The Importance of Instructor Presence in the Online Classroom (Fall 2025)

You can leverage the power of instructor presence to strengthen relationships with students and enhance communication and engagement in your online courses. The efforts that we make to connect with our students in our online courses can increase student success. In addition, instructor presence in online courses is also central to a set of federal regulations that cover distance learning (commonly referred to as “regular and substantive interaction”, often shortened to “RSI”).

In this session you will explore the concept of instructor presence, its importance for student learning in online asynchronous courses, and its relationship to regulations on distance learning. You will also discuss and share ways that you currently create instructor presence in your online courses, and brainstorm ideas for how you might enhance your instructor presence.

Accommodations

The NED is committed to providing universal access to all of our events, we’d like to discover how we can make the event more inclusive so you can fully participate!

Machine generated captions are available in real-time for all Zoom events, however human generated CART (live caption) service and ASL interpretation can be requested with advanced notice (2 weeks) to make the event more accessible.

Please, let us know of any disability-related accommodations that will facilitate your full participation.

Questions?

Contact the Network for Educational Development.

Registration Required

Use the RSVP tool below to register. After registering, a calendar invite will be sent to you as a reminder of the event start date.