Community of Inquiry: old stuff in a new package?

When you enter a new course like ONL you come with the expectation that the teaching materials will offer you new pedagogical approaches and ideas. Topic 4 on the course concerned design for online and blended learning. One of the keynotes as well as key reading for this section concerned Community of Inquiry as a pedagogical approach. It intrigued me right away and when I read more about it, I was a bit puzzled; the name of the model was new to me, but the contents were somehow all too familiar. It seemed that I had organized many of my face-to-face courses  pretty much according to the principles of Community of Inquiry approach but long before the book ‘Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry´(Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes and Garrison  2013) was published. Then it came to me, all this was pretty much the same stuff that I learned and have practiced since late 1990s’ under the label 'Cooperative Learning’ (Yhteistoiminnallinen oppiminen in Finnish). Both approaches see the teacher as an instructor/facilitator who assists students’ learning that takes place in community like groups. The similarities of the approaches are summarized in table 1.

Table 1. Comparison between Communities of Inquiry and Cooperative Learning

Community of Inquiry:	Cooperative Learning
Plan for the creation of open communication and trust.	Positive Interdependence: Students must see that each group member’s efforts are important to both individual and team success.
Plan for critical reflection and discourse.   Establish community and cohesion.	Promotive Interaction: Students must empower each other by offering help, praise, feedback and resources.
Establish inquiry dynamics (purposeful inquiry).	Soft Skills Instruction: Because students need to develop interpersonal skills to effectively work together, you should give lessons and activities about teamwork.
Sustain respect and responsibility.	Accountability: Each student must accept responsibility for fulfilling his or her role, helping the team reach its learning goals.
Sustain inquiry that moves to resolution.	Group Processing: As a group, students should strategize how to meet their learning goals. (https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/cooperative-learning-principles-strategies)
Ensure assessment is congruent with intended processes and outcomes. (Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes and Garrison  2013, chap   1)

Table 1. Comparison between Communities of Inquiry and Cooperative Learning

In 1990s’ I worked in the community of practice. The community was hit by Collaborative Learning pedagogy like a lightning after several members of our teaching community took a course on Collaborative Learning. There was no turning back. Majority of those who took the course made 180 degree turn in their teaching practices and were eager to spread the message. The enthusiasm and inspiration of these individuals was contagious, thus, also I got involved in Cooperative Learning practices. I did not get to go to the course, but I got access to the course materials and put the learnings into practice.

The course my colleagues took was very hands on and motivational, thus the learning materials were instructional and inspirational stripped off of any “unnecessary” theoretical package. It is not until now that I dug deeper into the foundations of Collaborative Learning. What a treasure did I find! Cooperative learning methods in general are theoretically driven pedagogical approaches and one of the most researched theory and practice in education (Johnson, Johnson and Stanne, 2000). Cooperative Learning  draws from multiple theoretical insights in building a learning perspective that has proven to result in high achievement levels. It draws, among other things, from motivational theories, social cohesiveness theories and cognitive theories (These theoretical ideas may be behind of Communities of Inquiry approach as well but these links to prior research were not drawn in the introductory chapter of the Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes and Garrison's  (2013) book that I read). If you are interested in the theoretical foundations of the teaching approach, please see Slavin (2011). Many of the sources that I glanced through had high citation rates (for social sciences) i.e. they have been influential and widely read. 

When the enthusiasm about Cooperative Learning in my former work community was on its' peak in the late 1990s’ and early 2000s’ one of the more senior university lectures who had taken the course was wondering: ”What is all the fuss about? This is the same stuff I heard 15 years ago under a different label.” Hah, ha. We have to dig deeper, to get to the bottom of this, but meanwhile, let’s keep reinventing the wheel, with some new spices. Every new generation of educators need to be inspired and every old generation needs to re-inspired.

 

Reference

Cooperative learning.  https://blogs.miamioh.edu/edt431-531/2019/10/cooperative-learning-team-work-makes-the-dream-work/

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Stanne, M. B. (2000). Cooperative learning methods: A meta-analysis.

Slavin, R. E. (2011). Instruction based on cooperative learning. Handbook of research on learning and instruction, 4.

Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Edmonton: AU Press. Chapter 1 “The Community of Inquiry Conceptual framework”.

 

Additional Resources (academic)

Kagan, S. (1989). The structural approach to cooperative learning. Educational leadership, 47(4), 12-15.

Slavin, R. E. (1990). Research on cooperative learning: Consensus and controversy. Educational leadership, 47(4), 52-54.

Slavin, R. E. (1996). Research on cooperative learning and achievement: What we know, what we need to know. Contemporary educational psychology, 21(1), 43-69.

Sharan, Y., & Sharan, S. (1992). Expanding cooperative learning through group investigation (Vol. 1234). New York: Teachers College Press.

Additonal resource (practical)

http://www.co-operation.org/what-is-cooperative-learning

https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/cooperative-learning-principles-strategies