Navigating Blended Instruction Using the Community of Inquiry Framework As a Compass
Purpose: While curriculum design models provide a guideline for organizing curricula, they do not guide the delivery or implementation of blended instruction. Many faculty are hesitant to use blended instruction for fear of losing student engagement and/or student learning. The purpose of this session is to demonstrate how the Community of Inquiry (COI) Framework provides a compass for faculty and programs to navigate the previously unchartered waters of designing, implementing, and evaluating a blended physical therapy course or program. Participants will learn how to apply the COI framework to their course or program in order to create engaging learning experiences in both the online and face-to-face environments. Examples of online and face-to-face instruction using this framework from eight years of blended instruction are provided. Participants learn how to embed the COI framework into peer and course evaluation.
Methods and/or Description of Project: The COI framework (Garrison, Vaughan, Archer, 2010) depicts 3 overlapping elements crucial to engaged learning in blended learning environments: Social, teaching, and cognitive presence. Social presence refers to open communication and cohesion between learners and between learners and instructors. Teaching presence refers to the design, organization, and facilitation of learning experiences, while cognitive presence includes questioning, connection of concepts, and reasoning. We expanded cognitive presence to include psychomotor presence for courses involving clinical skill development.
This session demonstrates how the COI model positively influences blended course/curriculum design, the selection of both online and face-to-face learning activities, assessment of student learning, and peer/course evaluation in a blended DPT Program. Lessons learned from 8 years of blended instruction are also summarized based on the COI framework. Participants will observe instructional and learning activities in an online classroom and evaluate how they are reflective of social, teaching, and/or cognitive/psychomotor presence.
Results/Outcomes: Upon completion of the session, participants will be able to build social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive/psychomotor presence in their online or blended physical therapy courses. Participants will complete a chart during the session with concrete suggestions they can use in their own courses and programs. They will also actively experience evaluating the online portion of blended course using a peer evaluation based on the COI framework.
Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme: Physical therapy educators may avoid the idea of hybrid/blended learning for fear that it loses the connection between faculty/students and the curriculum. This session relates to the overall conference theme of Setting Sail: Discovering a New World of Opportunities because it provides a compass/map on how to create engaging blended courses using the Community of Inquiry model. The goal is that this session will facilitate faculty in both PT and PTA programs to discover the joy and benefits of blended instruction by providing this framework.