One thought on “Instructor Presence”

  1. Alan Post author

    On my drive in to work this morning, I was still thinking about presence. A couple of thoughts I wanted to put down in writing. Thoughts that might take the form of questions.

    First thought is about the ephemeral quality of presence. It’s a feeling, an emotion. It’s not something I can really quantify, right? I can certainly count the number of times I post to a forum or amount of email and feedback I share with students, but it’s obviously more than just the quantity. There is a quality aspect to presence, but this quality isn’t entirely in our control as instructors.

    In one of the videos, Doug Hersh shares Lombard and Ditton’s definition of presence as “the illusion of non-mediation”. He also shares Picciano’s definition of “a sense of being in a place and belonging to a group”. Both of these definitions elude to this ephemeral quality…or worse. An illusion might just be a trick. Is presence some kind of trick? A lie? We talked about self-disclosure and honesty and being yourself to allow your personality come through. But what if all that is interpreted as some kind of illusion?

    I’m not losing sleep over this, but I thought it was interesting.

    Another question I would have liked to ask our guest is how presence is different for introverted vs extroverted teachers? (Yes, I am reading Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking)

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