A Community of Inquiry is an educational theory developed by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer and described in Garrison’s book E-learning in the 21st Century: A Community of Inquiry Framework for Research and Practice (2017) that articulates how online classrooms and eLearning can utilize effective social, cognitive and teaching presences and provide a community atmosphere to enable participants to make meaning and integrate it into their personal knowledge base. This community of learners works together to achieve a deep understanding of a particular area of knowledge. They describe their framework as “collaborative constructivist” or the utilization of a group, social environment to make personal meaning. This meaning is constructed through repetitively sharing thoughts and ideas. They stress that it is collaboration, not cooperation that is required. Collaboration requires open communication to develop shared solutions to problems. Learning as an individual, even with reflection, generally results in seeking information to confirm already held beliefs. In a community of inquiry, all the learners assume the position of teacher and learner at various points in the learning (Garrison, 2017).
A Community of Inquiry Overview
Garrison (2017) defines a community of learners as a group of participants who assume both teaching and learning roles. A back-and-forth discourse allows the participants to facilitate inquiry, construct meaning, and validate their understanding, Garrison feels that to best utilize online and blended learning effectively, roles should not be assigned to participants, but instead, a learning community model should be adopted to search for personal meaning and understanding through the process of active inquiry. The educational experience is made up of a social presence, a cognitive presence, and a teaching presence. Each member of the community will assume varying degrees of the teaching presence, with the students assuming a gradually increasing role. The learning should take place in an environment of trust, communication, and cohesion, which is defined as the social presence (Garrison, 2017).
Social Presence
Social presence is the ability of all members to identify as part of a group. It leads to a feeling of group cohesiveness and a feeling of value for each group member. All members develop personal relationships over time and feel comfortable communicating openly in their group. A significant concern about communication in an eLearning environment is the lack of non-verbal cues and the fear about whether written communication can, in some measure, compensate for this. Written correspondence may help with the conundrum of trying to establish personal relationships in an academic environment while allowing participants the freedom and encouragement to be skeptical and critical of all new ideas (Garrison, 2017). Written communication may also allow for a greater period of reflection, as well as allow introverts time to express themselves.
Emotion
Several factors influence the social presence of a learning community, not the least of which is emotion. Garrison (2017) describes many studies arguing for the strong influence of emotion on a collaborative approach to both thinking and learning. Emotion can change throughout the class, but it is pervasive. Emotion plays a role in decision making and can often be the defining factor in determining whether a group can move forward. A second factor that influences social presence is interpersonal relationships. If the learning environment has too many strong interpersonal relationships, then group cohesiveness will decline. Garrison also feels that while communication tends to decline over time in a group, the cohesiveness increases. Teacher presence is also positively correlated with student social presence. Studies cited by Garrison have found a relationship between social presence, satisfaction, and perceived learning. Motivation is the last factor cited by Garrison. It is required to maintain interest and personal investment in the class. Feeling valued as a member of a group helps to maintain motivation (Garrison, 2017).
Categories of Social Presence
Garrison then goes on to describe the three broad categories of social presences: affective communication, open communication, and cohesive communication responses. Affective communication can be incorporated in an online class to show respect and welcome by the use of emoticons, capitalization, careful use of humor, and personal references. This communication should encourage a sense of belonging and allow participants the feeling of interaction with other participants. Open communication can be facilitated by maintaining an environment of respect while encouraging questioning and discourse. In the online classroom, the use of discussion boards and text chats can facilitate communication. Interpersonal and open communication can support group cohesiveness. Increased group cohesiveness will lead to better collaboration. A balance of social cohesiveness must be maintained: too little will inhibit any meaningful discourse, and too much social presence can lead to inhibition of the inquiry process (Garrison, 2017).
Cognitive Presence
Garrison describes the cognitive presence as the process that learners must go through to make meaning of the content. Making meaning requires both reflective thinking on the part of the individual and discourse within the group. Critical thinking and cognitive presence are closely related. Critical thinking is needed to both authenticate existing knowledge and to generate new knowledge. Critical thinking requires the ability to think independently, but also the willingness to be questioned. Critical thinking and creative thinking are both needed in the process of inquiry and to avoid confirmation bias or to look for evidence to support your current beliefs. Reflection and discourse are both required in thinking critically, and a text-based medium may facilitate, rather than inhibit, this process by allowing more time and more chances to edit your work (Garrison, 2017).
