Maintaining Effective Distance Education And Learning - Is It Possible?

 

         

  In online education classes, it is very crucial to maintain a healthy relationship between  students and teachers. This healthy relationship will construct effective and satisfying online learning. Teachers’ being there for students, their presences, is the most important variable in teaching. And The Community of Inquiry Model offers a framework about an effective learning.

            Social presence is achieved when students and teachers project their characteristics into the discussion, thus becoming real people. Sharing their favourite songs, foods, movies; talking about their families or talking about something different that happened to them could help build connections for the community. For learners to develop, teachers should also encourage students to become real to each other. This strong presence builds a climate of trust and environment of comfort.            

            Cognitive Presence is the stage in which the students learn. In cognitive presence, students goes through the process of constructing knowledge, exploring and thinking; thus starting to think critically. And with the help of this, deep learning happens. Cognitive presence requires attention, effort, discussions to integrate existing knowedge with the new knowledge. Learners should participate in the discussions so that sustained communication occurs. Also, teachers can always evaluate students’ responses to encourage further analysis of ideas.

             Teaching presence involves every work of teaching that is done before and during the class. It includes the work designed and developed by teacher to direct and support the lesson. Teching presence also shows itself in assignments, materials and the syllabus. Teaching presence is, in short, everything teachers do to guide, support and shape the learners’ experiences. Using emails or edmodo classes for being able to communicate with the students and to guide them when they need their teachers could be a helpful way of teaching presence.    

             Transactional Presence focuses on the distance between students and teachers. This distance, the transactional distance, is not only about the actual distance that separates the teacher from the student. It also refers to the non-interaction of the teacher and student due to their geographical separation. So we can say that transactional distance refers to the psychological and communicative space between a teacher and a student. So with teachers help, students could feel connected to each other. Doing so, both sides could feel more intimate with the lesson.