Community Of Inquiry Research Articles

Making the transition from on-campus to online learning: Pre-service teachers' experiences of online learning as a result of COVID-19

Online learning is rapidly becoming the preferred study option for many higher education students, due to its accessibility, convenience and flexible teaching arrangements. For other students who have access to a university campus, their preferred option is to attend on-campus classes, where advantages include synchronous interaction with peers, lecturers and access to practical experiences, materials, and resources. The impact of COVID-19 resulted in interruptions to social, economic, cultural, and educational life, with social distancing measures and health and well-being concerns leading to widespread restrictions in numerous different contexts. Universities throughout Australia restricted access to campuses and shifted their teaching of classes to purely online delivery. This shift posed many challenges for students and staff as ways of teaching and learning were reconceptualised. This paper examines the experiences of two different cohorts of pre-service teachers from two different universities who were studying full-time on-campus at the time when the restrictions were applied and reports the impact the shift to online had on cognitive, social and teaching presence within a model of community of inquiry. The findings indicate that despite the challenges involved with the rapid transition to online delivery, participants were able to identify the presence of core elements of the model, and how these factors impacted upon their engagement with the course.

“I Did Not Sign Up For This”: Student Experiences of the Rapid Shift from In-person to Emergency Virtual Remote Learning During the COVID Pandemic

Abstract Objectives: The main objective of this study was to explore students’ experiences of the emergency virtual remote teaching, which was implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: 439 students enrolled at a community college in Canada responded to a survey that had Likert-scale and open-ended questions. Anderson’s model for online learning was used as an analytic lens to gain insight on student experiences. Descriptive statistics were used to make meaning of the data. Thematic analysis was done on student responses to open-ended questions. Results: Findings were organized according to Anderson’s six factors in online teaching, namely: (a) Independent Study; (b) Peer, Family, & Professional Support; (c) Structured Learning Resources; (d) Community of Inquiry; (e) Communication; and (f) Paced, Collaborative Learning. The study revealed both challenges and opportunities that students experienced during their transition to emergency virtual remote learning. Conclusions: The invitation to students to share what worked—and what didn’t—yielded a wealth of specific suggestions for engaging students, promoting accountability, and supporting collaborative learning. Implication for Practice: This study looked past anticipated pressure points to reveal critical teaching factors that challenge—or enable—students as they transition to emergency virtual remote teaching. Post-secondary instructors would be well served to consider how they promote self-efficacy, provide access to supports, fashion an online learning environment, develop community, communicate expectations, and encourage collaboration.

ANALYSIS OF ONLINE TEXT-BASED DISCUSSIONS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY

This study examines influence of online text-based discussions for secondary school students. It aims to analyze students’ shares and views with the goal of exploring the implications of online synchronous text-based discussions held in the Information Technology and Software lessons. It was carried out as a case study in which 10 discussion sessions were held involving 26 students enrolled in a state secondary school. The case study was chosen because it makes it possible to examine a situation in detail and in depth. The findings were discussed in relation with the “Community of Inquiry” (CoI). It was found that with online synchronous text-based discussions, the students experienced building of meaning or collaboratively verified mutual understanding in line with the predetermined objectives. Online text-based discussions helped achieve a meaningful learning experience through development of social, cognitive and teaching presence. Student-student interactions in formal educational environments facilitated the formation of social presence in the online learning environment. Peer reviews concerning the discussion topics, shared contents and the teacher feedback contributed to the development of the students’ views on the subject. Off-topic or irrelevant shares in the discussion sessions might cause a negative impact on the students.

