ABSTRACT
Educators generally agree that teacher presence is necessary to establish one’s authority in a classroom, but they do not agree on what presence is. Some conceptions of presence focus on extroversion, humor, or charisma, while others attend more to such matters as care for students, listening skills, and subject-area expertise. Cinematic portrayals of educators shape students’ and teachers’ understandings of teacher presence, for both good and ill. This chapter argues that teaching presence can be learned, and it catalogs several aspects or components of teacher presence.
