Building Community and Belonging

Building Community and Belonging

When considering community building in your online classes an educational model most often considered is the Community of Inquiry model or COI. Below is a brief overview of the COI model, and resources for further research into this model.

Community of Inquiry

 

Community of Inquiry Framework
Community of Inquiry Model (Source Links to an external site.)

"The Community of Inquiry theoretical framework represents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning experience through the development of three interdependent elements: social, cognitive and teaching presence." The Community of Inquiry framework is divided into three sections: teaching presence, cognitive presence, social presence.

Teaching Presence

Within an in-person classroom environment establishing teaching presence is as easy as showing up. You can argue what percentage of life is just showing up. In an online environment, however "showing up" looks a bit different. 

“In the face-to-face classroom, we don’t actually have to think too much about being present because we’re there—it’s a physical thing. In the online space there is no physicality. I’m not there physically. I don’t see people eye to eye. We may not even be in the same time zone. So how do I convey to the students that there is somebody who is participating, who is a leader in this educational experience?”

-Larry Ragan (source Links to an external site.)

  Within this article, the author goes on to say "It’s not enough to log in and monitor a course. Instructors need to show that they are active in the course." Need help creating a teaching presence? The NLC Instructional Designers would be happy to help.

Source: Creating a Sense of Instructor Presence in the Online Classroom Links to an external site.

Cognitive Presence

Cognitive Presence is the second section of the COI Framework. Here are the top 5 ways from a list of 20 ways to create a cognitive presence online: 

  1. Start with the end in mind. Clearly communicate to students what they will learn in class.
  2. Provide a variety of assignments that students can pick and choose from to demonstrate learning.
  3. Provide a variety of different types of content and assignments: video, writing, audio, reflection, team-based work, readings, games, etc.
  4. Provide many low-stakes formative assessment opportunities.
  5. Encourage reflection.

Source Links to an external site.

Social Presence

As you walk into a classroom interaction is seamless, and almost invisible. You talk to your students, your students talk to each other, and the class goes on. In the online environment, this is not a seamless process. The Quality Matters rubric in General Standard 5 discusses 3 types of interaction that occur online. learner-instructor, learner-content, and learner-learner. It is crucial to provide students within the online environment all three of these if appropriate. Below are some examples of the three types of interaction.

Learner-instructor: An assignment given that will receive instructor feedback. An instructor communicating through a discussion board. An instructor sending out a weekly announcement.

Learner-content: readings, watching a recorded lecture, listening to a podcast

Learner-learner: Group discussions, small group assignments, peer review assignments