February 16 2007

E-Coaching Tip 36: Cognitive Presence in Online Courses -- What is it?

How would you rate yourself and your course on a scale of Cognitive Presence? And just what is Cognitive Presence, anyway?

This week's tip focuses on the meaning of Cognitive Presence and suggests one strategy to support building cognitive presence. We will see how the concept of cognitive presence links three key often-cited ingredients for successful online learning -- practical inquiry, communities of learners and traditional theory on critical thinking.

Previous tips encouraged a focus on Social Presence, sharing who we are, both personally and professionally and using that sharing to create a climate of trust and belonging. A climate of trust then serves to support "interaction and a questioning predisposition." (Garrison, 2006)

Alternate Tip On Discussion Wraps

For a quick refresher on strategies for wrapping up discussions, here is a previous tip.

What is Cognitive Presence?

We had hoped to provide practical strategies about cognitive presence in a quick, easy, practical tip. We quickly discovered that Cognitive Presence and quick easy tips may be an oxymoron!

So please consider this as a "first look" at cognitive presence that will hopefully lay the groundwork for more exploration, more tips and more guidelines in the future. Also, if you would like to explore this topic more at length at this time, be sure to go to the research site at the University of Calgary called "Communities of Inquiry" (http://communitiesofinquiry.com).

Here are two concept statements to get you started on developing expertise on cognitive presence in your course. A goal for you over time is to build or enhance your climate of inquiry that builds on the climate of trust in your course.

1. Definitions of Cognitive Presence

Much of the literature on cognitive presence uses the definitions of cognitive presence based on work by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000, 2001). The definitions include:

• Cognitive presence is the process of constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry.

If collaborative inquiry is part of cognitive presence, this implies the existence of (1) a community of learners, and (2) interaction that includes meaningful discourse including traditional critical thinking processes.

Here's another definition of cognitive presence that emphasizes the "meaning" work that learners are doing.

• Cognitive presence is defined as the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained discourse in a critical community of inquiry."

Two key elements expanding the concept of cognitive presence is the goal of (1) individual learners' constructing meaning and (2) sustained communication among a community of learners.

Both these definitions focus on the construction of meaning through a process of inquiry. This means a shift from "lecturing and telling" to questioning, probing and open inquiry. This also suggests the importance of designing reflecting and thinking time into the course and dealing with problems for which there may not be ready answers.

2. Model of Practical Inquiry Supports Goal of Cognitive Presence

The theory on cognitive presence links back to Dewey's work on reflective thinking and practical inquiry (1933) and the literature and research on critical thinking. This means that achieving cognitive presence in your course requires a focus on higher-order knowledge acquisition and application. This model also echoes the strategies for problem formulation and resolution strategies.

Here is a way to design for achieving cognitive presence in your course. Think of it as a process of inquiry with four phases. (Garrison, 2004).

If you have an 8 week, 12 week or 14 week course, design these phases and steps into your course either once or multiple times, depending on your course goals.

• Triggering event -- the problem, challenge, task proposed by you, the faculty member as part of the design of your course. This means a focus on problem-solving for part of your course goals.
• Exploration -- the process of both individual reflection by the students and the discourse through which the problem formulation occurs. Remember the course tip from last week. Some of the indicators that exploration is occurring are divergent ideas, exchange of information, brainstorming, requests for feedback on ideas, etc.
• Integration -- the process by which the members of the community reflect individually and as a group and then reach some convergences by connecting ideas, identifying relationships and patterns, and proposing solutions
• Resolution -- the group or larger community applies and tests solutions in the real world scenarios. Learners defend their resolutions and the thinking that supports them.

As noted in the beginning of this tip, achieving cognitive presence is a complex process that occurs over an entire course. You may find that preparing triggering events and exploration activities easier than the steps of integration or resolution. We'll work on those areas in another tip.

Write to us or call us with your questions, comments.

Notes and References

Revised November 8, 2008
Copyright Judith V. Boettcher, 1997-2008