Canvas: Instructor Presence

Faculty Bio Video

Purpose: Faculty create a short, two-minute or less, biographical/introductory video to introduce themselves to students and post in their Canvas courses.

Rationale: Our College has set this as an expectation for all full-time faculty and highly recommends that adjunct faculty also participate. Here’s why…

Including a welcome announcement and instructor bio in the LMS can help to build a sense of instructor presence and foster student engagement even before face-to-face meetings have begun (Morrison, 2014). While instructor presence is easier to identify in seated courses, all modalities require that students believe the instructor is both accessible and interested. The bio video can serve as a tool to promote a sense of presence wherever students are engaged in learning (Garrison et al., 2007, 2010). Hopefully, these videos will encourage/empower students to seek out assistance when it’s needed and ultimately contribute to student retention and academic success.

“Humanizing the online learning environment increases the student's comfort level, and reduces the psychological distance between the instructors and students.” (DuCharme- Hansen, Dupin-Bryant, 2005).

References:

DuCharme-Hanson, R. & Dupin-Bryant, P. (2005). Course planning for online adult learners.

Tech Trends.

Garrison, D. R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 61-72.

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2010). The first decade of the community of inquiry framework: A retrospective. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(1-2), 5-9.

Morrison, D. (2014). How to Develop a Sense of Presence in Online and F2F Courses with Social Media. Online Learning Insights.

Process:

We envision this as largely a DIY project that can easily be accomplished by using the Canvas Studio tool from any computer/tablet that has a camera/microphone attached. If you would like to add a webcam to your desktop machine, please put in a request to the Help Desk.

Support:

You can find instructions for using Studio in the Canvas Studio Guides.

Don’t forget, you can always call the Canvas 24/7/365 help line using the phone number found under the “?” icon in the global navigation menu in Canvas.

Recommendations:

• If you already have a video that accomplishes this same goal, that’s great. No need to make another one.
• If you are a regular user of Panopto and feel more comfortable with that, go for it.
• Review the script template below and use it as a guide for the recording content.
• Start with one generic video; then, consider making course specific recordings in the future.
• Embed the video into the Meet Your Instructor page in the Start Here module in each of your courses. For complete instructions on how to accomplish this, visit the Canvas InfoGuide’s Instructor Presence page.
• Add closed captioning to your video (hint: it’s easier than you think). This will aid in making the video and your course more accessible to students with different abilities. Click here for instructions on adding captioning in Canvas Studio.
• Make a conscious choice on the level of disclosure of personal information. Some of you will want to provide only academic-related professional information while others may want to share personal background or hobbies, etc. Make an informed choice.