Learner Stories: Preparing for a Life in Healthcare

A student named Zafina, age 7, filled out a worksheet. She writes that she swam this summer and had a lot of fun. Her favorite things include playing piano, steak, the color red, and she wants to be a doctor. She drew a picture of swimming with yellow ducks.

Canadian teen’s career ambition sparked by Michigan Online course

Zafina Zaman, a 15-year-old high school student in Alberta, Canada, has wanted to be a doctor for as long as she can remember.

A young girl holds a book titled Children's First Book of Human Body.

“I really want to go into medicine,” she said. “The funny thing is that when you’re a little kid you tell your parents ‘I want to be a princess or I want to be a fire truck,’ but even when I was 4, I’ve always said I wanted to be a doctor.”

One of Zafina’s earliest memories was when her mother had a cold and was sick in bed. With her father at work, she decided to try and make tea, warming water and honey in the microwave (which she was not allowed to use).

“Later [my mom] talked to the doctor, and they told her to do exactly what I did for her,” Zafina said. “That was fireworks in my 4-year-old brain. Oh my gosh!”

With the support of her family, Zafina has been able to pursue her passion for learning and healthcare despite her youth.

A Massive Love of Learning

While searching for ways to supplement her education, Zafina discovered her first massive open online course, or MOOC. The flexible timing of the course, “Sleep: Neurobiology, Medicine, and Society,” worked for Zafina and she completed the 12 modules over her summer break.

“They didn’t refuse me for being in middle school,” she said. “I wanted to know more about everything, and I thought, why not?”

Zafina loved learning more about how the brain works in everyday life. “There is so much that goes behind taking a step, that one movement. It was just eye-opening to be able to see that,” she said. “The human body — how and why things work the way they do — it’s so fascinating!”

She elected to take the optional honors track for the course, which gave her something to work toward and turned out to be motivating. The honors track option showed up on the certificate she earned upon completing the course, giving Zafina the chance to show others what she accomplished as well as perhaps inspire others to take advantage of these classes at no cost.

“They’re not age restricted. You don’t have to be a certain age or a certain grade level or have a Ph.D. to take these courses,” she said. “They’re free to anybody and everybody. Why not take them?”

Success on the honors track helped give Zafina the confidence to try other MOOCs, helping keep her brain occupied when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of traditional education. She took two more Coursera courses, “Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life” and “Medical Terminology,” which fed her fascination with how the body and the brain work and how we are able to do the things we do.

MOOC Certificate Leads to Hands-On Experience

Once she had some health-related courses under her belt, Zafina added them to her resume and LinkedIn profile, which helped earn her a volunteer position with a local health clinic.

As a volunteer, Zafina helps with administrative work at the front desk and books patients. She recently gained the opportunity to triage a bit, such as taking blood pressure, height, weight, and settling patients into rooms.

“My favorite thing to do is shadowing the doctors because I’m able to connect textbook studies with actual hands-on experience, and that’s been so much fun!” Zafina said. “I’ve been working there for a while now, about a year, and it’s an amazing experience. I’m so grateful I’ve had this opportunity.”

Although there are difficult and awkward moments, the time is rewarding.

“I’ve always really enjoyed helping people. They call it helpers high,” she said. “I love the feeling of being able to see when you help make a change in someone’s life, a feeling of importance and being able to see the changes that you make.”

Thanks to the staff at the clinic who she says take time out of their day to help guide her, Zafina is gaining hands-on experience in the world of healthcare before learning to drive.

Family Matters

In addition to her interests in healthcare, Zafina also competes as a motivational speaker with Optimist International, a platform for youth to compete in public speaking.

She’s been competing since she was 8 and has been the youngest contestant during each level. At 13 she competed against high school students to earn a spot representing Canada and the Great Plains Region in the 2022 Oratorical World Championships, still the youngest person to compete in Optimist International history.

A young girl in a teal dress and an older woman in a silver top hold hands across a table, both gazing upward with intense expressions. Other people are seated in the background, focused downward. — Zafina Zaman, the Great Plains Regional winner, holds hands with her mom, Farheen Akbar, as they await final results at the 2022 Optimist International Oratorical World Championships. Photo by Josh Castleberry, Optimist International

Zafina feels extremely grateful to her family for their support – driving her to a local university for an anatomy class, cheering her on in competitions, and encouraging her to pursue her interest in healthcare despite her age.

From taking care of her mother at age 4, through dressing up as a doctor for Halloween at age 9, and now considering her college plans, Zafina has never wavered from her desire to pursue healthcare. Even though she struggled through chemistry and needed to persistently work at it, the reward of learning and one day becoming a doctor makes the work worthwhile.

Zafina attributes her successes to her family and the wonderful opportunities that have allowed her to accomplish as much as she has despite her youth. With support at home and her internal ambition, Zafina remains as committed to her goal as she was at just 4 years old.

“It’s never been anything else,” she said. “It’s always been a natural field for me.”

Take the next step toward online teaching

Ready to inspire and inform learners around the world? You can learn more about online teaching and creating an online course through the Guides section of our website. The Center for Academic Innovation can help facilitate your transition to online teaching, either through our many resources or in a potential partnership.

When examining the effectiveness of a massive open online course, or MOOC, standard metrics paint an incomplete picture.

Test scores, completion rates, and grade-point averages are often used to measure the success of a traditional academic program. These markers don’t translate as easily to MOOCs, where enrollment and completion rates diverge. Instead, research shows students enrolled in open online courses are seeking something beyond top marks.

These learners intrigued Dr. Caren Stalburg, whose popular “Instructional Methods in Health Professions Education” MOOC has continued to attract interest since its launch in 2013, with nearly 25,000 enrollees and counting. Stalburg, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and learning health sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School, wanted to find out how her learners were using the course, and whether it was impacting their professional and personal goals.

Teaching the Teachers

Stalburg’s career path was shaped early on by her curiosity around teaching and learning. After completing her residency at U-M, Stalburg was a new faculty member, adjusting to her role as an educator after years of being a student. She joined a committee that included experts from the Medical School and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, and swiftly realized there was more to instruction than just passing along knowledge.

“I got involved in some of our curricular designs and realized that there is a science to education, and nobody teaches it to us,” Stalburg said.

She decided to learn the science. She earned a master’s degree in 2006 from what is now called the Marsal Family School of Education. Then in 2012, Stalburg again followed her curiosity, becoming one of the earliest faculty members to embrace the university’s new partnership with Coursera and launching a MOOC in collaboration with the center.

Stalburg’s course tapped into the lessons she learned early on about the importance of teaching the teachers, designing modules dedicated to informing and improving students’ instructional skills.

“I wanted the content to be broad enough so that it was applicable to any and all professionals who were teaching others about health,” she said.

