11. Step Eight: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
11.1. The Concept of ‘Instructor Presence’
In a classroom environment, the presence of the teacher or instructor is taken for granted. Usually, the teacher is at the front of the class and at the centre of attention. Students may want to ignore a teacher but that is not always easy to do, even in a very large lecture theatre. The instructor just being there in the room is often considered to be enough. We can learn a lot though about the important pedagogical aspects of teacher presence from the research into online learning, where instructor presence has to be worked at.