Slides from the CoI workshop presented at the 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Leanring

1. COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY FR AMEWORK
INFORMING INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN & LEARNING
Phil Ice, American Public University System
Jennifer Richardson, Purdue University
Karen Swan, University of Illinois Springfield

2. • CoI Framework
• Social Presence (SP)
• Cognitive Presence (CP)
• Teaching Presence (TP)
• CoI Survey
• Development/Validation
• Emerging Findings
• Practical Applications
• Applying CoI to the Design & Teaching of
Online & Blended Courses
• Design & Organization
• Facilitation of Discourse
• Direct Instruction
• Your Course(s)/Program
• CoI Survey as an Evaluation Tool

3. COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY FR AMEWORK
(Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000)
• a process model of learning in online and
blended educational environments
• grounded in a collaborative constructivist
view of higher education
• assumes effective online learning requires
the development of a community of learners
that supports meaningful inquiry and deep
learning

4. social presence cognitive presence
LEARNING
teaching presence
COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY FRAMEWORK

5. social presence
the ability of participants in a community of inquiry
to project themselves socially and emotionally
-- as ‘real’ people;
the degree to which participants in computer
mediated communication feel socially and
emotionally connected

6. social presence
elements – affective expression, open communication
(cohesiveness), group cohesion (interactivity)

8. teacher immediacy
LEARNING MODEL
COGNITIVE LEARNING
Kelley & Gorham, 1988; Gorham, 1988
IMMEDIACY
AFFECTIVE LEARNING
Plax & Wendt-Wasco, 1985; Richmond, Gorham & McCroskey,
1987; Gorham, 1988
MOTIVATION MODEL
COGNITIVE LEARNING
STATE
IMMEDIACY
MOTIVATION
AFFECTIVE LEARNING
Christophel, 1990; Richmond, 1990; Frymeir, 1994
AFFECTIVE LEARNING MODEL
AFFECTIVE COGNITIVE
IMMEDIACY
LEARNING LEARNING
Rodriguez, Plax & Kearney, 1996

9. • social presence theory (Short, Williams & Christie, 1976)
– ranking by users (impersonal/personal,
unsociable/sociable, insensitive/sensitive,
cold/warm) of various media
• media richness theory (Rice, 1992) – measures a
medium’s capacity for immediate feedback, senses
involved, personalization, and language variety

10. research findings
 social presence can be (strongly) felt by
participants in computer-mediated communication
(Walther, 1994; Gunawardena, 1995; Tu & McIsaac,
2002; Richardson & Swan, 2003)
 and projected into text-based asynchronous
discussion using verbal immediacy indicators alone
(Rourke, Anderson, Garrison & Archer, 2001; Swan,
2002; 2003)

11. research findings
 perceptions of social presence are linked to
student satisfaction in online courses
(Gunawardena, Lowe & Anderson,1997; Tu, 2002;
Richardson & Swan, 2003)
 and to (perceived) learning from them (Walther,
1994; Gunawardena, 1995; Picciano, 2002; Richardson
& Swan, 2003)

12. research findings
 differences in effects of social presence of
instructors & peers (Swan & Shih, 2005)
 and interesting differences among student
perceptions (Swan & Shih, 2005)
 relationship of social presence to course design
factors – social context, communication,
interactivity (Tu, 2000; Tu & McIssac, 2002)

13. What could you do to help establish social
presence in online courses?

14. Social Presence: tips & techniques
 Create a “Meet Your Classmates” section of your
course where you and students introduce
yourselves to one another.
 Explicitly introduce students to the unique nature
and learning potential of online discussion
 Establish rules of Netiquette for your course.
 Develop initial course activities to encourage the
development of swift trust.
 Model & encourage the use of verbal immediacy
behaviors in interactions with students.
 Encourage students to share experiences & beliefs
in online discussion.

15. Social Presence: tips & techniques
 Make participation in discussion a significant part
of course grades.
 Require discussion participants to respond to their
classmates postings &/or to respond to all
responses to their own postings.
 Make students responsible for sustaining
discussion threads.
 Make students summarize discussion threads.
 Require students to incorporate materials from the
discussions in their assignments.
 Encourage & support vicarious interaction.
 Use tracking mechanisms to reward reading as
well as responding to messages.
 Use short videos of yourself to introduce the
course and particular topics.