Measuring the Impact

As the course’s enrollment grew, Stalburg was curious about its effectiveness. She decided to explore that question after seeing a report by the center’s senior research scientist Nate Cradit and former director Cait Hayward, which examined how students evaluated a MOOC’s quality based on the course’s affordances and attributes.

Partnering with the center, Stalburg developed a survey specific to her course to evaluate if students’ needs were being met. In addition to gathering demographic data on the learners, the survey examined how they interacted with and benefitted from the content.

“We designed this study to look at understanding the participants’ goals for the course and how completing the course has impacted their professional goals,” Stalburg said.

Surveys were sent to 278 learners, with 40 of those participants completing the survey. The respondents represented were diverse and educated, hailing from 18 different nations with 75% of them holding advanced degrees. Many were entering the middle of their careers, and they worked in a diverse range of fields, including medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, and more.

A vast majority of the learners said they took the course to increase knowledge and skill development, with some seeking professional development or meeting a requirement for their current job.

Interestingly, Stalburg and her team also discovered that the learners were using the material for their own instruction. Most of the participants downloaded the course material and used it to improve their teaching methods or create their own lessons.

It was a satisfying finding for Stalburg, affirming her pursuit of sharing the science behind the instruction with fellow educators.

“I really believe that it’s about increasing human capacity, and meeting people where they are and in the needs that they identify,” she said. “And so, to me, this is like that old parable about teaching people to fish.”

Local and Global Lessons

The impact of the Health Professions Education MOOC can be found here at the university, as well as on campuses across the globe.

In 2021, Stalburg was tapped to help design and launch the Health Infrastructures and Learning Systems Online Master of Science Degree, again in collaboration with the center. It is the first and only online degree program offered by the Medical School and Rackham Graduate School.

Stalburg’s MOOC course was selected by universities and hospitals around the world to help train their medical communities. The University of Guyana partnered with Coursera and enrolled 86 students between 2018 and 2021.

There was also a cohort of surgeons from the SSR Medical College in Mauritius who utilized the course, and praised the focus on teaching the instructors.

“For most of us MOOCs are a novelty, and the fact that the course content was so relevant to our professional activities made the experience so much more enriching,” wrote one faculty member.

More to Learn

Stalburg now wants to know more about those original respondents to the MOOC query.

She plans to contact the participants for further interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the course’s impact on their career trajectories or personal lives, how their professional roles may have changed, and how they are applying the course content with their colleagues.

Looking at the data she has collected so far, Stalburg believes the responses will reveal this MOOC’s success, and how it can’t be measured solely in numbers, but instead through its impact on learners’ lives.

“I am hoping that people will sort of say I got better at teaching, I’ve become more recognized for my teaching, or my job opportunities have increased,” Stalburg said. “You know, just a flourish, a boost in whatever direction they’re looking to go.”

References

Cradit, N., Hayward, C. (2023, October). What is a Successful MOOC? Lessons from Global Learner Narratives [Paper presentation]. IEEE Learning with MOOCS, Cambridge, MA, United States.

How this will help

Plan and practice key elements for an informative and impactful script

Engage your audience with a clear, conversational approach

Many online courses use some kind of prerecorded lecture or explanation video. However, it’s easy to get off topic without guidelines or guardrails. That can turn your five-minute video into a 20-minute video without even ensuring the content you want to cover is well explained. This is where a script can help you keep focus.

Should This be a Video?

Not everything should be a video. Media is most effective when used to:

Explain difficult or challenging concepts
Connect concepts that students might otherwise struggle to connect
Humanize you as an instructor

Once you’ve determined you have a topic that is a good selection for a video, the next step is to create an outline.

Outlining

Create an outline of the video clip. It may be helpful to structure the clip into three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion.

Introduction – Hook the audience, state the topic, and identify the topic’s importance or relevance. Take no more than two minutes to discuss.
Body – Present your key points. Begin identifying where examples and visuals will be most impactful. Spend four to five minutes on the topic.
Conclusion – Summarize or emphasize a key point or, if relevant, provide a call to action. Take only one minute to wrap up.

Writing

Now that you have your outline, let’s think about what to say in your script.

Take into consideration the following when writing your script:

Write in a tone that feels natural and approachable, as if speaking directly to the audience. Unlike academic writing, it is encouraged to keep the script conversational—use contractions, active voice, and clear, accessible language.
Avoid jargon when possible and break down complex concepts into smaller parts. Be concise and stick to the core ideas.
To make your script more natural, consider using a voice-to-text tool to speak your first draft, then refine it.
A good rule of thumb is that one page of double-spaced text is about two minutes of video.

Introduction

A good introduction draws someone into your video. Consider how you are going to “hook” your viewers. Maybe it’s a personal story or an interesting fact about the topic. Instead of jumping right into the overview, think about ways to connect with the viewers at the start.

Body

Remember the key points you outlined. The main part of your video should focus on those key points. As you write (or speak) your script, think about how everything you say can go back to those key points.

Conclusion

Keep the conclusion brief. Reinforce why the material is important.

Practical Tips

Creating media is time consuming. If you are spending time creating high-quality media, think about how to make your media last as long as possible. Remove references that might date the video (current events) or references to other parts of the class that may change. For example, saying something like “in our previous module” could be confusing if content is reorganized.
Ways to make media more engaging:
- Relate concepts to examples or real-life anecdotes, when appropriate
- Bring your personality into the media (humanization)
- Use gentle humor, if you feel comfortable
- Use questions to engage the audience and promote reflection
Indicate in the script where visuals will be the most impactful or meaningful.
Identify points where the speaker should have a natural pause. Indicate these points in the script—this will come in handy during filming.
Read the script aloud to ensure it sounds natural and fits the intended time frame. Adjust as necessary. We recommend using a timer while practicing.
Practice makes perfect. By practicing your script, you are ensuring that it flows smoothly and you will feel more prepared on the day of filming.

Resources

Script template – Guide with tips on creating your media script

When teaching in an online and hybrid setting, there are two primary ways to engage and interact with your students. Synchronous activities, like live Zoom sessions, require that everyone is in the same virtual space at the same time. Asynchronous activities, like discussion boards, email, or annotation tools, allow students to engage in academic work with their peers at a time that fits within their schedule.

Synchronous and asynchronous are both useful modalities that exist along a continuum in online and hybrid classes. In some courses, every element is asynchronous (not at the same time, like email or discussion boards), while in others almost everything happens synchronously (where everyone gathers at the same time, like a Zoom session), and still other courses employ a combination of both. These key questions will help you determine where your intentions for this course fall along this continuum and help you decide when to use synchronous or asynchronous elements.

One note: both synchronous and asynchronous modalities are valuable options, with neither being inherently better. Both modalities can be used to develop connections between students and faculty, and facilitate group work, and critical thinking.