Exploring Teachers' Responses to a Workshop for Developing Critical & Creative Thinking Through Storytelling

Current Malaysian educational policy requires school teachers to include critical and creative thinking in their classrooms; however, few teachers have been trained to do so. The research investigated an approach for developing teachers’ critical and creative thinking through story writing. Qualitative research methodology was employed to explore teachers' understanding and views of the program. The results yielded four main themes, namely: Benefits, Challenges, Satisfaction and Improvement of the Writing Thinking Stories (WTS) program. Participants acknowledged that the program presented new ways for teaching critical and creative thinking (CCT) in a meaningful environment. Some challenges included overcoming caution when being creative; integrating philosophical concepts into their stories and a lack of fluency in English resulting in some participants requesting the chance to write stories in their mother tongue in groups. There was general satisfaction with the program, although some participants expressed a need for training in Community of Philosophical Inquiry (COPI) prior to the program. All in all, the WTS program resulted in teachers successfully producing short thinking stories that integrated values and CCT in a fun and meaningful way.
 Keywords: Story writing, Critical and Creative thinking, community of philosophical inquiry

An Observation Protocol for Scaffolding Community of Inquiry and Its Exemplary Practices in Language MOOCs

As a response to a call to investigate the fundamental aspects regarding educational theory, research, designing and teaching of language massive open online courses (MOOCs), this study first developed a Community of Inquiry (CoI) observation protocol, to observe the existing teaching, social, and cognitive presences in language MOOCs, and tested its reliability using g-theory analysis. The results showed that the developed observation protocol is reliable, as evidenced by the large proportion of variance attributed to variation across courses rather than across raters. A follow-up d-study suggested that five and 11 raters were enough to reach moderate and substantial reliability coefficients, respectively. The study also identified exemplary practices that reflected high-level CoI presences in language MOOCs. The result not only highlighted the need to conduct observational studies to disentangle the dynamic interchanges that occur in language MOOCs, but also provided practical guidelines to language educators interested in designing and teaching their own MOOCs.

ASSESSING FLIPPED CLASSROOM IN FLEXIBLE LEARNING VIA COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY FRAMEWORK

Educational institutions adopted online distance learning to ensure continuity of education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea of online distance learning was not welcome by some stakeholders for a variety of reasons such as poor internet connection particularly in rural areas, and lack of technological devices to support learning and teaching. Compared to traditional face-to-face delivery, studies show that online distance learning needs new teaching strategies and approaches. One teaching approach that has been seen beneficial to students with limited resources in attending online classes is the use of flipped classroom pedagogy. This study aimed to assess the flipped classroom pedagogy in flexible learning modality using the Community of Inquiry (CoI). It further tried to identify the different issues and challenges of students in using this teaching approach in the context of the pandemic. The descriptive research design was utilized to attain the goal of this study. Using the purposive sampling technique, respondents were selected from two identified cohort classes employing the flipped classroom pedagogy. The findings show that teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence are observed in the flipped classroom pedagogy. In addition, the study identified advantages of the flipped classroom pedagogy in online distance learning during the pandemic. As perceived by the respondents, the flipped classroom (1) provides flexibility and convenience to students, (2) addresses the problem of students on internet connectivity and access to technological devices, and (3) offers heightened reinforcement. The study further identified two issues of flipped classroom as observed by the students. These are (1) needed interaction during asynchronous lecture, and (2) limited time for synchronous meetings. Results are futher discussed as well as the implications for future research.

MENGEKSPLORASI KOMUNITAS PELATIHAN JARAK JAUH BERBASIS INKUIRI DI BALAI DIKLAT KEAGAMAAN JAKARTA

This study aims to develop an online learning system for Community of Inquiry (COI) based Classroom Action Research at Jakarta’s Religious Education and Training center (BDK Jakarta). This study uses a qualitative approach with descriptive analysis that has been adapted to the needs and availability of the researcher's time. Learning development refers to the Bates model. Evaluation is executed through expert evaluation and field trials. Furthermore, a test was conducted to obtain data related to increasing the understanding of teacher's concept by analyzing the test and skill’s results. The data obtained from this test indicate that there is a significant increase in understanding the concept. Thus, this inquiry technique community is considered successful in training.

