Click here for the interactive version of this Community of Inquiry Infographic

Do you like to garden? Gardening has been part of my life ever since I was a kid. I come from a long line of passionate gardeners, and watching them plant, grow, and take care of plants helped me appreciate the delicate balance of interactions life needs for something truly remarkable to happen. Take seeds, for example. Seeds are the most basic component of any garden. However, while planting a seed is necessary for its development, it alone does not ensure successful growth. Growth takes time and depends on multiple factors, like high-quality soil for food, sufficient water, and appropriate levels of sunlight. On the most fundamental level, when a seed has all these conditions, it grows into a robust plant. In this way, you could say students in digital environments are like seeds.

Like seeds in a garden, these students need more than just space and content to flourish. They grow and learn best when they actively engage with quality learning materials, have sufficient opportunities to build relationships with others, and are given appropriate levels of support or guidance from their facilitator. Together, these conditions combine to create a great educational experience where students can learn together by sharing and developing knowledge in an interactive way.

The Community of Inquiry model (Garrison et al., 1999) helps us understand this process by breaking down the educational experience into three interrelated parts: teaching presence, cognitive presence, and social presence.

To return to the plant analogy, we must begin by looking at the conditions of our students. First, the soil that nourishes the seed might be the cognitive presence. Cognitive presence is where students engage with new ideas through collaboration and problem-solving, as the facilitator guides students through the four stage process of John Dewey’s (1933) practical inquiry model (as cited in Garrison et al., 1999). But have you ever tried to grow a plant, but forgot to give it water? What happened? Over time, it probably became lifeless. The water that brings life to a learning environment is the social presence. Social presence is the students’ social activity, whether synchronous or asynchronous, within a digital environment that allows students to connect with others. It involves community building, acknowledging the contributions of others, and establishing trust through respectful discourse. Last but not least, we have the sun, which motivates the seed to grow. This is the teaching presence. It is the facilitator who thoughtfully designs the online course to get students engaged and motivated. It involves orienting students and introducing oneself as a ‘real’ person, sending announcements to sustain communication, and providing timely and constructive feedback. Even if you have the best soil and the right amount of water, unless there is sun, the seed cannot grow. The facilitator is the sun in this context. Think back to our video reflections on the Bull (2013) article and your great facilitation encounter(s) or those of your colleagues. There was usually a facilitator involved who knew how to shine light on your learning. In online environments, the facilitator moves from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side” to guide investigation, discovery, and the creation of knowledge using various strategies, only a handful of which are showcased in this infographic.

Each presence brings something different to the digital environment. But, together, they create an engaging, authentic educational experience that will nurture students, allowing them to grow to their fullest potential. The interactions between the social presence and the cognitive: the supporting discourse (the facilitation of knowledge construction through shared experiences and supporting dialogue), the social and the teaching: setting the climate (the facilitation of community building), and the teaching and the cognitive: selecting content (the facilitation of knowledge construction through content selection) rely on thoughtful course design. This means that if we can transform the soil, access sunlight, water appropriately, nurture our interconnected roots, and provide enough space for our students to unfurl their leaves, we could make our digital learning environments more vivacious and successful. By strengthening these three presences: cognitive, social, and teaching presence, who knows what kinds of fruit our students will one day bear.

References

Anderson, T. (2018). How Communities of Inquiry drive teaching and learning in the digital age. Contact North. Retrieved from: https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/how-communities-inquiry-drive-teaching-and-learning-digital-age

Bull, B. (2013, June 3). Eight roles of an effective online teacher [Blog]. Faculty Focus. Retrieved from: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/eight-roles-of-an-effective-online-teacher/

Garrison, 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). (p. 87-105). https://doi.org/10.1016/S1096-7516(00)00016-6

Vaughan, N., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining
communities of inquiry. Athabasca University Press. Chapter 3: Facilitation (p. 45-61). Retrieved from: https://read.aupress.ca/read/teaching-in-blended-learning-environments/section/43261c4a-6d4c-44cf-8c7f-60bc306eb03a