Engaging a Workbench Dialectic Inquiry Model in an Online Master's Degree Program: TPACK Development Through Communities of Inquiry

Introduction

The nature of an online environment creates limitations to the interactions students depend on to navigate the tasks associated with learning. Critiques of online education often focus on issues of reduced student satisfaction, perceived isolation, and inability to form the supporting relationships often found in face-to-face learning experiences (Jaggars, 2014; Valenzuela, Fisher, Whale, & Adapa, 2013). Literature provides insight into the development of a variety of pedagogies and strategies where community building is facilitated through leveraging different technologies. Real-time, interactive technologies such as instant messaging applications and streaming video applications have been utilized to provide a semblance of immediacy, where students are able to form relationships and collaborate in learning communities (Kim, Glassman, Meredith, & Morris, 2015). Other research has investigated how text-based, asynchronous technologies, such as forums, can provide an environment where students are able to form communities of inquiry where they might engage in meaningful discussions and build their knowledge (Kovanović, Gašević, Joksimović, Hatala, & Adesope, 2015; Niess & Gillow-Wiles, 2013).

Regardless of the technologies used, one recurring theme throughout the literature is the need for instructors to be proactive in how they facilitate the formation and development of online learning communities (Akyol & Garrison, 2008; Cho, 2011; Garrison & Akyol, 2013; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001; Hew, 2015; Niess & Gillow-Wiles, 2013; Rubin, Fernandes, & Avgerinou, 2012; Swan & Shih, 2005; Tucker, Willis, Blocher, & de Montes, 2002). Leaving students to fend for themselves in forming relationships often results in a continuation of students’ perceptions of isolation and lack of connections with other students and the instructor (Phirangee, Epp, & Hewitt, 2016; Jackson, Jones, & Rodriguez, 2010).

Targeted, structured course design is essential for students to transcend the sparse online learning environment and realize the strengths and opportunities available in a digitally mediated context (Costley, 2016). Purposeful course design providing students with opportunities to engage with other students and the instructor in creating their knowledge gives students a sense of place and belonging that increases their satisfaction and their success (McDaniels, Pfund, & Barnicle, 2016). One potentially useful model for designing courses that support student engagement is the dialectical model of inquiry found in the science community, referred to as a ‘workbench model’. This model suggests potential insights for online course structures and activities supporting students in both the creation of communities of inquiry and in the creation of an individual and shared knowledge. These communities of inquiry might also provide the motivation, communication, and structure necessary to sustain individual inquiry (Magnusson, Palincsar, & Templin, 2004).

The weaknesses and drawbacks of situating learning in an online environment create a need for a supported, instructor-created learning trajectory where social presence is established to facilitate cognitive presence (Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006). The structure provided by the workbench dialectic model potentially provides a framework for students to engage in the kind of organic interactions that develop social presence while serving as a pathway to transition social conversations into cognitive discourse.