The Community of Inquiry Instructional Strategies Impact on Student Satisfaction on Remote Learning

The COVID-19 restrictions compelled institutions worldwide to transition into the remote teaching-learning modality abruptly. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of remote teaching and learning strategies are scant. With the recent shift to this new learning mode, little is known about the fulfillment of learning outcomes and student satisfaction. This research examines the impact of the teaching-learning course design and instructional strategies as implemented by this faculty researcher last school year 2020-2021. It intends to provide practical guidance for teachers aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of their remote teaching/strategies. The research is both quantitative (causal) and qualitative design. A total of 104 management students from a Philippine state university participated in an online survey. The quantitative investigation assessed the influence of the independent variables – the Community of Inquiry (CoI) presence strategies, course design, and instructional strategies on students’ perceived learning and satisfaction, utilizing the CoI framework and adopting scales from online teaching.

Exploring the relationships among the dimensions of a community of inquiry in an online learning environment

The community of inquiry contends that meaningful learning occurs in the interaction among the teaching, social, and cognitive presences. Although studies have validated the close relationships among the three presences, the roles of teaching presence indicators in students’ social and cognitive presences need to be further explored. Therefore, 592 Chinese college students were investigated through an online questionnaire. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the collected data. Results demonstrate that the three indicators of teaching presence accounted for 56.9% of social presence and 53.4% of cognitive presence. Specifically, design and organization, and discourse facilitation had significantly positive correlations with social presence, while there was no significant correlation between direct instruction and social presence. Additionally, design and organization, discourse facilitation, and direct instruction had significantly positive correlations with cognitive presence. Results indicate that different indicators of teaching presence play different roles in students’ social and cognitive presences.

Online teaching during COVID-19 pandemic: A phenomenological study of university educators’ experiences and challenges

To further understand how online teaching and learning can be improved during the COVID-19 pandemic, a phenomenological study was conducted on 15 educators’ experiences of online teaching in Malaysian Universities. The Community of Inquiry framework is used as a guide, as well as a data interpretation tool, to understand the educators’ experiences in terms of planning and implementing teaching and learning in using online tools, technologies, and platforms. Findings indicate that in the current situation, with all the intricacies, deficiencies and challenges, the educators’ teaching presence is clearly discernible. Nevertheless, there appears to be efforts by the educators to ensure that teaching presence, cognitive presence and social presence are integrated, albeit in an unstructured manner. Based on the data, a flexible, fluid and dynamic model of Community of Inquiry, which is suitable to crisis situations, is suggested and a supporting guideline is provided to understand the framework.

Poetic Breath

This special issue of JCACS amplifies and intersects multiple themes that challenge our capacity to access air. We invited research presented at the 2019 International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry, as well as new poetic inquiry that engages, plays with, ignites and challenges notions of action in a time of legislated inaction, work that counteracts silencing the breath inside our bones. We looked for oxygen where there was none. The editors of this special issue all use poetry as a form of inquiry in their lives and academic work, and we are delighted to share the work of our colleagues from the poetic inquiry community. We believe that this issue demonstrates the value of using poetic inquiry in academia to highlight the voices of those underrepresented and thus is a vital contribution to the research community.

Teaching Online and Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a phenomenon increasingly affecting students and faculty in K-12 through higher education systems. Cyberbullying in higher education negatively affects institutions and their respective stakeholders. The consequences range from faculty turnover to student suicide. Research related cyberbullying in higher education in online learning is emerging. Common understandings of cyberbullying vary by state, institution, and classroom level. Furthermore, many states, including Florida, defer conduct policies and their enforcement to the individual institution. In this article, a review of publicly available Florida university policies regarding cyberbullying in higher education were explored by a Florida professor and a higher education administrator. Utilizing document analysis, this study analyzed policies from the 12 state universities to document the institutional definitions of cyberbullying and the recommended reporting practices for faculty. Further, following the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework, this study examined policies and procedures to determine if they supported the construct of teacher presence. It was determined that there are multiple definitions of cyberbullying and that policies were publicly available but most lacked support for faculty to report related incidences. Most policies were implied and not explicitly related to cyberbullying. Finally, there was little to no evidence in the analyzed documents that would support teaching presence.

