Publication Date

2022

Abstract

While important, many of the guidelines put in place to prevent disease transmission during the Covid-19 pandemic (social distancing, quarantining, facial coverings, etc.) have created challenges to building student-student and student-faculty relationships. However, these relationships are, according to the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison et al., 2000), essential to learning. The purpose of this piece is to explore strategies to build social presence in the classroom to benefit students and faculty alike. Strategies such as the strategic use of discussion boards, collaborative assignments, class announcements, extra credit, and more are discussed in the context of improving student learning without significantly increasing the workload of faculty.

Author Biography

Dr. Amanda Joyce is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Murray State University. She teaches courses in Introductory Psychology, Research Methods, and the Psychology of Women and Gender, as well as several courses in her specialty area of Developmental Psychology. Her research interests include childhood cognitive development and best practices for teaching and learning in the college classroom.

Author's Notes

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Amanda W. Joyce, Department of Psychology, Murray State University, 204 Wells Hall, Murray, KY 42071. Email: awatson22@muraystate.edu .

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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The Importance of Building a Social Presence in the Online Classroom

While important, many of the guidelines put in place to prevent disease transmission during the Covid-19 pandemic (social distancing, quarantining, facial coverings, etc.) have created challenges to building student-student and student-faculty relationships. However, these relationships are, according to the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison et al., 2000), essential to learning. The purpose of this piece is to explore strategies to build social presence in the classroom to benefit students and faculty alike. Strategies such as the strategic use of discussion boards, collaborative assignments, class announcements, extra credit, and more are discussed in the context of improving student learning without significantly increasing the workload of faculty.