Overcoming physcial separation in the online classroom

Teaching Highlights

Published

February 7, 2012

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Published

February 7, 2012

3,764

Offline

Jean Mandernach

"One of the challenges of teaching in the online environment is the physical separation of the instructor and learner. Faculty teaching face-to-face depend on the opportunity to look at a learner’s expression to see whether he or she understands course materials. The lack of visual contact in the online environment becomes a barrier for teaching." (Stavredes, 2011, pg. 10)

In the article, "Overcoming Physical Separation in the Online Environment to Help Learners Persist", Stavredes (2011, pg. 10) states:

In the online environment, where there is no face-to-face interaction, much effort is required to develop presence between learners and with the instructor. For learners moving from the face-to-face to online environment, the void due to the lack of physical presence can lead to feelings of isolation, which can have a negative impact on motivation and persistence. In addition, the lack of presence can impact the development of higher order thinking skills, a process that requires collaboration. According to Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001), learning occurs within a community of inquiry through the interaction of three kinds of presence: social, cognitive, and teaching. Social presence establishes learners as individuals who are available to engage in learning; cognitive presence is the ability of learners to construct knowledge through peer-to-peer interactions; and teaching presence is the means by which the instructor facilitates the online learning environment to support social and cognitive presence and to help learners meet the outcomes of
course activities.

As an online instructor, what do YOU do to overcome the physical separation between you and your students? To read Stavredes full article, see InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching.

Comments (6)

6 Comments

Offline Scott Hovater said 12 years ago

Dr. Stavredes comments on Michael Moore's (1980) use of the term transactional distance which relates to the physical separation between instructor and learner within an online environment. According to Moore, "increased dialogue between the instructor and learner, along with a flexible learning environment, leads to low transactional distance" (Stavredes, 2011, pg. 9).

How do we increase flexibility and dialogue thus lowering transactional distance? One simple method is to allow some "chit chat" to take place in the discussion forum. Most online courses have a Cyber Cafe or someplace for social interaction to take place. However, does it? It has been my experience that very little social interaction takes place within the Cafe after the first week. Students spend the majority of their time in the discussion forum. So why not bring the Cafe atmosphere to them? By allowing some "chit chat" in the discussion forum you are creating a more typical classroom setting where social, cognitive and teaching presence all take place. The current "cafe" moves the social presence to another location in the online classroom and since it is not graded also tells the students this aspect of learning is not important. Therefore, I make every attempt to create a discussion forum that incapsulates cognitive, teaching and social presence.

Offline Akash Sharma said 9 years ago

This article is really fantastic and thanks for sharing the valuable post.

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Offline Akash Sharma said 9 years ago

This article is really fantastic and thanks for sharing the valuable post.

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Offline Akash Sharma said 9 years ago