Making Learning Effective: Does the C.o.I. really work?

Picture it… The University of Alberta….. 2000…. A research group, consisting of D. Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson, and Walter Archer, came together to create a framework for a hybrid graduate school program. Not only did it lead the way their initial program was run, but it also changed the framework of many hybrid/online educational programs around the world. It helps to frame what the roles of an educator/instructor and student/learner are within an educational experience.

“The model of this Community of Inquiry assumes that learning occurs within the Community through the interaction of three core elements” (Garrison et. al., 2000, pp. 87), and those three core elements are social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. These three necessities are compiled together to form a Venn diagram to show how each of the elements correlate together; this can be seen in Figure 1 down below.

• Social Presence – This refers to the interaction(s) between participants in the community and to the way a participant lets their personal characteristics shine and make them a unique member of the community.
• Cognitive Presence – “This term here is taken to mean the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication” (Garrison et. al., 2000, pp. 89).
• Teaching Presence – This element refers to the idea of how content is taught within a specific learning experience; how a teacher engages their learners through their presence and planning.

These three key elements of an effective educational experience can be divided even further by showing how these three elements tie together to make that educational experience.

• Supporting Discourse – In any community, it is important to have communication and discussion that is supportive of one another. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone in a group has to agree with what is being discussed, but there should be no negative implications in discourse. Too many times people believe that disagreements lead to not being able to come to a common understanding; this is completely false. So many times I have been part of a community in which members disagree about a specific topic, and they act hostile toward each other. Concerning my participation within these types of settings, I always make it a point to say, “While I respect your opinion, I have to disagree.” I always try to be courteous when I express disagreement while also showing support to the one I am disagreeing with. Discourse can be completed face-to-face, in written/typed form, and many other forms; the point is create an experience in which members in the learning community can come together and collaborate and discuss in a supportive manner.
• Setting Climate – When I hear the term “climate” I think about what is the overall mood and ambiance of the educational environment. Thinking about setting referring to where some event is taking place, this takes into consideration where and how the educational experience will be taking place. Will learning be completed in a physical environment where members meet face-to-face, or will it be virtual in which members will work together on a virtual platform? I am part of both types of communities, and the settings and climates vary in differences and similarities.
• Selecting Content – With any educational experience comes the need to select content that will be taught. Any educator who leads within a community has to have selected content that they will be working on with their students. For example, I am teaching about about myths and how a myth can have multiple versions while still keeping similar elements. Now, this content was not specifically chosen by me; it was selected by our literacy curriculum, but I have selected what kinds of content I can use to help further the educational experience. While our base text will be our Wonders version of King Midas and the Golden Touch, I will also be having my students exploring multiple versions of the story; versions that come in the form of storybook, video, etc. They will get to see varying retellings, and they’ll be able to decide which is their favorite among them all. With the right content, the setting climate can be implemented, and supportive discourse can take place.

Implications for a Virtual Learning Community

“The challenge educators face today is creating a community of inquiry in a virtual environment” (Garrison et. al., 2000, pp. 92). I, myself, have faced this challenge in my few years of teaching. Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic that started in 2020, my in-person first year of teaching was cut short, and we were forced to find new ways to create a virtual learning community where we can still engage in education. It took a few weeks, but our district ended up deciding to use Seesaw and Zoom for elementary students and teachers. Thinking about that experience, I can label specific parts with the CoI framework.

1. Social Presence – In order to engage with students during this pandemic, I was required to hop on Zoom with my students at least twice a week. Students were able to chat with each other, watch me teach, and still engage in some form of learning. The setting climate was technically video-based in that students didn’t have their textbooks or classroom materials that we would normally use; they solely relied on my ability to teach through Zoom and their ability to participate. While there was not a lot of pressure in terms of grading and information retention during this time, we as teachers were so worried about our students because they had never been through something like this before. We knew there was so much that they would be missing out on since we still had a whole nine weeks of school left when the world shut down. Some teachers went above and beyond to try and help their students stay engaged while being at home, while others sort of gave up and did what they could to get through the last nine weeks.
2. Teaching Presence – I think about this in the sense of how teachers make their teaching presence known; meaning, in what way do teachers teach material in order for students to be engaged? For example, most people think of teaching presence as teaching in person in some classroom environment. With the help of technology, teaching has changed over the course of history. Technology has now provided the ability to let teachers teach through videos, podcasts, in-person, etc. In my teaching experience, I use technology to enhance my lessons to help my students get more engaged with content. One specific example I have is from teaching polygons and quadrilaterals. While I do give a lesson and discuss the different quadrilaterals, I find that using a specific video which sings a song about them helps my students click with the information more; songs were a big part of my learning capabilities.
3. Cognitive Presence – To keep students engaged with content, we were asked to use the learning platform Seesaw. Seesaw is a great tool that is used to help students engage in virtual learning with all kinds of assignments and activities that educators create for them. Teachers could use activities created by anyone and everyone, or they could make their own with their own special touches and requirements/instructions. Assignments could consist of watching a video, creating a video, drawing shapes/pictures, typing out responses, recording a voice, and many other forms of submission. This was another setting climate for the student participation, and also for educator participation because teachers could comment on student work, and parents/other students could comment when work was posted (With the whole going virtual thing being so new, my team didn’t mess with the feature of students being able to comment on each other’s work; I could definitely see benefits with it, but you have to be so careful sometimes with elementary students, especially when it’s a new learning environment for them. If they can’t handle staying out of the chat box on Zoom while I am trying to teach, then I don’t quite know what to make of them being able to comment on each other’s work on Seesaw.

Thinking about this with my final project for this course, I desire to create an educational experience that creates an engaging environment, meaningful content, and proper instruction for the learners within my class. My first Mini-Design project focuses on being able to create an hybrid learning community that allows for multiple types of feedback on presentations/projects that students complete in my class. Students will be able to use multiple platforms, such as Padlet, Zoom, and Google forms to help in providing meaningful feedback towards their projects they complete. They will receive and give feedback to peers (which accounts for the social presence), will do research and reflect on how they accomplished the work to reach their end goal (which accounts for the cognitive presence), and lastly I will be providing teacher direction and feedback to the class as a whole and to individual students through Padlet to engage in meaningful discussion about their experience in the projects (which accounts for the teaching presence).

The diagram below does an excellent job showing how the CoI could be used to create an educational experience with a virtual community in mind. It considers multiple elements within an online learning community and technological tools that can be used for a virtual learning setting.

References:

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The internet and higher education, 2(2-3), 87-105. 

Lipman, M. (1991). Thinking in education. Cambridge. The reflective model of educational practice. NY, 7-25.