This week’s content helped me dive deep into CoI framework and learn how computer conferencing plays a vital role in building a CoI framework. Computer-mediated communication has become a need for all learning communities in all parts of the world. A proper and planned computer conferencing leads towards the achievement of goals for an online learning community. CoI framework provides a platform to learners and experts where they can come together, interact with each other, share their ideas, reflect outcomes, and build a mutual relationship by helping each other. Major participants of this community are teachers and students. According to Lipman (1991), the characteristics of a CoI include questions, reasons, connections, deliberation, challenges, and development of problem-solving techniques. The CoI framework has been divided into three components. They are cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence.
Cognitive presence is related to the learners’ ability to delve into a meaningful conversation, derive constructive meaning out of a learning environment, enquire about ideas where they feel confused and to reflect on what they have learned. Learners go deep into understanding a scenario, raise questions, generate practical solutions, engage with each other in solving problems. The focus of cognitive presence is to construct meaning through conversation or communication. “Cognitive presence is a vital element in critical thinking, a process and outcome that is frequently presented as the ostensible goal of all higher education” (Garrison et al, 2000). There are several examples of cognitive presence in online communities. For example, students leading a discussion, students working as teams, peer reviewing in students, and students creating or finding relevant material to post in class discussions.
Social presence is the second key component of CoI framework. Participants must feel they belong to a certain community, and this is what social presence means. People from diverse backgrounds should have equal social presence. The community should be providing a secure environment for the participants where they can share their opinions and listen to each other with mutual respect and honor. Equity, tolerance, and respect are the key ingredients to promote an effective learning environment with strong social presence and respectful discourses. Even disagreements and conflicts should occur in a respectful way. The power of listening patiently is especially important and one should not be judgmental for an effective learning community. Examples of social presence are open communication, group cohesion, self-selection of group members, self-projection, and expression without any reluctance and fear (keeping mutual respect in view).
The third and major component is Teaching presence. Teacher has a lot of responsibilities including the designing of learning environment, choosing suitable instruction methods, incorporating productive activities, using effective tools for instruction, maintaining a routine to influence the learning outcome in a better way. Teacher should be able to ensure the cognitive and social presence in the learning environment through proper planning and strategies. Examples of teacher presence are developing the critical thinking of students by engaging them in various discussions, task management and problem-solving activities. Question prompts can be designed according to the topic which students may answer on a discussion forum both individually and in groups. Peer responses are effective to create a discussion forum. Clear introduction of the course content, organization of material, a review from another expert, prompt responses to students, providing feedback and facilitating students at various steps of learning can be extremely fruitful for a community.
CoI framework is developed if all three components of CoI are established successfully. Without cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence, CoI cannot work smoothly. CoI framework is a theoretical framework and a social constructivist model that is based on collaborative constructive presence of the participants and without all three components, an effective learning environment is hard to imagine.
The Community of Inquiry framework is important because it facilitates the participants with an educational experience that emerges out of the intersection of cognitive, social, and teaching presence. Teachers play a vital role in blending cognitive and social presence while designing an online community. Their skills to choose suitable materials and set learning goals, ability to facilitate students with direct or explicit instruction, and timely feedback or presence can build a productive online learning community. The implications of building a virtual learning community include a memorable impact on students’ educational experience with suitable educational programs. It also provides an enjoyable and interesting learning experience to students where they apply what they have learned, retain knowledge, reflect ideas, and build mutual relationships.
I have some ideas for my final project and the strategies to enhance my virtual learning community are manifold. I shall try to make sure that all three components of CoI are incorporated in my design. The instructor’s presence will be crucial where they can facilitate the participants. Setting learning goals and objectives, making announcements, management of the data sources, promoting ice-breaking activities for introductions of participants, urging learners to ask questions, igniting synchronous and asynchronous discussions, supporting peer learning, conducting online journaling, responding promptly, creating an environment where participants can take part in open discussions, share their ideas/emotions, respect each other’s opinions, and producing constructive feedback will be the main strategies. I shall try to make the best use of technology and hope to learn from the participants myself.
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.
Ellen Deal
I really enjoyed reading your post, Nida. I am especially excited to hear more about your Final Project based on the information you gave. I definitely agree with you when you said “Teachers play a vital role in blending cognitive and social presence while designing an online community.” How do you think teachers who are not technologically savvy are able to do this? For example, I know teachers who are very good at what they do, but they aren’t the most professional with technology. What do you think can be done to prepare them for such tasks, especially if they are thrown into that setting without proper training? Could the CoI framework apply to them somehow in their learning of creating an online community?