Community of Inquiry Development in a Blended Learning Course for In-service Teachers (original) (raw)
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Development of a community of inquiry in online and blended learning contexts
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2009
This paper discusses findings of a mixed method research project with the goal to study the development of a community of inquiry in online and blended learning environments. A graduate course delivered online and blended format was the focus of the study. Data was gathered from the Community of Inquiry Survey and transcript analysis of online discussions to explore the developmental differences on each presence (social, teaching and cognitive). The results showed: significant differences on social and cognitive presence between two course formats and higher perceptions of the presences in blended course.
As e-learning is evolving into a mainstream, widespread practice, adopted by higher education institutions worldwide, much effort is geared towards the articulation of models and strategies for implementing e-learning in formal education settings. In the field of pre-service teacher education, a rising challenge is to equip the "21st century teacher" with the necessary toolset of skills and competencies to grapple with the idiosyncrasies of the new generation of "millenials". To this purpose, what still remains an open issue is the degree of innovation afforded by specific e-learning designs, in a field where traditional teacher training pedagogies co-exist with e-learning-specific ones. This article proposes a synthesis of two models, the Community of Inquiry (COI) model, based on the Practical Inquiry model introduced by Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (2000) and the Learning by Design framework (LbyD), based on the conceptualization of 'New Learning', articulated by Kalantzis & Cope (2012). Both models were invented with new learning styles and circumstances in mind. The proposed synthesis guided the design of the six-month introductory course in Technology Enhanced Learning by the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (ASPETE) research team (located in Athens) and implemented with 18 pre service student-teachers at the Higher Education Technological Institute (TEI) of Lamia, located in another geographical area of Greece. In this context, elements of the COI framework were employed as tools both for designing and for evaluating the contents, structure and activities of the e-learning course. Two elements of the framework, teaching and cognitive presence were the axes supporting the course structure, whilst the kinds of activities most promoted were discussion, collaboration and reflection. The LbyD framework functioned as an awareness enhancement mechanism for trainee teachers to formulate, collaboratively negotiate and finally articulate and support pedagogical scenarios integrating the meaningful use of technology. The discussion of this experience is supported by a dataset including students' answers to a COI-based survey, free-text student feedback and asynchronous discussion transcripts, providing evidence about the potential of the approach and pointing out issues that need to be improved.
Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 2021
Education authorities in Norway endorse online courses for in-service teachers to raise education standards and to promote digital competence. Naturally, these offerings present teachers with opportunities to integrate new theoretical perspectives and their professional experience in an online learning community. The inquiry into one's professional practice, enhanced by critical reflection in a group of fellow professionals, is considered essential for a lifelong learning practitioner, however, the emerging examples of instructional design tend to prioritise content delivery rather than professional discourse. In this paper, we demonstrate how the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework could be adopted to transform learning design, which prioritises the delivery of individual assignments, into a more collaborative learning experience. Using the CoI instructional design principles and the associated questionnaire, we have investigated student perceptions of learning via an online course and formulated recommendations about how the course design can be refined to promote learning in the community. Despite the modest evidence, this investigation can serve as an example of how a concrete learning design can be improved based on this validated e-learning model.
Development of a community of inquiry using blended learning and socioscientific issues
ASTE 2013: Charleston, SC , 2013
The concept of blended learning has become popular in secondary and tertiary education over the last decade. A majority of students are expected to take classes either in the blended or fully online format in the next decade. One framework for blended teaching that has become popular recently is the idea of the "flipped classroom," in which lecture materials are delivered online, while traditional homework assignments are completed in class. A second framework for effective online learning, the Community of Inquiry (CoI), was developed. Three dimensions of CoI are cognitive presence, teacher presence, and social presence. The dimensions of CoI also provide a framework for effective face to face teaching, particularly within the socioscientific issues framework. This presentation will describe the CoI framework within the context of science education in general, and within the context of socioscientific issues in particular.
2019
The Introduction to Technology-Enabled Learning (TEL) MOOC was intended to engage teachers worldwide who work in any level of education and are interested in technology-enabled learning and open educational resources. This paper investigates the response by participants to the content presented in week one on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, in particular, the benefits and challenges of using the CoI framework with in the classroom, whether it is online, blended or face-to-face. Titre: Benefices et defis des technologies pour l’apprentissage selon le cadre theorique de la communaute d’apprentissage L’introduction du MOOC sur les technologies pour l’apprentissage visait a engager des enseignants du monde entier qui, quel que soit le niveau auquel ils enseignent, s’interessent aux technologies pour l’apprentissage et aux ressources educatives libres. Cet article traite de la reponse donnee par les participants au contenu presente dans la semaine une, sur le modele de la communaut...
