How do you establish a social presence in online courses? Trish Harvey from Hamline University presented about this topic at the Lilly Conference Online earlier this year. Harvey was a K-12 social studies teacher and digital learning facilitator and also helped several teachers move their courses online. At Hamline, Harvey is a member of the Quality Matters team. They mentioned how being a QM reviewer has helped them learn from different courses. Harvey mentioned that at first, they resisted online course delivery and now embrace it. Harvey defined social presence using the definition of Garrison et al. 2000: “the ability of learners to project themselves socially and emotionally as real people in a learning community.” Citing Aragon, social presence was described as “to create a level of comfort.” Harvey compared classrooms without social presence and with social presence. Without social presence, there is dropout, decreased engagement, feelings of isolation, and less learning potential according to Harvey. With social presence, there is enhanced information flow, improved learning support and group cohesion, and improved learning satisfaction. Harvey and colleagues read the literature and collected data on social climate, “real person”, membership in the community of learners, and quality of learning experience. Harvey and colleagues then created a framework to understand how social presence can be integrated into online courses. The main ideas were social climate with purposeful intent in the design of the course and students feel welcome. The idea of building a community can be broken into building a collaborative environment with a shared purpose. The third component was being “a real person” online by authentically participating in the virtual space. Based on the data Harvey and colleagues collected, five components can be used to build social presence:
- effective discussions,
- intentional interactions within all assignments,
- enhanced personalization,
- offer professional and personal reflection,
- have varied assessments
For effective discussions, Harvey emphasized captivating and interesting prompts and to vary the format (small group, large group, synchronous, artifact-based). For student facilitated, interactions were facilitated by students. Harvey mentioned that student facilitators are assigned and the responsibility is part of their grade. For scenarios and debates, students also facilitate the interactions and are often in character! Another option Harvey uses is to assign synchronous sessions. Informal “coffee shop” to create spaces for informal presentations.
To create intentional interactions, Harvey stressed creating intentional transaction opportunities. Examples shared were a mind map about critical comprehension. Word games were described as opportunities for learners to share their examples. Harvey also emphasized using a variety of formats. Harvey responded to audience questions and doesn’t really change how they grade. I learned some suggestions and how QM review helps on multiple occasions and levels.
