Online Course Essentials | Orientation
Provide regular instructor guidance to support learner success and opportunities for instructor-student interaction.
Instructor presence is an essential part of student success. Regular communication, timely feedback, and visible involvement in the course helps students to stay motivated and connected. Find opportunities to share your personality and enthusiasm about the course topic, it can make all the difference for students.
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Instructor Presence
Elements
Announcements
Post regular course-wide updates that respond to student questions and remind students about important course activities. Increase student engagement and motivation by highlighting especially insightful student contributions to discussions and group work, as well as exemplary assignment submissions that students agree to share for the benefit of the class. Your announcements are always viewable in your ICON site and are automatically emailed to students.
Inbox
Use the Inbox to check in with struggling or absent students and schedule office hours, for example. Individual messages you send using the ICON Inbox are automatically emailed to students. They can respond to your message from either inside email account or ICON. Your messages can be quickly sorted by course or student.
Research
The instructor’s passion for teaching, ability to communicate relevance of course content for their students, and encouragement of shared responsibility for learning with students are key elements of teaching presence in online courses (Orcutt and Dringus, 2017).
Consistent and genuinely personalized course communications from a online instructors to students have a positive effect on students’ perceived course quality (Putulowski and Crosby, 2017).
Related Reading
Related Reading
5 Steps for Enhancing Instructor Presence in Online Courses
Connecting with students in online courses can present unique challenges, and students may find themselves feeling isolated at times. With a bit of extra planning, though, you can create a positive, engaging experience.
Online Course Model
Developed and shared by IOWA instructors, online course models demonstrate effective instructional practices within an online course. Hear directly from an instructor about their intentional approach to planning and revising their course communication strategy.