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Where do we go from here?
Social Presence and the Limits of Online Education By Chad May
promise of breaking free from this paradigm. Whether through Massive Open Online Courses, adaptive learning systems, or virtual classrooms the goal is an efficient model that makes education more accessible, more reasonably priced, and more effective. The hurried and often underfunded shift into online education by school districts across the nation as a result of Covid-19 is, for obvious reasons, not necessarily a fair indication of the possible value of online education. Even so, the issues facing these districts are common to anyone who has worked in online education over the past twenty years. Although recent technological innovations do have the potential to improve educational performance, the continuing problems of the virtual classroom can be divided into two broad categories: the absence of social presence and the lack of higher order thinking.
The emergence of Covid-19 in the United States has led to a rapid transition from traditional educational models to online formats in both K-12 and higher education. Not surprisingly, this radical and sudden change has led to a great deal of criticism from students, teachers, Even a cursory survey of the literature and parents; the realities of this transition surrounding online pedagogy will have brought many face to face with identify social presence as a primary the stark limitations of the virtual “The collaboration that concern for the virtual classroom. classroom. Mirroring this personal One of the more influential response, data seems to suggest is possible in a theoretical models for analyzing the shift has had a negative the effectiveness of online traditional classroom impact on learning outcomes for education is the Community of all students. Perhaps even more helps to generate Inquiry framework. This importantly, it has greatly framework, first articulated by student motivation, exacerbated racial and economic Garrison, suggests three different inequalities already present in engagement, and dimensions to consider when our education system (Meckler & analyzing the virtual classroom: (1) Natanson, 2020). Despite a few higher-level thinking.” social presence, (2) teaching dissenting voices, the media driven presence, (3) and cognitive presence narrative surrounding online education (Akyol & Garrison, 2008). Social presence is has become overwhelmingly negative. Yet defined as the sense of community and prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the public discussion interpersonal contact that occurs in an educational surrounding online education was positive, focusing on environment. Arogan (2003) notes the central importance the potential of the virtual classroom to overcome the of social presence in the learning process: central problems facing education at both the university and K-12 level. According to this narrative, while technological advances have allowed other industries to increase worker productivity and reduce expenses, education has remained tied to the relatively costly model of one teacher closely engaging with a small group of students. Online education and other technologies have offered the
Curriculum in Context ▪ Spring/Summer 2021
The overall goal for creating social presence in any learning environment, whether it be online or faceto-face, is to create a level of comfort in which people feel at ease around the instructor and the other participants. Without this goal being achieved, the learning environment can turn to one that is not fulfilling or successful for the instructors and the
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