Abstract:

Whilst a benefit of online courses is the possibility of attending without regard to time and place, it can be burdensome to study independently, without the support from teacher and fellow students that naturally exists in a classroom. In our pilot project, which is a part of the national DIGIJOUJOU project, the aim was to find multiple ways of applying teacher presence and interaction in a higher education online course in Swedish as second language. By focusing on teacher presence, social inclusion and meaningful collaboration activities, we sought to create a supportive and inspiring online course environment.

In autumn 2018, we conducted a pilot course in Swedish with teachers and students from three universities. On the course, we implemented teacher presence in various forms, such as webinars, weekly informational videos and video feedback. We used multimodal tools for communicating content, instructions and assignments to students. Versatile feedback methods were used for both peer and teacher-student feedback. Another key element in the course was collaboration in consistent small groups. Since the course focused on working life communication, the assignments focused on skills necessary in working life, which motivated the students and encouraged collaboration and student-to-student interaction.

In this paper, we will give examples of how teacher presence and interaction was built into the course design and of tools used on the course. Furthermore, we will discuss the outcomes of the different methods and the implications for further development.

Keywords:

Teacher presence, multimodal feedback, digitalisation, higher education, content based learning.