Designed and appropriately delivered, a course becomes a “community of inquiry” that fosters those relationships and creates a welcoming environment for intellectual inquiry.
The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework posits that three essential elements work symbiotically to comprise a dynamic online learning environment that fosters deep learning and critical thinking:
Teaching presence entails the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes to realize learning outcomes that are personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile (Anderson et al., 2001). It is “the sum of all the behaviors faculty use to direct, guide, and design the learning experiences. Teaching presence is conveyed through, first, the design of courses and materials prior to teaching the course, and second, the mentoring, guiding, and directing during the course” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2016, p.46).
Social presence “creates connections with learners based on who we are as three-dimensional persons with families, lives, and favorite ideas, people, and places. Pictures of ourselves and our hobbies and interests convey these many dimensions of ourselves and help to build connections and trust” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2016, p.46).
Cognitive presence is the extent to which learners can construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse (Anderson et al., 2001). This form of presence is “conveyed by all the interactions with learners that an instructor has to support the development of skills, knowledge, and understanding in … students” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2016, p.46).
For a more detailed explanation of these concepts and selected research supporting various aspects of the model, visit the CoI website. Additionally, see the University of Virginia’s Center for Teaching Excellence for an extensive list of ways to increase your social, teaching, and cognitive presence.
Interaction
Part of designing and delivering a quality online learning experience is creating activities and assignments that ensure that certain types of interaction are regularly occurring.
Student-to-faculty interaction needs to occur regularly and be substantive. Everything from posting announcements and participating in discussions to mentoring and providing feedback and online office hours can be part of this type of interaction. This category of interaction is essential. According to regulatory agencies from the U.S. Department of Education to the Higher Learning Commission, these regular, substantive interactions make an online course the type of learning experience worthy of financial aid.
Student-to-student interaction includes formal and informal interactions occurring in-class activities and collaboration with other students on group assignments.
Student-to-content interaction occurs fairly naturally as students engage course content in readings, videos, multimedia presentations, discussions, etc.
In essence, to create a community of inquiry, courses must be designed around student activities and interactions. Students must be taking action and getting feedback, sharing ideas, applying concepts, and thinking deeply. Meaningful and collaborative learning activities are vital in engaging students, especially in online courses.
Building Social Presence
A strong sense of community is essential to student satisfaction, participation, learning, and even retention, regardless of the delivery method of the course. However, many believe that online learning results in the sense of isolation, which is not necessarily the case. There are many ways to create a strong sense of community among learners when face-to-face time is limited or eliminated. The most common are discussions, group work, and other interactive learning activities. Keep in mind that the different types of “presence” build off of and augment the social presence you create in your course.
Increasing Your Teaching Presence
A great way to kick off your course is with a course introduction or personal instructor introduction video. Capture your students’ attention, relate course content to the real world, and help students get to know you.
Your teaching presence is more than just one video at the beginning of the course. Your active participation throughout the term is essential to the student experience.
Ideas to increase your active participation could include:
- Have an “Introduce Yourself” discussion board at the beginning of the course, and post your introduction on it to welcome students before the class starts.
- Communicate on a regular schedule through announcements.
- Provide regular feedback to assignments, including audio or video feedback.
- Hold virtual office hours with a web conferencing tool.
- Create end-of-module or weekly wrap-up videos in which you highlight trends you see in students’ work, comments they have shared, and updates about upcoming topics and assignments.
Facilitating Cognitive Presence
Cognitive presence is central to successful student learning. It reflects the quality and quantity of critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and construction of meaning in student-to-student and student-to-faculty interactions. You can model and support cognitive presence in your interactions with students in discussions, assignment feedback, and other communications.
Effectively moderating online discussion is an essential strategy for supporting cognitive presence. Moderating and modeling how a beginner in the field should be thinking through a question, problem, or case should occur more often in undergraduate classes. It’s important to realize that simply interacting with others or with the content does not automatically translate into critical discourse or integrating ideas into meaningful constructs (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005). Faculty interaction is the essential element needed to foster these desired ends.
