Describe the ways in which your introductory post should have enhanced social presence in a course that you teach and identify at least one improvement that you might make in light of what you know about social presence since completing your first post.
I now see that I can include some learning objectives in my introduction post that can highlight my own understanding of the topic, as well as my background, to help facilitate student engagement right from the beginning.
Describe how your thinking about social presence has changed since your first post.
I really appreciated the thought that creating a shared sense of purpose initially is more powerful at the beginning of the course rather than the social interactions piece. My focus has often been ‘getting to know one another’ instead of ‘getting to know why we are all here’ right out of the gate, so this gives me a reason to revisit this approach. Also emphasizing that this is a shared learning experience between myself and the students will lend to the overall objective.