Social Studies for Democracy: Cultivating Communities of Inquiry for Filipino Students as Deliberative Citizens

This paper provides an overview of the problematic state of Philippine democracy that has long been attributed to the nation’s history of colonial rule, widespread poverty and inequality, oligarchic structures, and dysfunctional institutions. It focuses on the role of education and Social Studies Education, specifically, in cultivating in Filipino citizens skills and attitudes necessary for active participation in deliberative democracy. Drawing from Dewey’s philosophy of progressivist and democratic education, Peirce’s notion of community of inquiry, as well as Lipman’s Philosophy for/with Children, it sketches how Social Studies situated in classroom communities of inquiry will help develop communitarian dispositions and inquiry skills that are indispensable in a healthy and vibrant democracy. While it is recognized that there are numerous other pedagogies that aim at similar purposes, it is argued that the community of inquiry enables a unique and robust learning process that allows students to think reflectively, explore various contexts and experiences, question their assumptions, identify their prejudices, and make their own conclusions through deliberative, intersubjective dialogue.

Community of Inquiry Framework: Research Trends Between 2000-2020

The current study aimed to understand the trend in the community of inquiry that many researchers have been working on for over 20 years. Within the scope of this aim, 102 studies were reviewed with regards to some variables: most preferred keywords and words in abstract, year of publication, authors, journals, geographical distribution, academic disciplines, research methods, course delivery methods, participant type, and references. The findings demonstrate that the articles reviewed were from 216 authors in 20 countries. Most of the studies were from the Social Sciences field, and the continent with the most studies was North America. Quantitative research methods were mostly preferred in the studies, and the study group of a great of majority the studies were higher education students. Finally, various recommendations were made for future research after determining gaps that exist in the current literature.

How and What Students Learn in Hybrid and Online FYC: A Multi-Institutional Survey Study of Student Perceptions

This multi-institutional study surveyed undergraduate students (n=669) about how and what they learned in hybrid and online first-year composition (FYC) classes, employing the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework to analyze their responses. The data illustrated a significant difference in hybrid versus online students’ perceptions of the student-teacher relationship.

Predicting social presence in videoconference-supported LMS courses: Mediation through L2 writing and speaking strategies

The issue addressed here concerns how second language (L2) speaking strategies mediate the relationship between L2 writing strategies and the social presence component of the community of inquiry (CoI) framework within the context of fully online courses that combined learning management system (LMS) for writing tasks and videoconferencing for live classroom discussion. L2 writing strategies related to planning and reviewing contribute to composing tests that students want to upload, present, and discuss, and this sharing is expected to foster classroom social behaviors and consequent language gains. For the current study, a cross-sectional survey of 256 university students was initiated to investigate the mediating effect L2 speaking strategies have on the relationship between L2 writing strategies and social presence. The results indicated positive path coefficients between review strategies and speaking strategies, review strategies and social presence, planning strategies and speaking strategies, and speaking strategies and social presence. Further, speaking strategies explain the relationship between planning strategies and social presence, indicating full mediation. Partial mediation was found for the path between review strategies and social presence. Recognizing how L2 writing and speaking strategies relate to one another and how that relationship influences a CoI illustrates the interconnectivity between language skills. Evidently, increased attention to planning and reviewing strategies results in a final composition worth sharing and discussing, and such sharing and discussion are building blocks to a vibrant social presence.

‘Action Philosophy’: Philosophical Inquiry, Professional Development and Organizational Change

In the present paper, I will explore whether and in what sense philosophical inquiry can be deployed in organizations as a pedagogical vehicle to promote reflective professionalism and a learning-oriented approach to organizational practices. This investigation will unfold in two steps: first, it will be argued that the contemporary “practical turn” in philosophy has enabled us to rediscover its intimate relationship with education and, thereby, has turned it into a possible pivot for the reconstruction of organizational practices; and, secondly, rather than reading “philosophy in organizations” from the perspective of philosophical counselling I will propose a pedagogical hypothesis that dovetails – under the aegis of the thought of John Dewey – Donald Schön and Chris Argyris’s theory of action with Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp’s approach of the community of philosophical inquiry. I will maintain that the latter may represent a major resource to promote a transformation of the meaning perspectives of organizations and of practitioners therein working along the lines indicated by Schön and Argyris.

