use, engaging and aligned with my course objectives. That’s a tall order. No wonder I’m constantly refining what I plan to use each term — relevancy matters. It matters to me, and it matters to my students.
Things to Consider:
If we are to show students how the materials we teach will improve their critical thinking and career readiness, what connections can be made between their experience and class learning?
Where in the course can students choose topics they are most passionate about?
What kind of true-to-life examples could be brought into the classroom for discussion?
There is an instructor-only page in the files section of the LMS for each one of my online classes that I affectionately title “Shoulda-Coulda-Woulda.” It’s where I keep an ongoing journal of things I need to update, change, or that went really well and plan to reuse each semester. I could fill this blog with hundreds of time-saving benefits this list has afforded me but suffice it to say the Shoulda-Coulda-Woulda landing page helps keep my materials fresh, current, and ready to use. No more fumbling at the start of each term, trying to remember “which link in Unit 4 is broken”, or “what quiz question in this section needs a different example.” Including up-to-date or relevant materials in an online course is crucial for maintaining instructor presence throughout the semester.
4. MAKE TIME FOR REVIEW
Performing a regular review of all our various “buckets” — class planning, grading, research, family commitments, sorting, and replying to emails — can help me maintain a sense of clarity and focus. That focus gives me the mental space to be more present for my students and, ultimately, leads to being a more effective educator.
I set aside a period of time at least once a week to organize my thoughts and the tasks associated with those various buckets. During my review, I also look at the calendar and make sure I’m not double-booked or over-committed. This helps me act more intentionally instead of spending too much time in reactionary mode.
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
Is there enough time before and after each appointment/class meeting to do the necessary *ahem* biological things, grab a snack, and refill your water bottle (or coffee/tea cup)?
Are the necessary materials in front of you, and ready to use?
Do you have a way to capture notes, ideas, or action items?
Do you have a reliable system for following up?
Having a regular review period helps us focus on being more efficient in our teaching, but it doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice pedagogically-sound teaching practices or give our students any less care or attention.
5. Streamline Email By Using Templates
If you’re anything like me, sorting and replying to emails occupies a LOT of my time. I receive repeated emails about my office hours, ways to receive additional assistance with an assignment or topic, requests for letters of recommendation, assignment due dates, questions about grades…I could go on.
But email doesn’t have to take up so much of my time. There’s an easier way!
Creating and using email templates can help address most of these simple, transactional communications, and free up time to focus on more meaningful and thoughtful communication with my students. Stating my email communication expectations early in the semester can also help create realistic boundaries for email replies and ward off some students’ late-night, last-minute, panicked pleas for assignment extensions. I take comfort in knowing that I have planned and thoughtful responses for most requests, which ensures consistency each time I respond.
Things to Consider:
If you find yourself typing the exact same phrase or bit of information multiple times a day, consider creating an email template in your email app of choice.
If you want a more powerful tool for repeated text, check out TextExpander, which can help you automate text snippets in areas other than just email.
Timely and consistent responses to student email messages say a lot about how much we care about student learning, and feeling less burdened by email helps create the necessary margin needed to help our students feel more connected to the class and the course materials.
WAIT, There’s More!
A course introductory video is a great way to introduce your course and yourself to your students. However, those videos can be hard to make –especially if you're camera-shy, or tend to wander off-topic.
Download our FREE Welcome Introduction Video Script to help you prepare for your recording and organize your thoughts so that you have a workable outline (not a word-for-word script), that can be customized for any class.
**With adaptive release, instructors create rules or criteria to control how content is released to students in their courses. The rules may be related to availability, date and time, individuals or membership in course groups, or other settings related to how students progress through the material. These items are often set by the instructor but executed by the LMS - automatically. This is one of the few LMS features that we recommend where you 'set it and forget it.' Give it a try.