Community of Inquiry: Framework for Blended Learning Design

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Community of InquiryFramework for Blended
Learning Design

• Dr. Randy Garrison
• Dr. Norm Vaughan

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Outline

• Blended learning
• Community of inquiry framework
• Institutional leadership
• Scenarios and student perceptions of blended
  learning
• Teaching presence principles, guidelines,
  strategies

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Reflecting on Blended Learning
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Blended Learning
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Blended Learning Your Thoughts

• Definition?
• Advantages?
• Challenges?

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Blended Learning

• The U of Calgary defines blended learning as a
  blending of campus and online educational
  experiences for the express purpose of enhancing
  the quality of the learning experience.
• Blended learning is seen as an opportunity to
  fundamentally redesign how we approach teaching
  and learning in ways that higher education
  institutions may benefit from increased
  effectiveness, convenience and efficiency.
• At the heart of blended learning redesign is the
  goal to engage students in critical discourse and
  reflection.
• The goal is to create dynamic and vital
  communities of inquiry where students take
  responsibility to construct meaning and confirm
  understanding through active participation in the
  inquiry process.

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Community

• community means meaningful association,
  association based on common interest and
  endeavor. The essence of community is
  communication,
• (John Dewey)

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Educational Community

• we have at our disposal one of the greatest
  vehicles for community building known to
  humankind the one called education.
• Palmer, 2002

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Inquiry

• Is problem or question driven
• Typically has a small-group feature
• Includes critical discourse
• Is frequently multi-disciplinary
• Incorporates research methods such as information
  gathering and synthesis of ideas

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Community Of Inquiry

• The importance of a community of inquiry is that,
  while the objective of critical reflection is
  intellectual autonomy, in reality, critical
  reflection is thoroughly social and communal.
• Lipman, 1991

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Community of Inquiry Framework
Social Presence 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.
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.
Teaching Presence The design, facilitation and
direction of cognitive and social processes for
the purpose of realizing personally meaningful
and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.
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CoI Categories/Indicators
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Social Presence

• Social presence is defined here as the ability of
  participants to project themselves socially and
  purposefully within a community of inquiry.
• Effect of medium not most salient factor
  (contrary to Short, et al., 1976)

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SP Categories

• Open Communication
• Group Cohesion
• Affective Expression

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Questions

• Have we placed too much emphasis on social
  presence (SP) in supporting online and blended
  communities of inquiry??
• Is SP a required precursor to cognitive presence?

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Nature of a CoI?

• Learning space or social space?
• Their use of the medium was functional,
  organized, time-driven, and carefully evaluated.
  (Conrad, 2002)
• Manage pathological politeness
• Build community judiciously (takes time)

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Cognitive Presence

• Extent to which participants critically reflect,
  (re)construct meaning, and engage in discourse
  for the purpose of sharing meaning and confirming
  understanding.

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Practical Inquiry Model (Adapted from Garrison
Archer, 2000)
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Teaching Presence

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

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TP Categories

• Design Organization
• Facilitation
• Direct Instruction

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CoI Framework

• What is the role of teaching presence? How
  essential is TP?
• Do we over-emphasize teaching presence?

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How Essential?

• The body of evidence is growing rapidly attesting
  to the importance of teaching presence for
  successful online learning
• The consensus is that teaching presence is a
  significant determinate of student satisfaction,
  perceived learning, and sense of community.

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University of Calgary Context
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Why Blended Learning?

• New approaches to teaching (change culture)
• Enhance student learning
• Maximize institutional resources
• Access convenience

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Strategic Challenges

• Awareness and understanding of inquiry and
  blended learning
• Student orientation (resistance)
• Commitment to fundamental redesign
• Strategic plan covering all four undergraduate
  years
• Teaching-research imbalance

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History of BL at U of C

• Institutional Learning Plan
• Blended Learning Position Paper
• Link to inquiry based learning
• Raising Awareness
• Steve Sorg, UCF (2002)
• Carol Twigg, NCAT (2004)
• Curtis Bonk, Indiana University (2005)
• Peter Bullen Peter Chatterton, University of
  Hertfordshire (2006)
• Grant program

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LEADERSHIP

• What are the leadership characteristics we need
  in higher education?

