Abstract
One of the greatest ways to transform education systems is to develop community-centered professional supports for in-service teachers. Given the rise of distance learning platforms such as massive open online courses (MOOCs), there is a growing potential to deliver such supports at scale. The community of inquiry (CoI) framework models the asynchronous, text-based communication that defines educational experiences within such collaborative learning environments; however, methods of CoI transcript analysis must be improved. This paper uses the University of Helsinki’s 2016 MOOC, Sustainable Energy in Education, as a case study on how the CoI framework can be used to characterize the educational experience of in-service teachers in distance learning environments. Using the CoI coding protocol, this paper employs a transcript analysis of the discussion forum posts on the MOOC (n = 78), and applies improved measures of reliability in order to understand the capacity of CoI transcript analysis to reliably define online learning experiences. The findings suggest that, while the CoI framework is able to characterize some elements of online learning communities, more work needs to be done to ensure the framework captures the more nuanced elements of such educational experiences, such as the effects of course design and the relative engagement of course participants.
Highlights
The understanding that learning is a necessarily collaborative, social exercise is arguably older than the enterprise of formal education itself; the introduction of technology into formal and non-formal learning channels has raised serious questions regarding the viability of supporting such collaboration within emerging virtual contexts [1]
Prior to reporting the frequencies of each community of inquiry (CoI) indicator observed in the discussion forums of the Massive open online courses (MOOCs), it is first necessary to ensure that these findings are reliable
The following section will examine the findings from the transcript analysis alongside to the feedback presented by course participants in the final questionnaire of the course in order to better understand if there were relevant features of educational experiences within the MOOC that were not picked up by the CoI framework, but were expressed within the direct feedback participants or revealed by the experiences of the coders during the negotiation process
Summary
The understanding that learning is a necessarily collaborative, social exercise is arguably older than the enterprise of formal education itself; the introduction of technology into formal and non-formal learning channels has raised serious questions regarding the viability of supporting such collaboration within emerging virtual contexts [1]. Though the use of MOOCs by college students has skyrocketed in recent years [8], a less explored area of empirical literature is how MOOCs might be designed to support the professional development of in-service teachers. The need for such professional development stems from an understanding of teachers as “reflective practitioners” that are constantly in the process of learning and improving both their content knowledge and pedagogy [9] and teaching through “deliberative action that results from the active and thoughtful consideration of specific beliefs and knowledge in relation to past and future consequences” [10]. Low retention and completion rates are challenges for MOOCs in general, teachers completing a MOOC for professional development may be more likely to complete MOOCs than other students [15]
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