Humorous Presence in Online Learning

Online learning is an established and growing segment of higher education. Instructors, instructional designers, and leadership should focus on establishing instructor and social presence to overcome student feelings of isolation and boredom which can lead to disengagement and have negative effects on learning. The use of humor is an effective tool to combine with instructor presence to help improve student engagement, satisfaction, and memory retention. This chapter will review recent literature on the subjects of instructor presence, boredom, and humor and make recommendations for its use.

Rolling With the Flow

COVID-19 created a paradigm shift in higher education (HE), speeding up a process that was already underway and forcing institutions and instructors to develop the competencies necessary to offer effective delivery and resources online. Student reflections on Spring 2020 suggested that institutions were not always successful in their transitions. Students saw gaps in crucial areas, including online instructor presence, social presence for instructors and peers, and instructor immediacy. The purpose of this chapter is to propose best practices for instructional practice and technology in the online virtual education space to increase student engagement, instructor immediacy, and online social presence. HE institutions must embrace or enhance a variety of techniques that will improve the student experience. HE continues its shift toward cutting-edge technology to scale, streamline, and improve student engagement and interaction while creating new ways of establishing instructor presence and immediacy.

Would It Be Better if Instructors Technically Adjust Their Image or Voice in Online Courses? Impact of the Way of Instructor Presence on Online Learning

This study investigated the effects of the changes in the image and voice of instructors in online video courses on online learner's learning achievement, social presence, learning satisfaction, and academic emotion. Two simultaneous online experiments were conducted with 122 college students in the image experiment, where the course videos varied in terms of the instructor's image (original image, face-beautified image, virtual image, and no image), and 93 college students in the voice experiment, where the course videos varied in terms of the instructor's voice (original voice, mutated voice, computer-synthesized voice). The results showed that learners viewing videos without instructor images had better learning achievements and less academic boredom relative to those who viewed videos with instructor images. However, the real instructor images were able to promote learners' learning satisfaction of instructor-student interaction more than no image and virtual image and promote satisfaction of instructor teaching more than virtual image. Meanwhile, learners' evaluation of the real instructor images was better than that of the virtual instructor image, and their evaluation of the face-beautified instructor image was better than the original image. Moreover, learners evaluated real instructor voices better than the computer-synthesized voice. In addition, the linear regression analysis revealed that the evaluations of both instructor's image and voice had a positive relationship with learners' social presence, learning satisfaction, and enjoyment, whereas they had a negative relationship with learner's boredom. And the evaluation of the instructor's image positively predicted student's transfer learning achievement. Thus, we suggested that the way of instructor presence should be well-designed and integrated with the course's instructional design and image and voice processing technology can be applied to assist online video course development.

Developing Peer Review of Instruction in an Online Master Course Model

In this study we looked at how participation in a peer-review process for online Statistics courses utilizing a master course model at a major research university affects instructor innovation and instructor presence. We used online, anonymous surveys to collect data from instructors who participated in the peer-review process, and we used descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis to analyze the data. Our findings indicate that space for personal pedagogical agency and innovation is perceived as limited because of the master course model. However, responses indicate that participating in the process was overall appreciated for the sense of community it helped to build. Results of the study highlight the blurred line between formative and summative assessment when using peer review of instruction, and they also suggest that innovation and presence are difficult to assess through short term observation and through a modified version of a tool (i.e., the Quality Matters rubric) intended for the evaluation of an online course rather than the instruction of that course. The findings also suggest that we may be on the cusp of a second stage for peer review in an online master course model, whether in-person or online. Our findings also affirm the need for creating a sense of community online for the online teaching faculty. The experiences of our faculty suggest that peer review can serve as an integral part of fostering a departmental culture that leads to a host of intangible benefits including trust, reciprocity, belonging, and, indeed, respect.

Exploring Value Variations in Instructor Presence Techniques for Online Students

This study sought to define and measure online undergraduate students' perceived value of instructor presence techniques across five communication mediums per pedagogical goal (connection to course content, connection to classmates, connection to the instructor, foster interest, and facilitate immediate feedback). Students found personalized written messages from an instructor (M=4.61) as most valuable due to their ability to provide immediate feedback. Interactive phone calls (M=3.24) were the least valuable in the area of familiarity. Results indicate all instructor presence techniques had value, but some were more valuable than others.

Getting to know you: Student-faculty interaction and student engagement in online courses

Covid-19 presented many challenges to universities around the world as brick-and-mortar courses were moved to an online format. This work is an unofficial study of faculty-student interaction and student engagement in 7-week online graduate-level courses conducted in Spring 2020, Fall 2020, and early Spring 2021. Research shows that instructor presence in online courses leads to increased student engagement, as well as motivation, well-being, and academic achievement. Student engagement is shown to have a direct impact on a student’s emotional, behavioral, and cognitive successes. This work proposes that increased faculty-student interaction in online courses using a variety of strategies would lead to greater student engagement with the course, and in the end, greater student success in overcoming barriers and challenges to online learning.

Structural Relationship of Key Factors for Student Satisfaction and Achievement in Asynchronous Online Learning

This study examines the structural relationship among key factors influencing student satisfaction and achievement in online learning. A structural model was developed by considering course structure, student–student interaction, instructor presence, student engagement, student satisfaction and achievement as key factors. In order to verify the effectiveness of the developed structural model, we utilized the survey data collected from a total of 250 students enrolled in two asynchronous online courses offered at Kyung Hee University in Korea in the fall semester of 2020. Then, the collected survey data were analyzed using the structural equation model. The verification of the statistical analysis results indicates that the course structure has a more significant effect on the student satisfaction and achievement than the other key factors such as the student–student interaction, instructor presence and student engagement. It also reveals that the student engagement affects only the student satisfaction and has a mediated effect between student–student interaction and student satisfaction.