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Leadership Characteristics

• Vision
• insightful
• knowledgeable
• Courage
• decisiveness
• integrity
• Personal attributes
• focus on organization not self
• recognize talent
• open, willingness to listen
• accountable

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Vision
Judgment
Credibility
LEADER-SHIP
Personal Skills/Values
Courage
Authenticity
RESULTS
Transformational Leaders
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Leadership Constraints

• Collegiality consensus
• Governance model
• Loyalty to discipline silos
• Morale budget cuts
• Conception selection of leaders

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What We Did

• Draft policy, set priorities
• Provide incentives/financial support
• Strategic selection of prototypes focus on
  limited number of prototypes the first year
• Single POP for support, quality assurance, and
  project management
• Mandatory participation in ITBL 401
• Study and evaluate all projects/developments
• Create a task group to address issues,
  challenges, opportunities and communicate to
  community

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IBL Program

• Faculty apply for course redesign grants (10,000
  with one 30,000 grant for a major course
  redesign)
• Proposal reviews and selections are made by the
  Inquiry Learning Action Group
• Teaching Learning Centre provides course
  redesign consultation and support (define course
  goals and expectations, redesign learning
  activities and assessment assignments, adapt and
  develop online tools, evaluate implementation,
  and disseminate results)

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Innovation Redesign

• Preference will be for applications that
  demonstrate true innovation in teaching and
  learning through inquiry and blended learning
  approaches
• Enhance the quality of teaching and learning
  (e.g., increased discourse collaboration)

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Inquiry Through BL Program

• Program planning began in 2002 virtual
  participation in the University of Central
  Floridas - Interactive Distributed Learning for
  Technology Mediated Course Delivery (IDL6543)
• Development of the Inquiry through Blended
  Learning (ITBL) Program in 2004

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Inquiry Through Blended Learning

• Support Program
• Orientation course redesign guide and initial
  meeting with representatives from the Teaching
  Learning Centre, Information Technologies and the
  Library
• Faculty community of inquiry blending of face
  to face luncheon meetings with online learning
  activities to support project development
• Project team meetings Teaching Learning
  Centre consultant with faculty, graduate students
  and staff involved in each specific project

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Campus Wide Support

• Blended learning workshop series
• Individual and group consultation (e.g.
  departmental workshops)
• Presentations by external experts
• Handbook for Blended Learning Online Study
  Group
• Tip Sheets 2 page handouts on blended learning
  topics
• ITBL Resource Wiki

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Question

• Is there a typical blended learning course
  design?
• What does a blended learning course look like?

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Scenario One Large Enrollment Course

• Introductory Micro and Macroeconomics
• Goal to increase
• student engagement with course material outside
  of class time
• opportunities to apply theory to practical
  problems
• access and quality of tutorial resources
• Solution
• Replacement of scheduled classroom tutorials with
  interactive online tutorials and assignments
  (Blackboard with links to Aplia.com)

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Scenario Two Medium Enrollment Course

• International Development Studies
• Goal to increase
• Student peer interaction and critical dialogue
  during class time
• Solution
• Lectures replaced by Macromedia Breeze
  presentations (narrated PowerPoint with embedded
  videos and self-assessments) accessed outside of
  class time within the Blackboard learning
  management system
• Class time used exclusively for group work (60
  students - 20 meet on Monday, 20 meet on
  Wednesday and 20 on Friday)

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Scenario Three Seminar Course

• Child and Youth Health Promotion in Schools
• Goal to increase
• Course scheduling flexibility
• Exposure to diverse perspectives
• Solution
• Weekend course workshops
• Virtual presentations by online guests through
  the Elluminate Live! system and related
  discussions hosted within the Blackboard
  learning management system

