An Inquiry-Based Framework for Teaching English in Synchronous Environments: Perceptions From Teachers and Learners

Community of Inquiry (COI) Model

The CoI model is a key concept to understanding the framework that we propose. Higher education has viewed the learning community as an essential element to support collaborative learning and discourse associated with higher levels of learning (Garrison et al., 1999), who consider this learning community as a community of inquiry that has teachers and students. The CoI model is based on a social constructivist perspective of learning and has been acknowledged as a comprehensive framework to guide teaching in online environments (Garrison et al., 1999). The CoI model has three objectives. First, it systematically describes and explains the processes and dynamics of student engagement and learning in online environments. Second, it articulates the social and academic factors that are necessary for the development of high-quality online education. And third, it identifies the elements that contribute to the development of authentic collaboration in online learning settings (Shea & Bidjerano, 2008). In the CoI model, learning in an online environment takes place through the interaction of three elements: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Each presence has categories and indicators that facilitate their identification (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Figure 1 shows how the three presences interact to create a successful online educational experience, and Figure 2 shows the elements, the categories and indicators of the CoI model.

Figure 1.

The Community of Inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison et al., 1999)