Communities of inquiry pedagogy in undergraduate courses

ABSTRACT This article proposes that undergraduate legal education should engage students in communities of inquiry where students learn to think critically by working in collaborative groups on a worthwhile research question of their own choosing. The community of inquiry is a return to the idea of the university as a community of scholars, of students capable of critical, creative and caring thought. Students engage in research projects and make their ideas available to others as a contribution to a work of knowledge building. This article describes the use of a community of inquiry approach, both in a core undergraduate law course and in an elective course at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The article explains how an action research methodology was used to explore ways of implementing the communities of inquiry methodology. Surveys and interviews were used to gather data. The article discusses the lessons learned from this project; the most important lessons concerned the benefits that students report from engaging in collaborative inquiry.

Mature Students’ Experience: A Community of Inquiry Study during a COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on university students across the world. In a short period of time from 2020 to 2022, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) had to pivot their modes of delivery to ensure they could meet the needs of their students. The move to digital platforms has been challenging for students from all ages, but particularly mature students. This study sought to explore mature students’ experiences of university during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model. Utilising a qualitative approach, twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with students from across the University of Warwick. The interviews were conducted by a staff member and a mature student during the pandemic and four themes were identified: Adapting to online learning, relationships, external factors and response of the university. This research study has identified that some participants responded well to the emergency situation, others had caring responsibilities which impacted on their studies but that peer relationships and collaborative learning is key to their success.

Cinemanhatta

Both as a concept and a practice, remix has become enshrined in media theory and production. Using an existing creative expression as materials to produce a new creative expression, remix highlights how culture operates through a continual circulation of shared elements. Remix reincorporates this practice into the present culture as an alternative to the dominant logic of the culture industries. 
 However, as a useful principle applied in a general way, the specific cultural and historical conditions of remix’s origins become obscured and mythologized, obscuring how emergence and creativity function as part of culture in specific conditions. Moreover, although we frame remix as an alternative or oppositional practice, it remains compatible with the logic of creativity as the work of the genius or auteurs. It reinforces the idea of art as an expressive object that can be commodified for the consumption of an audience.
 The time is right to rethink what the term ‘remix’ does and what it accomplishes. Remix presents an alternative to the dominant mode of production, but can it offer a transformative opposition that not only remakes culture, but remakes the ways we make culture? If not, what can? 
 This presentation offers a complementary concept I call “recreative practice”, meant in the sense of re-creative (re-new-ing through creativity) as well as in the sense of recreational (“to refresh oneself by some amusement”). It emerges from a synthesis of Dewey’s writing on the aesthetic experience (1934/2005), Williams’ theory of the residual, dominant and emergent (1977), and Barad’s call responsive/responsible theory (2012). 
 The production of something that has never been is influenced by what has come before, and reception is framed by understanding of what is familiar to us. Recreative practice recognizes that the production of aesthetic experience does not belong to a class apart – culture is ordinary, everyone is creative, and we are constantly generating and circulating culture. Nor are theorists and artists exempt – we are inextricably entangled in the world we seek to transform, and our work, too, is part of a process of the everyday and the ordinary.
 To further demonstrate recreative practice, I draw from my forthcoming dissertation, An Effective Dream is a Reality, as well as several years’ experimentation with algorithmic cinema. I give this a focus through presentation of speculative project: Cinemanhatta. 
 Cinemanhatta is a speculative proposal building on Manhatta (1921) as a foundation. An antecedent of recreative practice, Manhatta drew on existing creative traditions in a way that created new possibilities for meaning-making and influenced the conditions for meaning-making itself. Cinemanhatta honors that tradition and exemplifies recreative practice by proposing three interrelated projects, each inspired by a significant creative effort: Heidi Rae Cooley’s Finding Augusta and the accompanying Augusta App (2014), Perry Bard’s Man With A Movie Camera: Global Remake (2007-present), and Barbara Lattanzi’s HF Critical Mass (2002). These projects work together to produce a material-semiotic performance of exchange and collaboration, using a set of recreative practices to construct a community of inquiry.