What skills are most important for students to develop in your course?

Through asynchronous course elements, students practice written communication in an online setting and can be more reflective in developing and sharing complex ideas. This allows students to build upon their time management and planning skills while completing the coursework.

Synchronous elements are useful when students are learning to develop an argument in real time, navigating time pressure, and constructing in-person interpersonal skills. Students will still build time management skills, albeit in a more structured and periodic cycle.

What type of feedback will be most useful for students in your course?

Asynchronous modalities provide opportunities for more thorough and reflective feedback. For more complex tasks, feedback will require intentionality, and will most likely be based on the product of a process that is not visible to the instructor.

Synchronous feedback strategies provide an opportunity for spontaneous, immediate feedback that allows students to make real-time adjustments to their processes.

What role will student perspectives play in your course?

Asynchronous settings work well for students who have unmovable demands on their time and availability and tend to set the expectation that every student shares their thoughts. This allows a greater diversity of students and ideas to be represented throughout the course.

Synchronous sessions can be designed to allow students to share their perspectives and relate course content to their experiences. This helps students connect with their peers and form a learning community within the synchronous session. Classroom management techniques become more relevant in synchronous sessions as vocal students may dominate discussions, creating a narrowed perspective. There is also a possibility that some students may take a back seat through the whole course if they are not engaged in the synchronous session.

What type of time can you give to this course?

Asynchronous elements are set up ahead of time, requiring a heavier investment up-front that allows you to focus on teaching during the semester. Everything you create can be “durable”, and can be used semester to semester. While they can be iterated, it is harder to make asynchronous elements responsive to students in real time.

Synchronous elements also require prep time, but a lot of the instructional lift happens as you attend to instructional design and facilitate student learning simultaneously. Classroom preparation is iterative and is informed by previous synchronous elements to take into account and address any knowledge gaps. When facilitating the synchronous element, you are able to adapt to changes on the fly and check understanding at the moment to determine your plans need to change. Every session must be constructed in the moment in a way that can be immediately responsive to student needs.

The Right Decision

There is no single “right” choice when it comes to deciding whether synchronous or asynchronous teaching modalities. You’ll need to consider the learning outcomes you are working towards, assessment needs, your strengths as an instructor, and your students’ needs as learners. Clarifying the factors driving your decision can serve as a basis for selecting the modalities that work best for your course.

Brad is a 38-year-old man who is thinking about the future after leaving the Canadian Army. He has hands-on job experience in logistics and transportation but only a few college credits and no degree. He enrolled in the open online course “People, Technology, and the Future of Mobility” to learn about new technologies and get an overview of their possible impacts. He feels confident in his ability to learn independently online but dislikes reading and might struggle to spend time on the course due to heavy job demands.

Lavonda enjoys her job in marketing but does not always feel comfortable meeting with clients. She hopes that taking the “Feedback Fundamentals” open online course will help improve her communication skills and put her in a better position for career advancement. Although she has a master’s degree in marketing, she has not taken formal classes in many years. She has never taken online classes before, and at 55, she worries she won’t be able to learn the technology needed to complete the course.

Mohamed is a third-year engineering student in Syria who enrolled in “Community Organizing for Social Justice” because of the increased violence and injustice he sees. He knows very little about organizing and motivating people. However, he wants to work toward giving others more peaceful and equitable lives. His studies keep him busy, though, so he wants to find ways to stay motivated and make a difference in his community.

An immensely wide variety of learners are attracted to the flexibility and low cost of massive open online courses. A single MOOC might contain learners from six continents with ages spanning teens in high school to retired adults. The range of learner demographics found in open online courses begs for an awareness of some key differences between learners’ levels of content knowledge, motivation, and engagement strategies learners bring to any given course.

Background Knowledge

Do your online learners learners share the same background and expertise? Not likely. The heterogeneity found in MOOCs means that people enter their courses with a wide range of content knowledge and background experience. These learners did not all attend schools with similar requirements and do not all live in the same regions, as reflected in the above examples of learner personas, so MOOC “learners cannot be assumed to possess a common body of expertise and thus may approach a task with varying levels of understanding and experience” (Quintana et al, 2020). Faculty creating open online courses should take this broad range of content knowledge into account to make it accessible for diverse learners.

Motivation

Open online course learners are driven by various motivations for taking courses. Building new skills for a career transition, professional development, and social activism are all typical motivations for learners enrolling in open online courses. Students also use them to supplement their formal training, casual interest in learning more about something (Milligan & Littlelohn, 2017), or a desire to connect with others (Zheng et al, 2015).

Engagement Strategies

Learners approach open online courses differently than traditional students might approach their residential courses. Some could have very little time to devote to the course each week and spend months rather than weeks to finish. Others may quickly and independently complete the required course readings, avoiding videos or optional material. Some will watch videos and only look at readings when necessary. Some learners will enjoy participating in discussions to request or offer help to peers, while others will not engage in forum discussions at all, so faculty should consider various possible activities and experiences their future learners might find engaging.

Meaningful Connections

The flexibility and open access options of open online courses attract a variety of learners from around the globe. Some may be graduate students, undergrads, or high school students, but many others may not be students at all but working professionals with full-time jobs and/or families. To engage and maintain the interest of these learners, online content should focus on learners making meaningful connections between the theories faculty teach and how learners will use that theory in their own lives.

References

Milligan, C. & Littlejohn, A. (2017). Why study on a MOOC? The motives of students and professionals. International review of research in open and distributed learning, 18(2)

Quintana, R.M., Halye, S.R., Magyar, N., & Tan, Y. (2020). Integrating learner and user experience design: A bidirectional approach. Learner and user experience research.

Zheng, S., Rosson, M.B., Shih, P.C., & Carroll, J.M. (2015). Understanding student motivation, behaviors, and perceptions in MOOCs. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 1882-1895). ACM.

COVID-19 caught everyone off guard in 2020. Suddenly, all classes had to be held online and instructors and students had to react quickly with minimal help. With time to reflect on these experiences, faculty ask themselves what methods are available to keep students engaged and motivated in an online or virtual environment.

At the Center for Academic Innovation, gameful pedagogy is one approach to increasing student engagement. This method of course design takes inspiration from how good games function and applies that to the design of learning environments.

One key goal of gameful pedagogy, as one might guess, is leveraging student motivation. To achieve that, course designers draw on elements of Self-Determination Theory, or SDT for short. This theory centers the power of intrinsic motivation as a driver of behavior. It sits on three primary pillars: autonomy (the power of choice a learner can have in their learning experience), competency (a feeling of accomplishment derived from completing a challenge), and belongingness (a feeling of being included and heard by the environment one is in or the people around them) (Deci & Ryan, 2000).

