Robert Squires

Jennifer Maddrell leads a discussion of another key aspect of online teaching and learning--developing cognitive presence in online courses. In addition to discussing the definition of cognitive presence, we consider how it can be facilitated, and the challenges that students face when the instructors emphasize collaboration without adequate supports.

 EdTechWeekly #160
April 11, 2010

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This Week's Delicious Links

According to Garrison (2009), Social presence is “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities.”

Defining, creating and maintaining social presence in online courses is the focus of this week's show and is part of a three-part series that considers the Community of Inquiry framework.

This week, we were joined by Maggi Savin Baden, professor of Higher Education Research at Coventry University in the UK. She has been investigating problem based learning for a number of years and is currently pursuing research into applications within Second Life.

Topics include:

This week, Jennifer Maddrell discusses the focus for her dissertation work: the Community of Inquiry framework: http://communitiesofinquiry.com/. Her primary research question focusses on whether there is a relationship between learner's perceptions of "community" and actual learning outcomes as identified by grades, papers, tests, etc. The discussion took a very practical turn as we sought to identify particular strategies that may be used by instructors to develop community within online courses.