“An environment with choice and a diversity of perspectives, will encourage critical and creative inquiry. Such a community of inquiry is a requisite for higher-order learning” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Aside from my PhD, most learning that I have been “subjected to” ( ß I choose my words carefully! ) in the past at school, college, and university, has followed very authoritarian teacher lead methods. On the other hand, this e-learning course has been a fun collaborative learning community in which there has been clear evidence of interactive cognitive presence, social presence, and teacher presence.   

But anyway, I’m about to be assessed soon, so it’s only fair that I pre-emptively return the favor, and assess my assessors and this course against the community of enquiry model detailed by Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Cognitive presence:

What is it?

We see cognitive presence ‘as the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse in a critical community of inquiry’ Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Confirmed at: http://communitiesofinquiry.com/cognitive_presence :

“Cognitive presence is the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication”

Therefore clearly an important component of cognitive presence in a community of enquiry is debate, which necessitates:

a.    The availability of enthusiastic fellow learners and educators to debate with, a requirement which has been met throughout the course by constant interactive dialogue over a range of topics with fellow students, and with teachers and tutors who have actively encouraged and participated in the discourse.

b.    The availability of mediums of communication that enable sustained rich reflective communication between the participants. The course organizers and tutors have made a fantastic effort providing us with, and encouraging us to use a number of mediums of communication, from the slow paced WebCT discussion boards, to Twitter, and the faster paced Skype Chat, Second Life, and Adobe Video Conferencing.    

Another important component of cognitive presence is the ability to construct meaning through sustained communication and reflection.

We have discussed many related topics throughout this course, and have gained meaning by reflecting on everyone’s input including that of our tutors in our weekly session using different mediums of communication. We have also been encouraged to gain meaning and reflect individually on our reading and debates through our blogs, like I am doing now!  

Categories and indicators supplied by Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003) to assess the presence of cognitive presence:

Triggering events (Indicator could be: Sense of puzzlement): Yes for example when Clara showed up looking like a dragon, which triggered allot of puzzlement J, and a long debate on how identity in a medium such as Second Life compares to our real life identity. Other triggering events for example were our scheduled meetings in Second life, Skype, Twitter, etc. This triggered a sense of anticipation, and made me organize and collect my thoughts prior to the meetings.

Exploration (Indicator for example Information exchange): This category seems to be the same as the earlier discussion on debate. Exploring ideas, and exchanging knowledge and perspectives is essentially what debate is all about. 

Integration (Indicators: Connecting Ideas): This happened throughout the course guided by our tutors through discussions, email exchanges, and blog comments, and also by us using the discussion boards, and during the 2 weeks when we collaborated to enrich David Silver‘s, and our individual wiki’s using hypertext and other web 2.0 technologies.

Social Presence:

What is it?

“We define social presence as ‘the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, as ‘real’ people (i.e., their full personality), through the medium of communication being used’” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003)

I’m not too comfortable with this definition. Two questions spring to mind, What is real? And What constitutes my full personality?

I love Einstein, because his work crosses so many boundaries. Everything can be relative, not just the movement of objects relative to each other and the speed of light through space.

If someone spends allot of time in an environment such as Second life, and interacts with a community in Second life, then for this community, their virtual characters can be just as real to each other as people are to each other in the “real world”.

Second is the issue of what constitutes a full personality. Do we always project our (full) personalities socially and emotionally during serious discussion and discourse?  Do we really need to? What about the projected personality of my avatar in SL, how do I project this personality in a video conference that has nothing to do with SL? As I argue in a previous blog, I believe that presence can occur at varying degrees. We don’t have to be fully present with our entire bodies to have useful discourse. Sometimes my full physical participation maybe required, sometimes just my voice or even just my thoughts through text chat can be enough to have effective social presence. Sometimes a text conversation maybe the most effective form of presence when other attributes such as voice or physical form could be a distraction.

Maybe I’m being very picky, but let’s try and make the definition more realistic (I’m in a critical mood):

“We define social presence as ‘the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, to a level at which they are comfortably able to communicate, and exchange their thoughts and emotions through the medium of communication being used’”

The question of social presence seems to link to that of embodiment, and identity. Garrison, D and Anderson, argue that:

Immediacy is important to a supportive and secure learning environment because it reduces personal risk and increases acceptance, particularly during critical discourse with its sometimes aggressive questioning and challenging.

I agree but I also feel that immediacy becomes less important when discourse can happen over a long period of time (This e-learning course). So for example I recognize a social presence in our email exchanges, in the blog, and on the discussion boards even though the sense of immediacy is not pronounced.

But also our tutors have encouraged us to use mediums of interaction where there has been a clear sense of immediacy, for example our camp fire voice and text conversations in Second Life, Twitter discussions, our video conference, and our skype chat.  The tools available to us on this e-learning course are more than capable of facilitating the projection of our social presence.

Teaching Presence:

“Teaching presence is defined as ‘the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes’” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003)

Our tutors have been present throughout this course, guiding our focus and conversations, and have participated in and directed discourse so that defined learning goals are achieved. (Go back and read everything in purple!).

Overlapping Cognitive, Social, and Teaching Presence:

A community of learning is most effective when these 3 presences are present and operating effectively together. Garrison and Anderson provide two overlapping areas of presence:

Social Presence and Cognitive Presence overlap to create an environment which supports discourse. This was in evidence in IDEL through our discussions on the various mediums of communication made available to us. Our dialog was focused on the topics of discussion required to achieve the objectives of this module because of our collective desire and motivation to enhance our understanding of the topics of discussion. Therefore I believe that motivation is key for relevant discourse to occur.

Teaching Presence and Social Presence overlap so that a climate is created where discourse is structured and guided. This again has been evident throughout the course where tutors have arranged and encouraged interaction between us using the mediums provided, have guided our discussions, and have participated in the discussions.    

Clara in the discussion board also suggests an overlaping teaching presence and cognitive presence:

Teaching Presence and Cognitive Presence overlap so that our dialog and reflections aren’t distracted by irrelevant topics of discussion such as our pets. Where I highlighted motivation as important in the overlap between social presence and cognitive presence to keep discourse on track, teaching presence can provide a helping hand to maintain and guide this motivation.

“Cognitive apprenticeship is a theory of the process where a master of a skill teaches that skill to an apprentice.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_apprenticeship

Assessment Outcome: 

Having analysed the criteria, and reviewed the evidence. I can certify that this e-learning course has so far proved itself to be a prime model of what a community of enquiry should be.

If I was to provide a grade then I would also have to take into consideration some minor technical issues that interfered slightly with my program of study (Services weren’t available once or twice over the duration of the course during weekends). But the positives overwhelm any minor blips, and the objectives of the course have on the whole been realized, therefore my final grade for IDEL2011 is:  95% Leaving a few percentage points to encourage discourse for improvement in this community of enquiry.  Please feel free to use this grade as a guide for any grading activities which may occur in the following weeks … cough …ehem …

References:

Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003) Community of inquiry, chapter 3 of E-learning in the 21st century (London: RoutledgeFalmer) pp.22-31.