Equitable Teaching Practices: Social Presence

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Video run time: 1:04:16

Video transcript of This Course Isn't Taught by a Robot: Creating Instructor Presence in Online Courses Webinar (text file

What is Social Presence? Introduction

Social presence is the ability to project personality, physical presence, and provide connections. In the online class, the instructor's focus on cultivating social presence meets several goals: The online classroom environment more closely reflects a face-to-face classroom experience, the students and instructor develop a sense of shared community, and the students remain engaged participants in the class. The additional benefits of cultivating social presence include helping to address equity issues and increasing instructor approachability and resource availability.

There are three opportunities for cultivating social presence in your classes:

  • Instructor-Student interactions
  • Student-Student interactions
  • Student-Content interactions

Learn about Ideas for Implementing Social Presence in Your Classes

Three Social Presence Strategies
Strategy 1 Communication Enhancement Strategy 2 Weekly Introduction Videos Strategy 3 Identifying the Gaps Videos
  • Check-Ins
    • Emails from a place of concern vs. punitive tone
    • Making sure students understand instructions, deadlines
    • Shows that you understand they have other stressors, things to juggle
  • Use the Comments Tool in Sakai
    • General place for questions each week
    • Lives on the weekly Lessons page
    • Students can interact with each other
  • Instructor "selfie" video
  • Short (up to 1-1.5min)
  • Brief overview of weekly topic/assignments
  • General hello/greeting to the class
  • Narrated PowerPoint presentations work well for this type of video.
  • What do you normally do in the classroom that needs to be in your online course?
  • Emphasis important information
  • Communicate your expectations and ways to be successful
  • Example topics:
    • a syllabus overview
    • exam preparation
    • assignment overviews (including papers)
    • project overviews
    • homework instructions

Learn about Instructor Testimonials and Tips

Five Durham Tech Instructor Testimonials
1st instructor 2nd instructor 3rd instructor 4th instructor 5th instructor
Psychology instructor, Brenda East, links to Brenda's testimonial Spanish instructor, Lance Lee, links to Lance's testimonial English instructor, Lyndsay Al-Shibli, links to Lyndsay's testimonial Early Childhood Education instructor, Marye Vance, links to Marye's testimonial Psychology instructor, Thomas Magrinat, links to Thomas's testimonial

Additional reading on this topic Additional Resources for Building Social Presence

Opportunities for Social Interaction with Your Online Students (PDF)


Links to Inclusive Environment page
Links to Equitable Grading Practices page
Links to Equitable Teaching Practices Homepage page