Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education Experience
Background: Medical educators must learn to implement technologic advances to create meaningful learning experiences, implementing media tools that are effective in meeting evolving academic needs and fostering interpersonal engagement. The increasing time constraints in a department of more than 1,...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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F1000 Research Ltd
2021-03-01
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| Series: | MedEdPublish |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mededpublish.org/Manuscripts/3816 |
| _version_ | 1819049459662716928 |
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| author | Betty Lee Ligon Audrea Burns Satid Thammasitboon |
| author_facet | Betty Lee Ligon Audrea Burns Satid Thammasitboon |
| author_sort | Betty Lee Ligon |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Background: Medical educators must learn to implement technologic advances to create meaningful learning experiences, implementing media tools that are effective in meeting evolving academic needs and fostering interpersonal engagement. The increasing time constraints in a department of more than 1,600 faculty interspersed throughout a large metropolitan complex served as the catalyst for utilizing technology to create a framework for providing virtual faculty development.
Objective: To use a Community of Inquiry (CoI) as a framework to guide the development of an interactive, virtual writing retreat.
Methods: We used the three elements of CoI--social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence--to transform the curriculum and delivery method of an existing writing workshop into an interactive virtual experience. To enhance virtual teaching and learning, we created a positive climate allowing learners to project themselves into the community through discourse (social), leveraged technologies to enable construction of knowledge by individual learners (cognitive), and revamped the existing curriculum for optimal virtual learning outcomes (teaching). We evaluated its educational effectiveness via surveys based on the CoI framework.
Results: The highly interactive, four-hour, virtual writing retreat was well received and serves as a model for implementing the CoI framework in other disciplines. Forty multidisciplinary faculty attended the retreat; 90% completed the entire session. In the post-session survey (50% response rate), participants rated the learning activities highly.
Conclusion: Our conceptual model and practical recommendations are offered to other medical educators and faculty developers for designing a tailored CoI with effective virtual synchronous learning. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T11:32:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-fa75fd5c2f0a4147aa742e587291365f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2312-7996 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T11:32:29Z |
| publishDate | 2021-03-01 |
| publisher | F1000 Research Ltd |
| record_format | Article |
| series | MedEdPublish |
| spelling | doaj.art-fa75fd5c2f0a4147aa742e587291365f2022-12-21T19:05:31ZengF1000 Research LtdMedEdPublish2312-79962021-03-01101Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education ExperienceBetty Lee Ligon0Audrea Burns1Satid Thammasitboon2Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Houston, Texas, USABaylor College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Houston, Texas, USABaylor College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Houston, Texas, USABackground: Medical educators must learn to implement technologic advances to create meaningful learning experiences, implementing media tools that are effective in meeting evolving academic needs and fostering interpersonal engagement. The increasing time constraints in a department of more than 1,600 faculty interspersed throughout a large metropolitan complex served as the catalyst for utilizing technology to create a framework for providing virtual faculty development. Objective: To use a Community of Inquiry (CoI) as a framework to guide the development of an interactive, virtual writing retreat. Methods: We used the three elements of CoI--social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence--to transform the curriculum and delivery method of an existing writing workshop into an interactive virtual experience. To enhance virtual teaching and learning, we created a positive climate allowing learners to project themselves into the community through discourse (social), leveraged technologies to enable construction of knowledge by individual learners (cognitive), and revamped the existing curriculum for optimal virtual learning outcomes (teaching). We evaluated its educational effectiveness via surveys based on the CoI framework. Results: The highly interactive, four-hour, virtual writing retreat was well received and serves as a model for implementing the CoI framework in other disciplines. Forty multidisciplinary faculty attended the retreat; 90% completed the entire session. In the post-session survey (50% response rate), participants rated the learning activities highly. Conclusion: Our conceptual model and practical recommendations are offered to other medical educators and faculty developers for designing a tailored CoI with effective virtual synchronous learning.https://www.mededpublish.org/Manuscripts/3816Scholarly writingworkshopconceptual frameworkscholarshiponline learningcognitive presence, social presence |
| spellingShingle | Betty Lee Ligon Audrea Burns Satid Thammasitboon Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education Experience MedEdPublish Scholarly writing workshop conceptual framework scholarship online learning cognitive presence, social presence |
| title | Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education Experience |
| title_full | Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education Experience |
| title_fullStr | Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education Experience |
| title_full_unstemmed | Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education Experience |
| title_short | Creating a 'Community of Inquiry': A Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Education Experience |
| title_sort | creating a community of inquiry a framework for optimizing the virtual education experience |
| topic | Scholarly writing workshop conceptual framework scholarship online learning cognitive presence, social presence |
| url | https://www.mededpublish.org/Manuscripts/3816 |
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