16. Social Presence: tips & techniques
 Journal or otherwise interact with your students
on an individual and personal basis.
 Use audio to embed feedback on assignments
within them.
 Design community building activities.
 Design collaborative activities – problem solving
tasks, projects, small group discussion.
 Consider including real time communications
using applications such as chat, collaborative
whiteboards, interactive video.
 Consider incorporating Web 2.0 applications in
course activities, especially social software such
as blogs, wikis, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace,
Second Life, etc.

17. cognitive presence
the extent to which learners are able to construct
and confirm meaning through sustained reflection
and discourse in a critical community of inquiry

18. cognitive presence
elements – triggering event, exploration,
integration, resolution

19. Private World Deliberation Reflection
(Applicability)
EXPLORATION INTEGRATION
Perception Conception
(Awareness) EXPERIENCE (Ideas)
TRIGGERING EVENT RESOLUTION
Action
Shared World (Practice) Discourse
practical inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000)

20. scaffolding online discussion
 concept & process scaffolds (Wong-Busby, 2006)
 peer review -- Bloom’s taxonomy (Ertmer,
Richardson, Belland, Coulthard, Camin & Mong,
2006)
 subject line (Pelz, 2004)
 assessment (Swan, Schenker, Arnold & Kuo, 2007)

21. research findings: content
 learning concepts vs. learning techniques
(Parker & Gemino, 2001; Picciano, 2002)
 multiple perspectives (Picciano, 2002)
 disciplined inquiry – reflection and
interaction (Benbunan-Fich & Hiltz, 1999;
Garrison, 2003)

22. research findings
 most online discussion never moves beyond
the exploration stage (Garrison & Arbaugh,
2007; Kanuka & Anderson, 2000)
 online discussion proceeds to integration
and resolution when participants are tasked
with problem solution & explicit direction &
facilitation are provided (Murphy, 2004; Shea
& Bidjermo, 2008)

23. What could you do to help establish
cognitive presence in online courses?

24. Cognitive Presence: tips & techniques
 Identify big ideas you want students to take away
from your course and develop major course
activities around their assessment.
 Identify important knowledge, skills & attitudes
students should learn and develop additional
course activities around their assessment.
 Provide multiple representations of the
knowledge you want students to learn and
multiple activities for practicing desired skills.

25. Cognitive Presence: tips & techniques
 Encourage experimentation, divergent thinking &
multiple perspectives in online discussion
through provocative, open-ended questions.
 Model, support & encourage diverse points of
view in online discussion.
 Require discussion summaries that identify steps
in the knowledge creation process.
 Use content & process scaffolds to support
discourse behaviors.
 Use peer review of discussion postings to shape
responses.
 Use online discussion & writing activities to
support conceptual learning and divergent
thinking.

26. Cognitive Presence: tips & techniques
 Use self-testing, practice assignments,
simulations & other interactive activities to
support skill development & convergent thinking.
 Develop grading rubrics for discussion & course
activities that reward desired cognitive behaviors.
 Provide frequent opportunities for testing &
feedback.
 Automate testing & feedback when possible.
 Develop general learning modules with
opportunities for active learning, assessment &
feedback that can be shared among courses &/or
accessed by students for remediation or
enrichment.

27. Cognitive Presence: tips & techniques
 Present words in spoken form, use words and
pictures simultaneously to explain concepts.
 Avoid extraneous video & audio, do not add
redundant on-screen text.
 Begin presentations with descriptions of
components & organization.
 Allow learners to control the pace of
presentations.

28. the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive
and social processes for the purpose of realizing
personally meaningful and educationally
worthwhile learning outcomes
teaching presence

29. elements –
design and organization, facilitation, direct instruction
teaching presence

30. content analysis– “additional comments:”
course
assignments
affect
course
design
instructor
instructor instructor
/discussion feedback
(Swan, Schenker, Lin, Shea & Aviv, 2006)
learning

31. changing instructor roles
(Coppola, Hiltz & Rotter, 2001)
 cognitive, affective, managerial
 cognitive role shifts to one of deeper complexity
 affective role requires faculty to find new tools to
express emotion
 managerial role requires greater attention to detail,
more structure, additional student monitoring

32. research findings
 strong correlations between learner’s perceived &
actual interactions w/ instructors and their
perceived learning (Swan, Shea, Fredericksen, Pickett,
Pelz & Maher, 2000; Jiang & Ting, 2000; Richardson &
Swan, 2003)
 strong correlations between all three elements of
teaching presence and student satisfaction and
perceived learning in online courses (Shea,
Frederickson, Pickett & Pelz, 2003; Shea, Pickett & Pelz,
2004)