Yet, gameful pedagogy isn’t just about SDT. Practitioners also believe in an additive point-based grading system instead of traditional grading. In traditional deductive percentage-paced grading, learners start at 100% and have their points deducted as they learn, which does not align with what learning is about.

In a gameful course, learners are treated as novices when they first start a learning journey, so they start from zero and then work their way up to their goals. It also provides learners the freedom to fail. From a gameful point of view, it is unfair to expect learners to be “perfect” in learning environments because mistakes are common in learning, and they are great growth opportunities. Therefore, in gameful, learning environments that leave space for learners to explore and offer chances to make up for mistakes are preferred. It is important, however, to acknowledge that this freedom does not mean creating an out-of-control environment. Educators can still apply limitations by assigning different point values, requiring the completion of certain tasks to unlock others, etc. to ensure that students are working toward the learning goals. All of these approaches and more boil down to gameful pedagogy, and this course design method has been used in a wide range of classes, from higher education down to K-12. However, most use cases occurred in person before the 2020 COVID outbreak. Does gameful also work in online environments?

That turns out to be a great question for Pete Bodary, clinical associate professor of applied exercise science and movement science in the School of Kinesiology. He has taught gameful courses for several years, including MOVESCI 241. This course teaches body mass regulation assessments, principles, and strategies. It is constructed with an additive point-based grading scheme, all-optional assignments (a student has the autonomy to complete any combination of assignments to get to their desired grade/goal), a strong supportive network, and real-world relevant topics (diabetes, disordered eating, weight control, supplements and safety, etc.).

To maintain all assignments as optional while ensuring that students are on track to the learning objectives, Bodary assigns significantly more points to certain assignments to encourage completion. Some assignments include personal dietary intake and physical activity tracking, case studies, participation and reflections on dietary and physical challenges, and more.

In Winter 2023, he decided to give students more freedom to engage with the class lectures on top of the existing setup. Students could choose from three distinct sections: the in-person section, the synchronous virtual section, or the asynchronous virtual section. In the in-person section, students were required to attend lectures in person. In the synchronous virtual section, students could participate in lectures online while being live-streamed. The asynchronous virtual section allowed students the freedom to watch lecture recordings at their convenience without the obligation to attend lectures in real-time.

Did students in different sections perform differently in this course? The short answer is no, not significantly.

“Those who are remote do not have the ease of popping out a question, [meaning the ability to raise their hand and spontaneously ask questions], so that is one difference to consider. However, we maintain a pretty active [asynchronous] Q/A space. I don’t believe that they ‘performed’ differently,” Bodary said.

Students engage with the course content differently, but they are all motivated and learning in their own way.

In fact, to find out students’ motivations in this course, Bodary deployed a U-M Maizey project. U-M Maizey is a generative AI customization tool that allows faculty, staff and students to build their a U-M GPT chatbot trained on a custom dataset. Bodary set up Maizey in the Fall 2023 term for the same course with a similar structure and prompted Maizey: What is the primary motivation of students?

By evaluating students’ activity data, Maizey summarized that students are primarily motivated by finding course materials relatable and beneficial to improving their personal and loved ones’ health and well-being, connecting knowledge and issues they garnered in their daily lives to class content, and implementing course content in real-world problems.

Looking at this example, three key characteristics emerge: controlled freedom for students to choose how to engage with the course, opportunities for students to make personal connections with course content, and possibilities for students to apply course content in real-world situations.

Tying these characteristics back to gameful pedagogy, there is alignment between them and the three components of SDT – autonomy, belongingness, and competency. Furthermore, the additive grading system and all-optional assignment design support student exploration and agency to choose assignments and coursework. The course format, whether in-person or online, didn’t impact students’ motivation. Instead, the fact that students can choose their own way to participate in the class may motivate them even more.

What’s important here isn’t modality (online, in-person, or asynchronously) but rather the content and design of the course. The success of MOVESCI 241 hinges on a carefully designed course where students can successfully meet the learning goals regardless of how they engage. The design of MOVESCI 241 is gameful, but not all gameful courses are designed this way. If you want to use gameful pedagogy to increase engagement in your course, you can start with these steps. You can also check out GradeCraft, a learning management system (LMS) built at the center to support gameful courses. Some key features of GradeCraft that make it a perfect companion for gameful courses are the additive grading system, mechanisms for tracking tangible progress (points planner, levels, unlocks, and badges), and functions for flexibility (highly tailorable for both instructors and students). Finally, if you want to learn more about gameful pedagogy or GradeCraft, please email us at [email protected], and staff would be happy to set up a conversation with you.

References

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.

Educators can use generative AI to transform dense, technical material into clear, easily understandable content. This improves students’ comprehension and makes the learning experience more inclusive to a wider audience. While students are growing in their knowledge of complex academic topics, sometimes academic terminology can be a barrier. Particularly early in the course, students may not yet be familiar with the jargon and language of your subject matter. In addition, you may have learners in your course with a wide range of educational and cultural backgrounds. Some of your students may be from countries outside of the United States, and English may not be their first language. By demystifying complex concepts, jargon, and metaphors with generative AI, educators are empowered to create more equitable and effective learning environments for our diverse array of learners.

For example, you can use the following example prompt to get started:

“Could you please rewrite the following text to an 8-10th-grade reading level (using Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level) and clarify any complex jargon: “[Your text]” Thank you!”

In this prompt, we are asking ChatGPT to rewrite text to an 8-10th-grade reading level on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Scale. This is the reading level recommended for a general adult lay audience. Feel free to adjust this to fit your target audience.

Example: An Online Course on Neuroscience

Drafting

Now imagine that you are a renowned neuroscientist and a highly regarded faculty member at Michigan Medicine. You are interested in developing an online course that will bring neuroscience concepts to a lay audience. You are excited to get started, but as you begin to develop content, you quickly realize that your typical content is aimed at seasoned medical students and filled with jargon that may be daunting to those without prior knowledge. You realize that generative AI may be able to assist you in breaking down concepts into simpler terms.

You fill in the example prompt with some of the text from one of your old in-person presentations with key concepts that you would like to include in this online course:

“Could you please rewrite the following text to an 8-10th-grade reading level (using Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level) and clarify any complex jargon:

In our introductory exploration of neuroscience, we delve into the intricate workings of the central nervous system (CNS), focusing on the complex interplay between neurons and glial cells. We examine the fundamental principles of neuronal communication, emphasizing the role of neurotransmitters in synaptic transmission and the significance of action potentials in neural signaling. A detailed analysis of the brain’s functional anatomy is conducted, where we dissect the various lobes of the cerebral cortex, the limbic system, and the intricate circuitry of the basal ganglia, highlighting their contributions to cognitive and motor functions. Additionally, we explore the mechanisms underlying neuroplasticity, emphasizing the synaptic and non-synaptic changes that facilitate learning and memory. The course also delves into the pathophysiology of neurological disorders, exploring the etiology and progression of conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, and discusses the latest advancements in neuropharmacology and neuroimaging techniques.

