Matt’s Notes
Greetings and welcome to what was, ostensibly, a Good Friday episode of the EnT! While it is no longer Friday… nor any kind of stat holiday… we hope the day… and the Springtime, generally, has been kind to you thus far… Please click along with us in your preferred format(s)!
First of all, I’d like to re-up a few things…
I’ve always had a difficult relationship with education. I was far from academically gifted in school… but English and Social Studies always grabbed my attention.
I was told by more than one teacher in high school that I could’ve been a successful student… were it not for my OUTSIDE INTERESTS.
Those interests included at the time: cigarettes, weed, alcohol, acid, and a part-time job wherein I often worked close to full-time hours any given week…
BUT
Those “outside interests” also included reading novels and poetry and whatever else I could get my hands on… and whatever my friends thought may have been cool…
They also included buying CD’s and records to the extent that I could afford to… and going to any punk or alternative show that I could… barring a shift at McDonald’s…
An early “mobile classroom”
I recognize and respect that my teachers saw a lot of “unrealized potential” when I was in their classrooms. So it likely would’ve surprised them… as it should’ve… that, nearing the age of thirty, I took the plunge and jumped into teaching… at first, by default (what else could I do for a living?) and then by commitment…
Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the present moment… wherein I’ve been on an unpaid sabbatical of sorts for nearly fourteen months…
The things that I loved in high school have changed very little. My “outside interests” have been the subject of discussions with more than one manager since becoming a teacher… usually within the context of concern for my “work-life balance”. And, as far as it goes, I still don’t have a driver’s license.
Yesterday evening, in a fit of pique, I smashed my keyboard against the desk. My kids freaked out a bit to see me so freaked out. The cause of my rage? The cursor wouldn’t behave the way I wanted it to in Camtasia. I took a few deep breaths; reminded myself that Marcus Aurelius wouldn’t countenance such behavior… and I pushed the keys that had scattered across the table and floor back into position in the keyboard…
I’ve been drug and alcohol free for more than a month… barring the two beer that I had last night to help wash away the sting of the Raptor’s ignominious defeat in the NBA play-in tournament.
This morning I went out early to Shopper’s Drug Mart to buy a replacement keyboard so that I could finish this post in a timely manner… and on the way home, I ran into my former colleague Brenna from the Thompson Rivers University Learning Technology and Innovations (LTI) team… the unit I belonged to for four years before my own premature and ignominious departure… inasmuch as the Raptors and I have things in common…
It was a brief chat on the sidewalk at the corner of Summit and Notre Dame Drives. She was going in one direction, and I was going in the other. Dr. Clarke Grey was recently awarded tenure and promotion. And I can honestly say that nobody I encountered in my time at TRU deserves it more… despite my own weird and vaguely depressing time there… it was great to see her in person and tell her congratulations. As Marcus A pointed out in his Meditations… don’t assume because something is difficult for you that it is impossible for others…
If I hadn’t smashed my keyboard last night; if I hadn’t briefly broken sobriety; if I hadn’t been working to finish the podcast post into the night… then I might’ve missed the opportunity to tell Brenna in person that she completely deserves the success she’s had in her role… not that she needed to hear that from me!
I’m trying a new thing today… I’ll be putting out this post along with the next episode… roughly around the same time… this due to my convoluted production schedule more than from any great plan.
Thanks as ever to Doug for the compelling topic, friendship, and patience… hopefully this all comes across as at least somewhat relevant to the #ednontech…
Doug’s Notes
A Deeper Dive into COI – Teaching Presence
From DCOImooc.org:
- explain the difference between teaching and teacher presence and why the distinction is important
- describe the roles of design and organization, facilitation, and direct instruction in teaching presence and strategies to balance them
- analyze your current practice for indicators of effective teaching presence and where you might make adjustments
Redefine and transform the instructor’s role. From the ability to shift the time and place of learning, to the use of new media, web-based resources, and various teaching formats and modalities, your role as an online or blended educator shifts from providing information to guiding learners in their own, collaborative knowledge-finding. Some of these key responsibilities can be described as:
- designing and organizing learning activities,
- facilitating students learning processes,
- sharing content knowledge,
- monitoring activity supporting the cognitive progression of learners,
- assessing student performances, and
- creating and maintaining a social learning climate where there are plenty of opportunities for learners to develop professional relationships characterized by trust and openness.
To be clear, leadership manifested as TP [Teaching Presence] is essential to initiate and sustain critical inquiry in an educational environment.
https://www.thecommunityofinquiry.org/editorial29
Garrison, D. R. (2021). Teaching Presence Meta-analysis. The Community of Inquiry, 16.
… teaching presence was a significantly strong positive factor associated with course satisfaction; when one tends to increase or decrease, so does the other.
Khalid, M. N., & Quick, D. (2016). Teaching Presence Influencing Online Students’ Course Satisfaction at an Institution of Higher Education. International Education Studies, 9(3), 62-70.
… many of the specific guidelines associated with teaching presence—e.g., providing students with clear goals, frequent feedback, and strong direct instruction, [are listed in detail with practical examples.]
Yuldashevna, Z. N., & Mambetullaeva, M. (2022). Importance of Teaching Presence in the classroom. Journal of New Century Innovations, 10(4), 114-119.
… there is a significant variation among categories of teaching
presence across the three time segments.
… in this context, social presence was not found as important as teaching presence or cognitive presence in terms of student learning.
Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (2008). The development of a community of inquiry over time in an online course: Understanding the progression and integration of social, cognitive and teaching presence. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 12, 3-22.
Word of the Podcast
Teaching
Question of the Podcast
How do you develop teaching presence when you are in an educational role?
Thanks so much for checking out this episode! We hope the springtime has been awesome for you so far!
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