33. teaching presence: instructors
SUMMER 2002 SPRING 2003
(n=1140) (n=6088)
satisfaction per. learn. satisfaction per. learn.
r p r p r p r p
design & < < < <
organization .64 .01 .59 .01 .64 .01 .60 .01
facilitating < < < <
discourse .64 .01 .58 .01 .61 .01 .58 .01
direct < < < <
instruction .64 .01 .61 .01 .63 .01 .61 .01
(Shea, et al., 2003, 2004)

34. teaching presence: students
SUMMER 2002 SPRING 2003
(n=1140) (n=6088)
satisfaction per. learn. satisfaction per. learn.
r p r p r p r p
(design &
organization)
facilitating < < < <
discourse .36 .01 .37 .01 .41 .01 .43 .01
direct < < < <
instruction .39 .01 .39 .01 .40 .01 .43 .01
(Shea, et al., 2003, 2004)

35. research findings
 teaching presence linked to development of a
sense of community in online courses (Shea, Li,
Swan & Pickett, 2005)
 critical importance of teaching presence to
successful online learning (Garrison & Cleveland-
Innes, 2005; Murphy, 2004; Swan & Shih, 2005;
Vaughan & Garrison, 2006; Wu & Hiltz, 2004)

36. What could you do to help establish
teaching presence in online courses?

37. Teaching Presence: tips & techniques
 Provide frequent opportunities for both public
and private interactions with students.
 Provide students with timely & supportive
feedback.
 Restrain from being overly “present” in online
discussions, rather facilitate student interaction.
 Apply collaborative learning principles to
support small group discussion and
collaborative projects.
 Design diverse, graded activities to be
completed every week.

38. Teaching Presence: tips & techniques
 Design courses for learner choice, flexibility &
control.
 Design and review courses for clarity &
consistency.
 Ensure courses are well organized and that the
organization is clear to students & easy to
navigate.
 Clearly state course goals and instructional
expectations.
 Provide a detailed course schedule including due
dates for all assignments.
 Provide students with explicit and redundant
instructions for all course activities.

39. Teaching Presence: tips & techniques
 Provide clear grading guidelines including
rubrics for complex assignments.
 Review changing faculty roles and reflect on
your own cognitive, affective & managerial
behaviors.
 Develop forums or learning communities for
online faculty to share experiences & support
one another.

41. COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY SURVEY
(Arbaugh, Cleveland-Innes, Diaz, Garrison, Ice,
Richardson, Shea & Swan)

42. CoI survey
 9 social presence items (3 affective expression, 3
open communication, 3 group cohesion)
 12 cognitive presence items (3 triggering, 3
exploration, 3 integration, 3 resolution)
 13 teaching presence items (4 design & facilitation,
6 facilitation of discourse, 3 direct instruction)

43. instrument development
 work on the development of a unified survey
instrument began in December 2006
 review of research and commonality of themes
 consensus on current items and development on
new items – especially cognitive presence

44. research findings
 tested in graduate courses at four institutions in
the US and Canada
 principal component factor analysis
 three factor model predicted by CoI framework
confirmed (Arbaugh et al, 2008; Swan et al, 2008)

45. research findings
 significant relationships between teaching
presence and cognitive presence, satisfaction &
perceived learning; between cognitive presence
and satisfaction & perceived learning; between
social presence & satisfaction (Akyol & Garrison, in
press)

46. research findings
social presence
.52 (.52)** .52 (.49)**
teaching presence cognitive presence
.49(.47)**
(Shea & Bidjermo, 2008)

47. research findings
 study of effects of embedded audio feedback on
student learning found positive increases on 1
social presence, 3 teaching presence, and 2
cognitive presence items (Ice, Curtis, Philips & Wells,
2007)
 also being used to study virtual communities of
practice (Radcliffe, Strobel, Brophy & Richardson, p.c.)
and blended learning (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008;
Vaughan & Garrison, 2006)

48. institutional deployment
 APUS
 end of course survey - comparisons being made by
school, program, course and instructor using
descriptive statistics and factor patterns
 inform the instructional design process – impacts
factor pattern in TP (e.g. instructional design
influences correlations with ID&O and FD & DI)
 assess the efficacy of the integration of new
technologies – notable differences across
presences with factor cohesion stronger in SP

