The most important concepts that have impacted my thoughts on student engagement and retention are Cognitive Presence, Social Presence and Teaching Presence. Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (2000) define cognitive presence as the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication. Similarly, they define social presence to be the ability of learners to project their personal characteristics into the community of inquiry, thereby presenting themselves as ‘real people’ and teaching presence as the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educational worthwhile learning outcomes.
Two course facilitation strategies I seek to implement are, making the course relevant and using cooperative learning. Making course relevant to students involves using real world examples to teach a way of showing social presence. Where the course is relevant to a specific occupation, ensure it is aligned with the current needs of the occupation. Cooperative learning strategies is to do with structure learning activities in a way that students partner or form small groups to help them achieve learning goals. Group work can include assignments, discussions, reviews, and lab experiments — even having students discuss a lesson with their peers.
Specific goals I intend to achieve in social presence and creating effective educational media is to have students use social media platform in learning. While these are just a few, so many platforms are available that can be incorporated into the classroom for learning. Many students are most likely already using many of those mentioned above, which makes an easy transition for both the student and instructor. This would, however, be done with discretion. While safety and privacy are relevant concerns, it is recognized that the benefits and learning opportunities available when using social media platforms are enormous. For me as an instructor, moving past the fear, security, apprehension and embracing will be welcoming to the many already users of technology devices and social media for education purposes. This will provide great opportunity to expand the minds of many and explore topics as never before.
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