Unit 1 Study Guide
Educational experience as a collaborative communication
Social context affects the nature of learning activities and outcomes (Resnick, 1991). Limpman (1991) notes the importance of community in
higher-order thinking. He describes a community of inquiry as context for educational experience if critical thinking is made easy.
Garrison and Archer(2001) view an educational experience as a collaborative communication process for building meaningful knowledge. They
said that collaboration is regarded as an essential aspect of cognitive development since cognition cannot be separated from social
context. The cognitive element is closely connected to the social element. Vygotsky (1978) said social interaction plays a fundamental
role in the development of cognition. He (1978) states "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the
social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people and then inside the child. This applies equally to voluntary
attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between
individuals." (p57).
Community of inquiry model
As the communication in a computer conference is different from a face to face situation and use text based message, teaching presence is
needed for supporting critical thinking. Anderson & Garrison (1995) said that instructional design and the effective use of technology is
of the greatest importance in achieving quality of learning results. The community of inquiry framework includes the three essential
elements - teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence.
Teaching presence is defined as the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing
personally meaningful and educational worthwhile learning outcomes. Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, and Archer (2001) identify knowledge
hidden in the data from the actual interactions between and among students and on-line teachers as they develop and facilitate learning
activities. They examined messages for their contribution to three critical functions of the online teacher - designing learning
activities, establishing an active learning community, and providing direct instruction. These tools (analysis of the transcripts) help
teachers to assess their own postings and value feedback. Also, it can be used for research to diagnose problems in on-line teaching.
Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, and Archer (2001) state social presence is the ability of learners to project their personal characteristics
into the community of inquiry, thereby presenting themselves as 'real people.' They found instructional media such as computer
conferencing enrich high levels of student-student and student-teacher interaction. They can support models of teaching and learning that
are highly interactive with the ideal of learning community.Cognitive presence is the extent to which the participants in any particular
configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer
(2001) mention a core concept in defining a community of inquiry is cognitive presence. The practical inquiry model use cognitive presence
for the purpose of developing a tool to assess critical discourse and reflection.
Unit One: Understanding the Learning Community and Online Discourse
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