49. problem area
 Literature notes that discussions frequently don’t
move beyond the exploration phase
 evidence that students may be taking what they
learn in discussions and moving to integration and
resolution in personal or small group projects

50. How might you make use of
the Community of Inquiry Survey?

52. USING THE
COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY FR AMEWORK
TO INFORM INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN & TEACHING

53. elements –
design and organization, facilitation, direct instruction
teaching presence

54. design & organization
 setting curriculum
 designing activities & assessments
 establishing parameters
 establishing netiquette
Go to Handout

55. design & organization
 Social Presence principle – establish a climate
that will create a CoI and support purposeful
collaboration
 Cognitive Presence principle – establish
opportunities for critical reflection and
discourse that will support systematic inquiry

56. facilitation of discourse (and more?)
 setting learning climate
 prompting reflection & discussion
 encouraging, acknowledging, reinforcing
student participation
 identifying areas of agreement/disagreement
 mediating consensus

57. facilitation of discourse (and more?)
 Social Presence principle – sustain & build
learning community through a shift from purely
affective to purposefully cohesive responses
 Cognitive Presence principle – encourage &
support the progression of inquiry through to
resolution

58. direct instruction
 present content
 ask leading questions / focus discussion
 confirm understanding through informal &
formal assessment
 diagnose & remediate misconceptions
 inject knowledge from diverse sources with links
for students to pursue

59. direct instruction
 Social Presence principle – manage collaborative
relationships to support students in assuming
increasing responsibility for their own learning
 Cognitive Presence principle – promote
metacognitive awareness and insure that inquiry
progresses through to resolution

60. (How) Can you use the Community of
Inquiry framework to the teaching and/or
design of your courses or program?

61. (How) Might you make use of the Community
of Inquiry Survey as an evaluation and/or
assessment tool?

62. COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY SURVEY

63. Teaching Presence
Design & Organization
1. The instructor clearly communicated important course
topics.
2. The instructor clearly communicated important course
goals.
3. The instructor provided clear instructions on how to
participate in course learning activities.
4. The instructor clearly communicated important due
dates/time frames for learning activities.

64. Teaching Presence
Facilitation
5. The instructor was helpful in identifying areas of
agreement and disagreement on course topics that helped
me to learn.
6. The instructor was helpful in guiding the class towards
understanding course topics in a way that helped me
clarify my thinking.
7. The instructor helped to keep course participants engaged
and participating in productive dialogue.
8. The instructor helped keep the course participants on task
in a way that helped me to learn.
9. The instructor encouraged course participants to explore
new concepts in this course.
10. Instructor actions reinforced the development of a sense of
community among course participants.

65. Teaching Presence
Direct Instruction
11. The instructor helped to focus discussion on relevant
issues in a way that helped me to learn.
12. The instructor provided feedback helped me understand
my strengths and weaknesses.
13. The instructor provided feedback in a timely fashion.

66. Social Presence
Affective Expression
14. Getting to know other course participants gave me a sense
of belonging in the course.
15. I was able to form distinct impressions of some course
participants.
16. Online or web-based communication is an excellent
medium for social interaction.
Open Communication
17. I felt comfortable conversing through the online medium.
18. I felt comfortable participating in the course discussions.
19. I felt comfortable interacting with other course
participants.

67. Social Presence
Group Cohesion
20. I felt comfortable disagreeing with other course
participants while still maintaining a sense of trust.
21. I felt that my point of view was acknowledged by other
course participants.
22. Online discussions help me to develop a sense of
collaboration.

68. Cognitive Presence
Triggering Event
23. Problems posed increased my interest in course issues.
24. Course activities piqued my curiosity.
25. I felt motivated to explore content related questions.
Exploration
26. I utilized a variety of information sources to explore
problems posed in this course.
27. Brainstorming and finding relevant information helped me
resolve content related questions.
28. Online discussions were valuable in helping me appreciate
different perspectives.

69. Cognitive Presence
Integration
29. Combining new information helped me answer questions
raised in course activities.
30. Learning activities helped me construct
explanations/solutions.
31. Reflection on course content and discussions helped me
understand fundamental concepts in this class.
Resolution
32. I can describe ways to test and apply the knowledge
created in this course.
33. I have developed solutions to course problems that can be
applied in practice.
34. I can apply the knowledge created in this course to my
work or other non-class related activities.