Thank you!”

In response to your input, ChatGPT gives you the following output:

“In our first look at neuroscience, we study how the central nervous system (CNS) works. This includes understanding how neurons (brain cells) and glial cells (supporting cells) interact. We learn about how neurons talk to each other, focusing on neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that help send messages in the brain, and action potentials, which are electrical signals in neurons.

We also look closely at the brain’s structure. This includes studying the different parts of the brain, like the lobes of the cerebral cortex, the limbic system (which deals with emotions), and the basal ganglia (important for movement), and how they help us think and move.

The course also covers neuroplasticity, which is how the brain changes to help us learn and remember things. We look at both synaptic changes (changes at the connections between neurons) and non-synaptic changes (changes within the neurons themselves).

We also learn about neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. We study what causes these diseases and how they progress. Finally, we discuss new developments in treating brain disorders and ways to look at the brain, like neuropharmacology (study of how drugs affect the brain) and neuroimaging (brain scanning techniques).”

In this example, ChatGPT keeps all of the main concepts intact while using simpler language, providing definitions of terminology used (rather than removing it entirely), and breaking the large paragraph into more digestible, smaller paragraphs or chunks.

Refining

As a content expert, it is important to read through the output and ensure that all key concepts remain intact. It is also up to you to determine whether the revisions are sufficient and appropriate for your audience. You may choose to ask for stylistic revisions as well. For example, ChatGPT wrote the text as though the course is currently happening. However, you plan on delivering this information at the beginning of the course to talk about what the learner will learn. This is your preference.

You can ask ChatGPT to revise with the following:

“The course hasn’t happened yet. Please rewrite this to account for that. For example, using the phrase “we will” throughout.”

ChatGPT will then go through and make the requested revisions to the text using the appropriate tense that you indicated in your input:

“In our upcoming exploration of neuroscience, we will delve into how the central nervous system (CNS) functions. This will involve understanding the interaction between neurons (brain cells) and glial cells (support cells). We will learn about neuronal communication, focusing on neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that help send messages in the brain, and action potentials, the electrical signals in neurons.

We will also closely examine the brain’s structure, studying different parts such as the lobes of the cerebral cortex, the limbic system (which deals with emotions), and the basal ganglia (important for movement), and understanding how they influence our thinking and movement.

The course will cover neuroplasticity, which is how the brain changes to facilitate learning and memory. We will observe both synaptic changes (alterations at the connections between neurons) and non-synaptic changes (alterations within the neurons themselves).

Additionally, we will explore neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. We will investigate the causes of these diseases and their progression. Finally, we will discuss the latest developments in treating brain disorders and methods for examining the brain, such as neuropharmacology (the study of how drugs affect the brain) and neuroimaging (brain scanning techniques).”

Continue to refine as needed. Consider feeding into the chat examples of your tone of voice so that the content is not only accessible for learners but also contains a human element. In addition, you can increase your expectation of language understanding as your students grow in their knowledge and your expectations of understanding increase.

The Roundup on Research series is intended for faculty and staff who are interested in learning more about the theories, frameworks, and research in online and technology-enhanced teaching and learning.

If you have been anywhere where teaching is involved, you have probably heard mention of “learning styles.” “I’m a visual learner” vs. “I’m a hands-on learner” or “My instructor didn’t teach in my learning style” are all the types of commentary that are common when some individuals talk about their own learning. Although it is deeply appealing to be able to categorize individuals into easy methods of learning, unfortunately, it is deeply flawed, has little empirical evidence to support it, and might cause more problems than it solves.

What are Learning Styles?

To best understand why learning styles are problematic, it is important to clearly define learning styles. The idea of learning styles is that there are stable, consistent methods that individuals take in, organize, process, and remember information, and by teaching those methods, students learn better.

One popular concept in learning styles posits that the modality of information is critical – a “visual” learner learns best by seeing versus an “auditory” learner who learns best by having things spoken or described to them. Learning style theory would suggest that by using visual aids, a visual learner would organize and retain information better than say, an auditory learner. The implication is that matching modality information to the modality of learning style is critical to student success.

A note: there are additional and related concepts of “cognitive styles,” “learning strategies,” and “learner preferences” that can sometimes be used interchangeably with “learning styles.” For this article, “learning styles” refers specifically to the theory that there are ways that individuals learn best. In contrast, learning preferences suggest that there are ways people prefer to receive information, but it may not impact learning.

At face value, the concept of learning styles makes sense. Individuals learn differently. Most educational settings are trying to reach large numbers of students in personalized ways. It would be useful to have an easily applied theory that would help all students learn! As educators, we want to recognize the “uniqueness” of each student and help learners in any way we can. This desire has led educators to look for easier ways to navigate the complexities of teaching. Unfortunately, learning is not that simple.

Do Learning Styles Really Exist?

In general, most learning style theories make two presumptions:

Individuals have a measurable and consistent “style” of learning, and
Teaching to that style of learning will lead to better education outcomes, and conversely, teaching in a contradictory method would decrease achievement.

In other words, if you are a visual learner, you should learn best if you see things, regardless of the situation. If you are a kinesthetic learner, you will learn best if you can physically manipulate something, regardless of the topic. However, neither of these two assumptions shows any grounding in research. These two propositions are where we can see the concept of learning styles breaking down.

Are Learning Styles Measurable and Consistent?

Did you know that there are actually over 50 different theories of learning styles by various researchers? Researchers have been trying for years to find a correlation between individuals and how to help learning. Some theories suggest the modality of learning matters (like the common VARK theory) while others propose details like time of day and temperature of the room define a learning style. One study that suggested using a cell phone was a learning style (Pursell, 2009). Just the number of different styles makes it difficult to measure and make sense of an individual style.

In addition, most learning style inventories rely on a student’s self-report about how they perceive they learn best. These self-reports are generally not validated in any way. Generally, humans tend to be poor judges of our own learning. Therefore, these surveys are generally measuring “learner preference” rather than “learning style.” You may think you are an auditory learner but until it is validated that you objectively learn better through audio format, it is a preference, not a style.

Also, when reporting results, many studies will rely on “student satisfaction” as a measure of success, or rely on students’ reflections as a measure of success in a class. For example, many measures of learning styles will ask students how they believe they learn best. Unfortunately, satisfaction with a class or a student’s recollections of success are subjective measures, and generally not accurate (Kirschner & van Merriënboer, 2013, Kirschner, 2017). While understanding a learner’s preference is useful as is understanding student satisfaction with a lesson, it does not have the same weight as necessitating teaching to that preference.

