The work described in this chapter was developed from a conceptual model that was shaped by two main components: the Community of Inquiry Model by Randy Garrison and his colleagues (Garrison, et al., 1999); and Jon Dron and Terry Anderson’s work on Teaching Crowds and Cooperative Freedoms (Dron & Anderson, 2014); Dron, 2007).
Inspired by the work of John Dewey (1959) and Charles Pierce (Klein, 2013), Randy Garrison and his colleagues developed the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999). The Community of Inquiry framework is “a process model of online learning which views the online educational experience as arising from the interaction of three presences – social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence,” (Swan, Garrison, & Richardson, 2009, p. 44). This model is depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The Community of Inquiry Model
Garrison and his colleagues have further defined each of these presences. Social presence is “the degree to which participants in computer-mediated communication feel affectively connected one to another,” (Swann, et al., 2009, p, 52). Cognitive presence is defined as the process of practical inquiry:
Practical inquiry begins with a triggering event in the form of an issue, problem or dilemma that needs resolution. As a result of this event, there is a natural shift to exploration, the search for relevant information that can provide insight into the challenge at hand. As ideas crystallize, there is a move into the third phase – integration -- in which connections are made and there is a search for a viable explanation. Finally, there is a selection and testing (through vicarious or direct application) of the most viable solution and resolution. (Swann, et all, 2009, pp. 50-51)
Teaching presence is defined as “as “the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes,” (Swann, Garrison, and Richardson, 2009, p. 55).
In traditional learning environments, those that are typically teacher centered, the focus is usually on teaching presence (what is happening and how is it happening) and cognitive presence (what are we learning), with social presence loosely recognized and tolerated. For example much of the work in teacher education programs in classroom management, for example, focuses on the control of student-to-student interactions such as those teaching strategies that determine when students have or do not have opportunities to respond to the teacher or one another (Haydon, et al., 2012). These types of constraints on student social presence are quite common.
The real innovation of the work of Garrison and his colleagues was to describe and validate the interconnected whole formed by the intersections of these three presences. It was this innovation and intersection that influenced the work described in this chapter.