As a person with my head in the stiff natural
sciences I can sometimes find text and wording about pedagogic theories difficult
to understand. There are so many sentences explaining the same thing! At least
that is how I perceive it. So I often have to “translate” the pedagogic texts
into something I can grasp. I had to do that with the Community of Inquiry, or “the
CoI”, like you say if you are cool and in the business. Which I am not so to me
this is translated into “Three things for a successful learning environment”.
So the three things you need for fulfilling this is cognitive, social and
teaching presence. These all have fancy definitions to which I did a “The CoI
for dummies” translation. Behold!
Cognitive presence
“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.”
Or – the students can understand the content and can use it
Social presence
“Social presence is the ability of learners to project their personal characteristics into the community of inquiry, thereby presenting themselves as ‘real people.’”
Or - the students get to know each other
Teaching 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.”
Or - the course is outline so that the students find it meaningful and can understand the relevance of the content.
It may be a simplification of the theory but after translating the complicated
definitions it all makes sense, seems less intimidating and something I can store
in my brain and use.
"The Community of Inquiry".
Athabasca University 2014.
As someone from a science background too, I can relate to the pedagogical terms being confusing and hard to grasp. Thank you for your short and sweet translation of the COI that makes it much easier to catch at first glance!
SvaraRaderaWe in the social sciences, on the other hand, prefer convoluted terminologies, otherwise we cannot understand the theories... ;D Just kidding, I think it is really useful to create versions for the dummies that we all are when confronted with a new literature which sounds intellectually fancy and intimidating. So thanks for this Cecilia!
SvaraRaderaThanks Cecilia
SvaraRaderaI just wonder, what does it mean to get to know eachother, I mean really? In what sense does context matter, what context should be provided? What does outline mean? Can that be summarised as meaningful content?
I think your post is great. It is provoking enough to make me illustrate that even the simple straight forward (it seems) explanation holds complexity in need of being understood beyond prejudice.
On the other hand, in some situations simplifying make you crack, as in this film clip.
https://youtu.be/PnvXnXTDTHE
Hey Cecilia, amazing post, thanks! I also had a great difficulty in absorbing this "abstract" concepts and you did a nice "translation" of them.
SvaraRaderaI love your idea for The CoI for dummies.... Thank you! being able to "translate" and communicate complex frameworks into plain language is quite a useful skill!!!/ Maya PBL5
SvaraRadera