Finally, ”styles” are unstable and unreliable. The research on learning styles has suggested that these preferences may be unstable – they be topic-specific, but they also change over time (Coffield et al., 2004). That means that although an individual may be a kinesthetic learner in history this week, that person is a visual learner in math when talking about calculus (but not about geometry), or prefers to learn how to ride a bike kinesthetically instead of reading about it in a book. This questions whether a learning style is a “trait” (or something stable and persisting for a person) or a “state” (something that is temporary and may change). Learning styles as a state of mind are not particularly useful. How can a teacher know the preference of an individual student today in a given subject?

Does Teaching a Learning Style Result in Better Learning?

Even more importantly, however, is the second assumption – does teaching to an individual’s learning style lead to achievement? Simply put, there is no evidence that supports teaching to a person’s specified learning style results in better learning (Alley, et. al., 2023; Cuevas, 2015; Kirschner & van Merriënboer, 2013; Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006; Pashler et al., 2008; Rogowsky et al., 2020). No study has shown that teaching to an identified learning style results in better retention, better learning outcomes or student success. Instead, we see that teaching to a self-identified learning style has no impact on learning in children or adults (Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006; Paschler et al., 2008; Rogowsky et al., 2015, Rogowsky et al., 2020). Some research suggests that some students performed better on tasks when taught in a different modality than their self-identified “learning style” (Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006, Rogowsky et al., 2020). Most studies of learning styles use a methodology that uses multiple styles to all learners – meaning that there is no way to isolate learning style to teaching method. This leads us to ultimately conclude that while the concept of learning styles is appealing, at this point, it is still a myth.

Alternate Explanations to Learning Styles

Anecdotally, there are many stories about the success of leveraging “learning styles.” If learning styles are not empirically supported, how are these successes explained? There are alternative explanations for why teaching in multiple methods increases achievement that do not prescribe students into style categories. Multi-modal learning explains how learning improves with various methods of teaching.

Learning requires sustained attention. Therefore, if an educator can capture and maintain students’ attention, students’ learning outcomes likely improve. Providing engagement with content in multiple forms – be it through hands-on activities, or different modalities – makes students pay attention to content in different ways, and requires learners to integrate knowledge in new ways. If an educator is using multiple methods and modalities, it’s just more interesting, and students pay more attention, which leads to better learning. Mayer and colleagues (2001, 2003) have extensively studied how students learn with visuals and audio, and the interaction of the two. What he and his colleagues suggest is that by providing dual streams of information in multiple methods engages learners to work harder at understanding the material, which leads to better learning. It may be that the research on learning styles is actually showing that teaching with different modalities is just more interesting to students rather than catering to a particular style of learning (Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006).

Why Learning Styles are Dangerous

While the intentions of learning styles are good, the implications of learning styles are more destructive than helpful. On the positive side, reflecting on how one learns is always a lesson. However, by focusing on a style suggests that learners are passive vessels at the whim of the method of teaching. Ultimately, most educators want students to actively engage in their learning. The best learning takes place when an individual can connect and incorporate information into his or her personal experiences and understanding. By focusing on a student’s learning style we reinforce a simplistic view of learning. Learning styles suggest that individuals have one way to learn best. Unfortunately, learning is complex, and not easy. This is hard and takes time! It has very little to do with the way information is handed to a learner, but rather, how the learner processes that knowledge once they have it. It is important to remember – learning is within the control of the learner.

Thinking Critically About Learning Styles

If learning styles do not impact an individual’s ability to learn, why is there so much talk about them? Articles and books are still being published about learning styles and how to tailor teaching to reach every style. Research on teaching and learning is a complicated discipline, and being able to examine theories and concepts like learning styles critically is important to anyone working in education. The challenge is to keep a skeptical eye when you hear about research supporting learning styles and ask the right questions to make sure you are getting good information.

What Should you Think About the Next Time you Encounter Learning Styles in the Wild?

What framework of learning styles are they referring to? Some are more empirically vetted than others. The most popular learning style VARK (Visual-Auditory-Read/Write-Kinesthetic) is also the least validated. Find out more about the learning style being discussed.
How are they measuring both learning style and success? Are they self-reported? Are they looking at academic results or a self-report of satisfaction with learning?
Is the study carefully controlled? Many studies fail to tailor the learning to a particular style. Rather, the lesson uses all the styles to reach all the students. There is no way to truly measure success.
Learning styles can be controversial with some people. They aren’t necessarily harmful if they encourage people to reflect on teaching and learning in different ways. They can be harmful if students believe that their learning is outside their control.

References

Alley, S., Plotnikoff, R. C., Duncan, M. J., Short, C. E., Mummery, K., To, Q. G., Schoeppe, S., Rebar, A., & Vandelanotte, C. (2023). Does matching a personally tailored physical activity intervention to participants’ learning style improve intervention effectiveness and engagement? Journal of Health Psychology, 28(10), 889–899.

Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Should we be using learning styles? What research has to say to practice: Learning & Skills Research Center.

Cuevas, J. (2015). Is learning styles-based instruction effective? A comprehensive analysis of recent research on learning styles. Theory and Research in Education, 13(3), 308–333.

Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166–171.

Kirschner, P. A., & van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2013). Do learners really know best? Urban legends in education. Educational Psychologist, 48(3), 169–183.

Krätzig, G. P., & Arbuthnott, K. D. (2006). Perceptual learning style and learning proficiency: A test of the hypothesis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 238–246.

Lau, W. & Yuen, A. (2009). Exploring the effects of gender and learning styles on computer programming performance: Implications for programming pedagogy. British Journal of Educational Technology. 40(4), 696-712

Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38, 43-52.

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119.

Pursell, D. P. (2009) Adapting to student learning styles: Engaging students with cell phone technology in organic chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education. 86(10), p1219-1222.

Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2015). Matching learning style to instructional method: Effects on comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(1), 64–78.

Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2020). Providing Instruction Based on Students’ Learning Style Preferences Does Not Improve Learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 11.

Extended Reality (XR)

Extended Reality (XR) allows learners to reach beyond the classroom into another setting through 360 videos and other simulations that can be used on different platforms whether that is headsets, web browsers, or mobile devices. Creating these learning activities in XR allows learners to practice needed skills in a simulated environment. These low-stakes practices enable students to try and fail, get feedback, and try again without the usual costs of in-person scenarios. Courses such as First Aid, electric wiring, and public speaking could be augmented with opportunities to practice the necessary skills and behaviors in a low-stakes environment. All courses could integrate XR whether in a classroom with headsets or online with mobile devices or web-based browsing. Digital accessibility considerations are not always at the forefront in design such as the visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor needs of learners. Yet they are necessary requirements to make sure all learners can participate in learning and not be left out as new technology is integrated into online classrooms. Thus questions such as these can arise amidst excitement – What are the accessibility considerations in the XR space? How accessible is XR?