Practical Inquiry
Garrison offers the use of the Practical Inquiry model to operationalize cognitive presence. It requires a balance between the deliberation that occurs in your private world and involves reflection and discourse with the shared universe.
The Practical Inquiry model includes four distinct phases: a triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution. The triggering event is a well-thought-out activity or question that engages the participants and gets them to buy-in to the value of the class. This activity should generate curiosity and questions. During this phase, the teacher can present the objectives and expectations of the class.
The second phase is exploration. This phase is the process of trying to understand the nature of the problem and seek the necessary background information. This process requires moving back and forth between a private reflection and public collaboration and could include brainstorming and literature searches. A proper balance must be maintained between seeking enough information to understand the “big idea” of the course without becoming overwhelmed with detail.
Integration, the third phase, is focused on constructing meaning. Students continue to reflect and participate in collaborative discourse. This phase is where students integrate new knowledge into their previous understandings. They should examine different perspectives and explore their thinking as they confirm their new knowledge.
The fourth phase is the resolution phase. This phase frequently requires decreasing the complexity of the problem being studied or defining a specific part of the problem and seeking a solution for it. This phase is where students are required to demonstrate their understanding and be able to defend their thinking. This phase frequently generates new questions. The tendency in many classes is to spend much time on the first two phases and explore them very well, spend less time on the third phase, and very little time on the fourth (Garrison, 2017).
Research has shown that in the online class environment, a natural decrease in participant involvement will occur during the integration and resolution phase as more reflection takes place. How learning outcomes will be measured is another concern and area of research. Assessments such as tests are frequently used, but they tend to measure superficial learning. Garrison advocates for the use of perceived learning as a proxy for learning outcomes. He feels that we must move beyond assessing the individual and move towards more of a shared and distributive learning environment. Instead of individual metacognition or monitoring of thinking and learning, shared metacognition should be utilized in a community of inquiry (Garrison, 2017).
Teaching Presence
The responsibilities of the teacher are complex because they are responsible for creating and shaping the learning environment. They have the responsibility of defining the curriculum and designing educational activities. The teaching presence brings together all elements of the community and works to achieve a balance between meeting individual learner’s goals and encouraging active participation. Individual learners may use the internet and learn about whatever interests them, but the purpose of an academic course is to focus on learning that has societal value as well as helping the individual continue to learn and grow. To encourage active participation, the teacher must be knowledgeable about both content and pedagogy as well as set clear expectations for the course, expect critical discourse, and be willing to step in to clear up misconceptions. According to Garrison (2017), the teacher’s roles fall into three major categories: design and organization, facilitation, and direct instruction. As the class progresses, some of these teacher responsibilities should shift from the teacher to the students.
Design and Organization: Unlike a face-to-face class, an online class may take much more upfront organizational work. The structure of the entire course must be determined before the class begins, but it must retain enough flexibility that the students feel invested in determining the content. The content must be narrow enough to be discussed and evaluated effectively, but links and extra content must be provided for the exploration phase of learning. The teacher must instruct participants on how to best participate in the class as well as provide all relevant due dates and instructions for activities (Garrison, 2017).
Facilitating Discourse: Teachers must be very active on the online discussion boards, clarifying areas of confusion, providing encouragement, and directing the discussion toward the education goals.
Direct Instruction: Teachers must be present to diagnose misconceptions. They should act as the “guide on the side.” Garrison (2011) said that without a strong teacher presence, students tend to be polite, but show limited engagement in learning the content. To get higher-level thinking, teachers must be able to provide timely feedback to students. Teachers must also be present to act as a “sage on the stage” and provide accurate factual information. In an ideal learning environment, there is a balance between the facilitation of discussion and direct instruction.
References
Garrison, D.R. (2017). E-learning in the 21st century: A community of inquiry framework for research and practice.(3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