Online and blended communities of inquiry: Exploring the developmental and perceptional differences
… Review of Research in Open and …, 2009
This paper discusses findings of a mixed method approach to a study of the development of a community of inquiry in an online and a blended learning environment. A graduate course delivered online and in a blended format was the context of the study. Data were gathered from the Community of Inquiry Survey, transcript analysis of online discussions, and interviews with students and the course instructor. Using multiple qualitative and quantitative data sources, the goal was to explore the developmental differences of the three presences (social, teaching, and cognitive) in the community of inquiry framework and students' perceptions of a community of inquiry. The results indicated that in both the online and blended course a community of inquiry developed and students could sense each presence. However, the findings revealed developmental differences in social and cognitive presence between the two course formats with higher perceptions in the blended course.
Teaching in Blended Learning Environments: Creating and Sustaining Communities of Inquiry
The advent of the World Wide Web has drastically changed the learning environment for students and instructors both inside and outside the classrooms of today's institutions of higher education. The practice of faculty transferring knowledge to their students solely by in-class lectures and discussions has become out dated. In turn, instructors must come to the realization that the Internet, much like overhead projectors and chalkboards of the past, can now be used as a pedagogical tool to increase the engagement of their students in a "community of inquiry," both inside and outside of today's modern classrooms (p. 2). In their book, Teaching in Blended Learning Environments: Creating and Sustaining Communities of Inquiry, Norman D. Vaughan, Martha Cleveland-Innes, and D. Randy Garrison build on these arguments and the previous work done by Garrison and Vaughan in their book Blended Learning in Higher Education (2008). Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes, and Garrison offer instructors a step-by-step guide to how blended learning can increase engagement, interaction, and collaboration in higher education. The ultimate goal of the work is to improve teaching in higher education through the development of blended learning environments that focus on design, facilitation, direction, and assessment. This, in turn, will create and sustain productive communities of inquiry that will benefit everyone engaged in positive learning experiences. Teaching in Blended Learning Environments is not solely a treatise on how 21 st-century instructors must use technology for the betterment of the community of inquiry they are attempting to develop. Nor is this a work that dismisses the instructor as the core of the community of inquiry. Instead, this work goes beyond blending face-to-face learning with the use of technology by positioning the instructor as the designer, facilitator, and director of the blended learning environment. The authors provide readers with a step-by-step instructional manual on how to apply the principles of blended learning in practical settings by combining face-to-face learning strategies with online learning strategies. The book begins with seven principles associated with productive undergraduate teaching, which include: 1. Encourage contact between students and faculty; 2. Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students;
Perspectives in Education
Amongst the contemporary needs of societies in the fourth industrial revolution, are student-teachers who are adaptable, ethical, and literate in developing technology-mediated environments. Cultivating such teachers requires engaging them experientially in blended learning practices. We explored 155 student-teachers’ experiences of blended learning, at a South African institution for higher education, by using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) as theoretical framework. We created cognitive, social, and teaching presences within the initial teacher education module on their learning management system, Blackboard LearnTM. Utilising explanatory mixed-method as research approach enabled us to compare student-teachers’ experiences of the three presences using a Likert-type questionnaire and reflective feedback. Studentteachers’ online engagement reflected a good cognitive and teaching presence; whilst their social presence was maintained using disparate social media applications and conseq...
An Investigation into the Community of Inquiry of Blended Classrooms by a Faculty Learning Community
A faculty learning community (FLC) comprised of six professors representing different disciplines came together to study, develop, and teach blended learning courses. As an FLC, the researchers sought to evaluate student perceptions of the blended learning courses, measured using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) survey, and how these differed across the courses taught. In addition to this objective, a secondary objective of how the experience of learning to design blended learning courses in an FLC differed across the faculty was also explored. This exploratory case study found evidence to suggest that student perceptions of a blended course, as measured by the CoI framework, can be used to determine differences in students' blended learning experiences. The results of the study also suggest that perceived differences in blended learning experiences varied by discipline, highlighting an important area for future research experiments. An additional research outcome was that an FLC may be a useful form of faculty development when correctly implemented. For example, participating faculty benefited from participation in an FLC when they received helpful advice on promising practices and encouragement when experiencing instructional or technical challenges.
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2016
The case study discussed in this article examines how the community of inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2010) was used to redesign the digital learning environment in the context of an Australian university. Some purposes were to replicate features of a traditional classroom and to support collaboration between professionals with different expertise. The discussion addresses three questions. Firstly, how useful was the CoI model in context and to what extent was the success (or failure) of the redevelopment attributable to the CoI? Secondly, what are the implications for current debates about the CoI model? Thirdly, what are the emergent issues and areas for future research? The paper concludes that the CoI model was useful as a communication and design heuristic rather than as a model that makes universal truth claims about the world.