Establishing and Maintaining Instructor Presence

Resources for Establishing and Maintaining Instructor Presence

1. Course Orientation Tools :

https://tinyurl.com/EstablishOrientation

Creating an engaging introduction is one of the ways that you can extend digital presence in your course. This sets the tone for your course right from the beginning. If you were dealing with your students in person, you would not dream of beginning the first lesson without introducing yourself. Likewise, digitally, take the time to introduce yourself to your students. These tools will help you get started. Click the link above this paragraph to use this resource, or scan the QR code below.

Course Orientation Checklist

On the first page within the first Learning Module of the Course, include the following:
- Created a welcome statement for your students to let them know where they can find information in your course and how to get started with your materials.
- Set expectations on your plans for interacting with students, checking email, etc.
- Embedded a video on the page that welcome’s students to the course site and explains the various components of the site (note, you can use any of the software above to create your video).
  - Shared any Professional and personal information that you feel comfortable sharing which will help students “get to know” you.
    - Examples include: Why you like to teach this subject, current events regarding this subject, how long you have taught college, what motivated you to begin teaching college, hobbies, family life, etc.

2. Course Materials:

https://tinyurl.com/EstablishCourseMaterials

In Digital Fundamentals, you learned to create Blackboard Items, which are like webpages to house your course content. In addition, we provided you with information on how to create video using tools such as Screencast-o-Matic. The course asked you to create an introductory video with your newfound capabilities. The tools featured are additional tools that can be used to create video content or other materials for your students.

Creating video, rather than relying only on text-based material for your students increases their engagement level. The tools mentioned in this section make creating exciting course materials easy. Click the link above this paragraph to use this resource, or scan the QR code below.

Course Materials Checklist

Embedded your course materials (videos, images, links and handouts) on an item page
- Included well planned images to enhance learning
- Checked that video materials load properly
  - Provided Proper information for students on how to resize or maximize the videos.
  - Provided information on how to user or download any software or plugins that might be needed to view the content

Introduced the material to students and provided information on what they are about to view and how it will help them in their Learning.

3. Discussion and Communication:

https://tinyurl.com/EstablishDiscussions

An important component of extending presence in your digital course is to provide a medium for students to engage in discussions. Discussions are important to a digital presence because they encourage the building of community. Community is critical to a digital course, because developing a thriving digital community encourages students to check in with the course material regularly to continue to be a part of the rhythm of the course and discussions that are ongoing. Discussions also provide opportunity for practical application of course concepts. Blackboard provides tools for discussion; however, these apps provide a different approach to the discussion aspects of Digital Learning than the built-in blackboard tools. Click the link above this paragraph to use this resource, or scan the QR code below.

Discussion and Communication Checklist:

Created an icebreaker activity for the first week in the course or the first time a tool is used.

Indicated communication expectations, i.e., how often students are expected to use the discussion board, and how many initial posts and replies are expected.

Provided a rubric or a checklist with clear guidelines on how participation will be graded.

Provided guidelines to establish proper classroom discussion behavior or netiquette.

Reviewed page #5-11 of Teaching and Learning tips for Developing and improving Online discussions for tips on crafting engaging discussion prompts.

4. Collaboration and Feedback

https://tinyurl.com/EstablishCollaboration

You can certainly grade students using the Grade Center and commenting features in Blackboard; however, this text-based grading style has limitations. One important feature that can be lost in a digital learning environment is the opportunity to provide rich feedback.

Students appreciate when you can open their project and provide audio and video feedback via screen recording and video annotation tools. In some ways this rich feedback style is superior to in person feedback because a student can re-watch or re-listen to your feedback as many times as necessary to make application to their work.

In addition to alternate ways to provide feedback, below are apps which can help you to create dynamic tests, whiteboards and other features which provide novel ways to experience collaboration and feedback for both you and your students.

Collaboration and Feedback Checklist

Provided clear instructions for students on what is expected when completing the assignment, and how work will be evaluated.
- Ideally provided a Rubric or checklist which you will use to grade the assignment.
- In addition, provided a model assignment, either an “A” assignment created by a student which you have permission to use, or created your own “A” model assignment.
- Graded the model assignment so students know how they will be graded on the work that they submit.

Provided automatic feedback for students if using Blackboard’s test taking feature and released the feedback appropriately “only when ready” for students to view the feedback and everyone has completed test taking.

If you are using other software to provide feedback to students, provided a link to the feedback or app, and explained to students how to view or otherwise utilize the feedback.