Community of inquiry model

The Community of Inquiry model describes the core elements that we need to attend to when designing engaging, online and hybrid learning experiences: Social Presence, Cognitive Presence, and Teaching Presence.

Topics

Social presence

Social presence is defined as “a level of connectedness among instructors and students that determines how motivated participants are to take an active role in their own and their peers’ meaning-making processes” (Whitside, Dikkers, & Lewis, 2014). Below, we share key elements for designing for social presence, as well as some sample activities that you might use to incorporate social presence into your course design.

Design Elements Activities
Communication
Group Cohesion
  • Ask students to share how they’re feeling in a meme
  • Ask students to help develop community standards
  • Create an AMA (Ask Me Anything) or class café discussion board
Collaboration
  • Have students work together in teams to compete in a light-hearted way against each other.
  • Group presentations or projects

Cognitive presence

Cognitive presence is defined as “the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse” (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001, 2004). Below, we share key elements for designing for cognitive presence, as well as some sample activities that you might use to incorporate cognitive presence into your course design.

Design Elements Activities
Challenge or question Ask students to pose questions based on the readings (this could be done via discussion forum or as a shared annotation exercise)
Exploration of problem Ask students to perform research around a question or topic, and share their list of resources and brief summaries in a discussion forum
Proposing solutions
  • Give students the opportunity to annotate resources which propose solutions to a given problem
  • Ask students to work together to propose solutions based on their research
Resolution Provide a reflective journal assignment in which students are prompted to resolve a problem and/or reflect on their learning

Teaching presence

Teaching presence is defined as “the design, facilitation, and direction of the social and cognitive processes for the purpose of realizing the relevant learning outcomes” (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001). Below, we share key elements for designing for teaching presence, as well as some sample activities that you might use to incorporate teaching presence into your course design.

Design Elements Activities
Instructor Guidance
  • Have a clear structure for weekly activities (& communicate to students)
  • Have clear expectations for student work (& communicate to students)
Building Understanding
  • Record short videos with presentations of content
  • Feedback on assignments (this can be audio or video, too)
  • Jump into discussion board to share observations or adjusting questions
Motivating
  • Let students know when things are going well
  • Build-in low stakes challenges, light-hearted competition, and silly rewards.