Engagement as Care: Instructor Presence, Connection, and Student Well-Being in Asynchronous Learning.

Abstract

Drawing on informal student feedback and communications, as well as reflective teaching practices from an asynchronous social work course, this commentary examines how intentional instructor presence influences engagement, connection, and student well-being. Asynchronous learning has become a common modality, with engagement often operationalized through participation metrics that obscure the relational and affective dimensions of learning. Grounded in a social work and public health lens, this commentary presents instructor presence as relational infrastructure rather than a peripheral instructional practice. It also shares how timely, content-based feedback, consistent communication, flexibility, and routine check-ins can foster relational engagement and challenge the normative assumptions of disengagement in asynchronous learning environments. Further, instructional practices that acknowledge students' lived realities, including health concerns, caregiving responsibilities, and sociopolitical stressors, are identified as mechanisms for humanizing digitally mediated classrooms. This commentary reframes instructor presence and relational intentionality as central to the engagement and student supports often lost in asynchronous environments.