Home PublicationsJRTEPast IssuesVolume 40 Number 1: Fall 2007

	Edited by Dr. Lynne Schrum, George Mason University
formerly Journal of Research on Computing in Education

Volume 40 Number 1 Fall 2007

Presence and Positioning as Components of Online Instructor Persona

Vanessa Paz Dennen
Florida State University

Abstract

Instructor persona in online discussion may set the tone for a variety of course outcomes. Instructors establish persona via both presence (amount of instructor posts) and position (interaction relative to those in the student role). In this paper, three online classes were studied using positioning theory as a grounding framework to elicit ways in which instructors self-position as well as how their students position them, and the relative impact of these positions along with presence levels on persona development. Findings demonstrate that both instructor activity levels and use of performative position statements likely impact student expectations, and that students are unlikely to engage in instructor positioning that falls outside the standard definition of the traditional instructor role unless doing so has been modeled by the instructor him/herself.

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Contributor

Vanessa Paz Dennen is an assistant professor of Instructional Systems in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University. She earned a PhD in Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University, and previously was on the faculty at San Diego State University. Her research focuses on online discourse, cognitive apprenticeship, and online communities of practice. (vdennen@fsu.edu.)

Copyright 2007, (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.