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Advantages and Challenges
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ITBL Student Survey - Overview

• Winter 2006 - 9 courses
• 241 completed paper-based surveys
• 76 return rate
• 50 first yr
• 78 female
• Average age 21.4 yrs

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ITBL Student Survey - Advantages

• Interaction - amount
• With other students
• 77.6 increased 15.8 nd
• group work was primary reason
• With instructor
• 55.2 increased 27.4 nd
• accessibility was primary reason

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ITBL Student Survey - Advantages

• Interaction quality
• With other students
• 68.9 increased 25.3 nd
• group work and discussions were primary reasons
• With instructor
• 58.5 increased 27.8 nd
• accessibility was primary reason

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ITBL Student Survey Advantages

• Most effective aspects of ITBL courses
• group work
• discussions face to face and online
• increased interaction with other students and
  instructors
• online resources
• greater flexibility
• self directed learning opportunities
• application of learning
• variety of assignments and methods of assessment
• integration of online and in-class learning

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ITBL Student Survey Challenges

• Least effective aspects of ITBL courses
• 48 indicated that they were satisfied with this
  ITBL course
• 45 indicated that given the opportunity they
  would take another ITBL course in the future
• 19 indicated that ITBL courses are sufficiently
  identified and expectations made clear in the U
  of C course calendar.

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ITBL Student Survey Challenges

• Least effective aspects of ITBL courses
• lack of clear course expectations, organization,
  structure and direction
• online component
• increased workload
• poor or lack of communication
• technological glitches and problems

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Teaching Presence
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PRINCIPLES STRATEGIES

• Structure
• Design
• social presence
• cognitive presence
• Facilitation
• social presence
• cognitive presence
• Direction
• social presence
• cognitive presence

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DESIGN Social Presence

• Principle Plan to establish a climate that will
  create a community of inquiry.
• Social presence supports purposeful collaboration
  and a questioning predisposition.
• Strategy small group introductions
• Technique?

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DESIGN Cognitive Presence

• Principle Plan for critical reflection and
  discourse and tasks that will support systematic
  inquiry.
• The design of academic activities have a
  significant impact on how students approach
  learning
• Strategy include collaborative activities
  discuss CP (metacognition)
• Technique?

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FACILITATION SP

• Principle Establish community by shifting to
  purposeful, collaborative communication.
• The challenge here is to maintain and enhance
  group cohesion
• Strategy support collaboration
• Technique?

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FACILITATION CP

• Principle Encourage and support the progression
  of inquiry through to resolution.
• Facilitation is essential to keep the discourse
  on track and ensure that inquiry evolves.
• Strategy focus discussion and move to
  resolution
• Technique?

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DIRECT INSTRUCTION - SP

• Principle Manage collaborative relationships to
  support students to assume responsibility and
  sustain community.
• Direct instruction can increase confidence and
  respect by managing potential conflict
• Strategy focus on goals
• Technique?

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DIRECT INSTRUCTION - CP

• Principle Ensure that discourse moves to
  resolution and metacognitive awareness results.
• The primary role for direct instruction is to
  ensure that discourse and reflection achieve HOL
  outcomes.
• Strategy review inquiry model
• Technique?

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ASSESSMENT

• Principle Ensure assessment is congruent with
  intended learning outcomes.
• Assessment will inevitably shape how students
  approach the educational experience.
• Strategy assess HOL
• Technique?

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Summary

• Design
• plan for social and cognitive presence
• Facilitation
• establish social and cognitive presence
• Direct Instruction
• sustain progressive development of social and
  cognitive presence

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CONCLUSION

• Questions
• http//tlc.ucalgary.ca/teaching/programs/itbl/

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BLENDED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION D. R.
Garrison N. Vaughan Jossey-Bass
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Contact Information