Page 94 - Resources and Support for the Online Educator

SECTION II Implementing Technology Infusion

Cognitive Presence focuses on how online learners interact and engage with
course content and with each other. An event initiates learning that activates
curiosity and prompts explorations to seek the answers to questions and the
solutions to problems (Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). For this presence, teacher
educators and teacher candidates develop skills necessary to ensure the mate-
rials used in the course or lesson are appropriate to grade level, reading level,
and overall course learning objectives, and are presented in a manner that will
lead toward understanding or application of the content. An excellent starting
place for developing the skills to use available tools is by curating digital
resources. As teacher candidates master the basics of finding relevant online
resources to support learning objectives in an online lesson, they also learn to
discern which digital artifacts are age or grade-level appropriate or need modi-
fications for English language learners or students with special needs.

Social Presence focuses on the importance of the social-emotional aspects
of online learning. This attribute often drives the climate of the course and
describes how individuals identify as a part of the learning community within
an online course (Garrison et al., 2000). For this presence, teacher candidates
would need to develop the skills necessary to engage their students in learning
processes by using such techniques as framing appropriate discussion prompts,
developing collaborative projects, and determining ways of reaching out to
students to encourage them. As teacher candidates master the skills needed
for the curation of digital resources, they can begin to work out how to frame
those same digital materials in a manner that would interest and engage
learners. Teacher educators can model ways of developing a trusting relation-
ship with learners and seek to develop interpersonal relationships within an
online class or online components of a traditional class.

Teaching Presence focuses on the teacher candidate as designer and developer
of online learning environments as well as the facilitator of cognitive and
social processes in collaboration with learners (Akyol & Garrison, 2013). The
improved functionality of learning management systems has enabled a multi-
faceted approach to designing for online learning. For this presence, teacher
candidates would need to develop skills necessary to engage students through
techniques in instructional design to effectively present content, activate
prior knowledge, provide appropriate practice intervals, and determine ways
of assessing knowledge and skills both formatively and summatively. Online

120 Championing Technology Infusion in Teacher Preparation

Excerpted from Chapter 6, “The Necessity of Preparing Teacher Candidates to Teach Online.”

Championing Technology Infusion in Teacher Preparation 94