There are research groups and associations such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and XR Access that focus their work on XR and accessibility to build collective knowledge and practice. Here at the University of Michigan, the Center of Academic Innovation has experts in XR and accessibility such as Pamela Saca, the learning experience designer for accessibility. She will provide insights into these questions along with the resources to dig into to make sure as innovation expands, so does access for all.

Making Learning More Accessible

While many immediately think of the accessibility limitations inherent in XR technology, there are accessibility benefits as well. XR promises great potential for communicating and engaging more effectively in a remote, immersive environment for many learners who may not have had the opportunity before the integration of XR. The aspects of XR allow for engagement in both technical and humanistic fields of study and in allowing practice for skills such as wiring. It is poised to impact any discipline where objects of study are spatially relevant, allow students to gain confidence in analytic skills, and increase access to things that would cost time, money, or safety (Cook and Lischer-Katz).

There are also specific tools that increase accessibility. When thinking about the 1 in 4 people in the United States with a disability, these benefits can allow students to be more active participants in the classroom while also enhancing the learning experience of content. XR features can increase accessibility by enhancing surround sound from one side of the body over the other, using a technology that allows a virtual reality headset to dynamically highlight sharp contrasts of picture quality in peripheral vision for visually impaired users and enabling walkability for those confined in a wheelchair through movements similar to walking around a boardroom table. XR tools support students to engage and change the tools so that they fit their needs and fulfill the vision of building the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors for their course.

Accessibility Challenges

However, there are accessibility challenges with the use of XR, that can affect all learners, even without disabilities. Students working in noisy spaces may also have challenges hearing. Some students struggle with new technologies or have motion sickness when using a headset. Some XR tools like 360 degree videos or first person perspective movement depend heavily on motion controls. The technology requires the user to manipulate their body to control their movements and placements which forces the challenges in accessibility when there are learners who have difficulties with motion controls.

Planning for Accessibility

Although Pamela Saca, the Learning Experience Designer for Accessibility at the Center for Academic Innovation, believes that extended reality could support many people in their learning, she knows nothing can be 100% accessible because one thing that “works for one person will be in direct conflict for what might work for another person.” In her work in design teams, a change made to help one type of learner and their specific accessibility needs may make it more difficult for another. Therefore, she suggests the following considerations that can help design teams and instructors make more inclusive choices.

Consider accessibility from the beginning. The XR collaborative recommends planning XR experiences explicitly considering accessibility at the start of your project. It’s more efficient and less expensive than having to remediate. Think about the types of learners you may have in your course and what kind of needs they may have. This could include captioning audio or providing alternatives for physical movements. There are resources for testing accessibility whether that be through user testing before launch, XR Guidelines, or the W3C amongst others that need to be implemented throughout the design process from ideation to implementation.
Build with an audience in mind that is as inclusive as possible, or better yet, involve people with disabilities as members of the course design, managers, and testers. You may find challenges you hadn’t anticipated due to your own design bias.
Test the learning activity with a diverse group of people to ensure ample feedback and to be able to build in alternative activities if it is not 100% accessible. During one set of user testing, what designers thought to be a great design instead had a lot of challenges. The XR experience had to be changed to accommodate the broad population that would be using it, even if it didn’t align with the originally planned experience.

Extended reality is a tool that can be used to enhance learning through low-stakes practice, continuous feedback, and real-life situations. It, like many other learning technologies, has limitations and introduces the possibilities for exclusion whether that be because of technological difficulties, inaccessibility, or other issues unknown to the designer. Extended reality, like many technological innovations, is exciting but should also be used for expanding learning for all.

References

CDC: 1 in 4 US adults live with a disability | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC. (2019, April 10).

Cook, M., & Lischer-Katz, Z. (2020). Practical steps for an effective virtual reality course integration. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 27(2–4), 210–226.

Resources

XR Access: A community committed to making virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (XR) accessible to people with disabilities

World Wide Web Consortium: The W3C mission is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the We

One of the first questions many educators ask when getting started teaching online is “How do you recreate the experience of a face-to-face classroom in an online environment?” While there are many facets to that question, many instructors refer to the sense of community and connection as a gap that they struggle to overcome. However, much research has been done on the impact and development of learning communities in the online classroom. In this article, we will discuss the influential framework Community of Inquiry (CoI), how it can be used to inform your own teaching, as well as how it has been used to frame online learning research in the research.

Community of Inquiry Model

One of the most used frameworks applied to the understanding of online learning environments is the community of inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison, et. al, 2000). Originally developed by observing asynchronous text-based learning environments, CoI suggests that there are three core interdependent elements to a learning experience: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. The intersection of the three presences results in what is categorized as “deep learning.” Rooted in the belief that learners construct meaning within social contexts (social constructivism), Community of Inquiry makes meaning of how learners interact online to create knowledge.

Three Presences: Cognitive, Teaching, and Social

Cognitive presence is the capacity for meaningful construction of learning. Cognitive presence is often what instructors might think of the active learning portion of a class. Indications of cognitive presence include asking questions, engaging in reflection on a topic, and scaffolding engagement with a topic. Cognitive presence can be supported by an instructor asking probing questions, modeling reflection, and encouraging active participation from learners. As the community grows together, other learners may (and should) also participate in the facilitation of cognitive presence.

Venn diagram of Community of Inquiry model with three presences (social, cognitive, and teaching) all intersecting. Common area between social presence and cognitive presence is supporting discourse. Common area between social presence and teaching presence is setting climate. Common area between teaching presence and cognitive presence is selecting content. All three areas intersect with educational experience.

Teaching presence is the design, structure, and guidance that directs the learning experience. Instructional design is one of the earliest ways to demonstrate teaching presence (course materials, assessments, activities). However, it is also important to consider how the instructor demonstrates active teaching presence throughout the time of the course. This can take the form of weekly introductory emails, specifying expectations for Zoom sessions, or providing assistance to a student struggling with a topic. Teaching presence is not isolated to the instructor alone, rather, can also be exhibited by students by providing structure and guidance to fellow students.

Social presence is the ability for participants in the community to represent themselves as whole people complete with emotions and personality. It is easy to focus on the design of a course thinking about the content that needs to be taught or the learning objectives to be met. In a face-to-face classroom, much of the social presence happens spontaneously through a shared location. In an online setting, we design our courses and spaces to encourage the development of social presence. This could involve including an introduction area for students where the instructor shares (and encourages students to share) some pieces of personal information, infusing weekly posts or announcements with personality as well as giving students space to express their own personalities.

COI in the Literature

As one of the prevailing frameworks in current online teaching and learning, the Community of Inquiry model has been in the academic spotlight frequently over the past several years. In a recent search, CoI has been cited in over 1000 articles during the last three years alone. As classrooms transitioned to emergency remote and/or online teaching during the pandemic, CoI has been used to explain students’ motivation in courses (Turk et al., 2022), how to understand the bridge between informal and formal learning (Chatterjee & Parra, 2022), and leveraging learning analytics for student feedback (Yılmaz, 2020). It is also hypothesized that different types of disciplines may have different need profiles for presence, for example, some disciplines may have greater social presence needs vs. teaching presence needs (Arbaugh, 2013).

Most critically, social presence has been associated with student satisfaction in online learning. While teaching and cognitive presence are positively correlated with students’ perceptions of learning (Akyol & Garrison, 2008; Turk et al., 2022), social presence was highlighted as faculty transitioned to emergency remote teaching during the pandemic. Studies of social presence have cited timeliness of feedback and coaching (Conklin & Dikkers, 2021), frequency of communication and feedback (D’alessio et al., 2019), and the opportunity for social interactions regardless of whether those opportunities were acted upon (Weidlich & Bastiaens, 2019) as ways to build social presence. The benefits of increased social presence suggest decreased issues with academic integrity (Eshet et al., 2021), increased student performance (D’alessio et al., 2019), and increased higher-order thinking (Stein et al., 2013).

Critiques of COI

While being one of the most popular frameworks leveraged in online teaching and learning right now, CoI is not without critique. First, it assumes that learning is inherently social. If your teaching philosophy does not align with the underlying beliefs of social-based learning (like constructivism), this may not be the best framework.

In Xin’s (2012) critique she notes the challenges of parsing out what is a “social presence” interaction (since CoI assumes all learning is social) from the other types of presences. How are cognitive presence and teaching presence different if they are also inherently social? In addition, because CoI is rooted in written communication between community members, is there a difference between what happens in written, asynchronous communication versus what may take place more spontaneously with spoken, synchronous communication? Others have suggested that CoI does not take into account interpersonal contributions to learning. Learners may also need to take responsibility for their learning, and they may not always be invested in a learning community (Shea et al., 2014; Wertz, 2022).

Finally, CoI was developed during a time when synchronous communication (like videoconferencing) was at a premium. The research has not yet determined whether CoI applies equally as well when a portion of communication is taking place synchronously.

How to Incorporate COI Into Your Online Design

One of the reasons the Community of Inquiry is so popular is that it can be used proactively as a framework for creating a more engaging learning environment. Facilitating an online course can feel like teaching to a black box. CoI provides a way to be proactive in development to make teaching online more effective. The best way to leverage CoI is to think about the three types of presences and how you are planning to address them each week.

Since CoI is rooted in active communication, one of the best things to do is to create a communication/engagement plan.

Ideas for Increasing Teaching Presence:

Write weekly introductions and weekly summaries. Consider including points that you may have found particularly interesting and/or general comments on discussions within class.
Use the Announcements feature to post timely updates.
Return emails and assignments within a set expectation. For example, “I will return short assignments within 3 days. Our longer papers will be returned within 7 days”
Create a survey for students to get feedback on organization/communication. Make adjustments based on feedback, and then communicate those changes back to students. Students need to know that you have made changes based on their feedback.

Ideas for Increasing Cognitive Presence

In videoconferencing (like Zoom), create handouts or guided notes so students can be active during lectures.
Tools like Persuall can engage students asynchronously with communications on readings.
Use case studies, application, and reflection assignments to encourage students to consider content topics and make meaningful connections

Ideas for Increasing Social Presence

Social presence is facilitated by the instructor. Demonstrate commitment to connection with students. Create a communication plan. Students frequently cite feedback from instructors as a critical aspect of feeling connected in a class. Give students expectations for timeliness of feedback and provide enough detail to build an academic relationship.
Create space for social interactions during Zoom sessions. Take the first 3 minutes for small talk, have a question of the day, or use a poll to encourage students to share about themselves if they feel comfortable.
Use a discussion board for informal conversations. Consider a theme – favorite meme, favorite place to travel, food that reminds you of home. Make sure that as the instructor, you participate as well.

If you are interested in learning more about Community of Inquiry, visit the COI website.

References

Arbaugh, J. B. (2013). Does academic discipline moderate CoI-course outcomes relationships in online MBA courses? The Internet and Higher Education, 17, 16–28.

Chatterjee, S., & Parra, J. (2022). Undergraduate Students Engagement in Formal and Informal Learning: Applying the Community of Inquiry Framework. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 50(3), 327–355.

Conklin, S., & Dikkers, A. G. (2021). Instructor Social Presence and Connectedness in a Quick Shift from Face-to-Face to Online Instruction. Online Learning, 25(1).

D’alessio, M. A., Lundquist, L. L., Schwartz, J. J., Pedone, V., Pavia, J., & Fleck, J. (2019). Social presence enhances student performance in an online geology course but depends on instructor facilitation. Journal of Geoscience Education, 67(3), 222–236.

Eshet, Y., Steinberger, P., & Grinautsky, K. (2021). Relationship between statistics anxiety and academic dishonesty: A comparison between learning environments in social sciences. Sustainability (Switzerland), 13(3), 1–18.

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2), 87–105.

Shea, P., Hayes, S., Uzuner-Smith, S., Gozza-Cohen, M., Vickers, J., & Bidjerano, T. (2014). Reconceptualizing the community of inquiry framework: An exploratory analysis. The Internet and Higher Education, 23, 9–17.

Stein, D. S., Wanstreet, C. E., Slagle, P., Trinko, L. A., & Lutz, M. (2013). From “hello” to higher-order thinking: The effect of coaching and feedback on online chats. Internet and Higher Education, 16(2013), 78–84.

Turk, M., Heddy, B. C., & Danielson, R. W. (2022). Teaching and social presences supporting basic needs satisfaction in online learning environments: How can presences and basic needs happily meet online? Computers & Education, 180, 104432.

Wertz, R. E. H. (2022). Learning presence within the Community of Inquiry framework: An alternative measurement survey for a four-factor model. The Internet and Higher Education, 52, 100832.

Weidlich, J., & Bastiaens, T. J. (2019). Designing sociable online learning environments and enhancing social presence: An affordance enrichment approach. Computers and Education, 142, 103622.

Xin, C. (2012). A Critique of the Community of Inquiry Framework. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education / Revue Internationale Du e-Learning et La Formation à Distance, 26(1), Article 1.

Yılmaz, R. (2020). Enhancing community of inquiry and reflective thinking skills of undergraduates through using learning analytics-based process feedback. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 36(6), 909–921.