Ana Paula de Araujo Cunha & Beatriz Meggiato Oreques de Araujo
Department of Higher Education, Sul-Rio-Grandense Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology (Brazil)
Abstract
This paper derives from a qualitative research whose scope encompasses issues concerning the processes of interaction and teaching-learning mediated by New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT). The investigation context is an online post-graduate course in Education, whose informant subjects are students and teachers from three centers of education. In this sense, the research corpus is derived from data obtained through the capture of the interacting members’ posts in selected online discussion forums. More specifically, the research focus comprehends the teacher's role as a mediator in the discussion forums conducted in the Virtual Learning Environment, by identifying the categories and specific indicators of mediation, in the light of Garrison and Anderson’s Community of Inquiry Model (2003). In this perspective, we investigate to what extent such categories, as constitutive of the elements named Cognitive Presence, Social Presence and Teaching Presence, promote teacher/student/content interaction, supposedly facilitating the collaborative construction of knowledge (cf. VYGOTSKY, 1934/2007-2008). In a general way, the analyzed data point to the hegemony of the teacher with respect to the mediation occurring in the investigated forums. It is also possible to identify significant clues in the matter of how mediation moves have promoted the maintenance and, sometimes, the interactive flow improvement, reiterated by the increase of the students’ dialogical participation in the proposed debates.
Keywords: Interaction, mediation, teacher, online discussion forum.
1. Introduction
Technologies as extension of the human organism end up expanding the possibilities of contact between individuals through the technological mediation. However, this does not effectively ensure a dialogical relationship. Such a relationship will only happen if the interactivity functions and transcends the aprioristically idealized interaction. What should be done, then, so that the use of technology in education can develop a pedagogical mediation that allows meaningful learning?
Masetto understands pedagogical mediation as
the teacher attitude or behavior as a facilitator, encourager and motivator of learning, the one who has the willingness to be a bridge between the learner and his/her learning – not a static bridge, but a "moving" bridge, which actively contributes to the learner reaching his/her goals. (2000, pp.144-145)
Addressing the issue of Pedagogical Mediation and the use of technologies, Masetto (2000) points out that, as the process of learning includes cognitive and affective aspects, involving the development of skills and attitudes of students, the technology to be used should be varied and adequate to such goals. Moreover, the techniques will need to be consistent with the new roles of both the student and the teacher: strategies that strengthen the student’s role as the active subject of learning and the teacher’s role as a mediator, motivator and advisor in different learning environments.
The focus of this research lies on the teacher's role as a mediator in discussion forums held in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), taking as context a post-graduate course in Education developed through distance mode. More specifically, we investigate the categories and indicators of mediation, by also considering the elements concerning the Cognitive, Social and Teaching Presences, within a Community of Inquiry (cf. Garrison and Anderson’s Community of Inquiry Model, 2003). Furthermore, we seek to understand to what extent these elements promote teacher / student / content interactions, supposedly facilitating collaborative knowledge building (cf. VYGOTSKY, 1934 / 2007-2008). Such a model will be approached next.
2. Garrison and Anderson’s community of inquiry model
According to Garrison and Anderson (2003), a critical and collaborative learning community has been central to higher education; because it is precisely through this that the creation of knowledge – reflective and collaborative individual process – becomes possible. In their studies, the way to understand the concept of collaborative learning follows, in a way, a strand linked to the socio-cultural-historical perspective, proposed by Vygotsky (1934/2007). In this sense, the researchers conceive such a concept as a social process of interaction, which occurs during activities within communities – scenario in which meanings are shared, negotiated and (co-) built, with the purpose of solving problems and generating knowledge.
Garrison and Anderson (Ibid) share the idea of Vygotsky (1934/2007), according to which there is an intrinsic relationship between the formation of the individual and the social world. This perspective of knowledge building as a collaborative social activity underlies the Community of Inquiry Model. Such a model was developed in order to understand the multifaceted components of virtual teaching and learning in collaborative construction of knowledge among students, in virtual environments of higher education, under the teacher’s mediation. This learning model, called Community of Inquiry, takes as support the reflective inquiry approach to learning, by John Dewey (1933 - cited in Garrison & Anderson, 2003), which assumes that reflective thinking is the base of the learning process.
In the light of Garrison and Anderson’s assumptions, a relevant educational experience is inserted into a Community of Inquiry, which is made up of teachers and students – key players in the educational process. The Community of Inquiry Model (CIM) presupposes that learning occurs within the community through the interaction of three key elements, namely: Cognitive Presence, Social Presence and Teaching Presence.
Garrison and Anderson, in order to improve the implementation, accuracy and order, grouped these indicators into categories (see Table 1), indicating more clearly, in this way, the phase or aspect of each element that was being shown by each group of indicators. This was also the form of procedure adopted in this study.
Table 1. Community of Inquiry Categories and Indicators (GARRISON and ANDERSON, 2003, p. 30)
Elements Categories Indicators (examples only)
Cognitive Presence Triggering event Exploration Integration Resolution
Sense of puzzlement Information exchange Connecting ideas Apply new ideias Social Presence Afective
Open communication Group cohesion
Expressing emotions Risk-free expressions Encouraging collaboration Teaching Presence Educational design
Discourse facilitation Direct instruction
Setting curriculum and methods Sharing personal meaning Focusing discussion
In the Community of Inquiry Model, the most likely element to promote success in higher education is the Cognitive Presence. Obviously, it is necessary to take into consideration the different contexts of learning as well as the adoption of computer -mediated communication for teaching purposes.
The term cognitive presence is considered by the authors to mean the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a Community of Inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication (GARRISON, ANDERSON and ARCHER, 2010, p.89). Cognitive presence is a vital element in critical thinking, a process and outcome that is often presented as the ostensible goal of all higher education.
The second major element of the CIM – the Social Presence – is defined as the ability of learners in the community of inquiry to project their personal characteristics, by presenting themselves to the other participants as "real people" (GARRISON, ANDERSON AND ARCHER, 2010, p.89). The fundamental importance of this element is its function as a support for Cognitive Presence, by indirectly facilitating the critical thinking process carried out by the community of learners. However, when there are emotional goals for the educational process as well as the purely cognitive ones, then the Social Presence is a direct contributor to the success of the educational experience.
The third element of the CIM – the Teaching Presence – consists of two general functions which can be performed by any participant in the community of inquiry (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2010, p.89). Nevertheless, in an educational environment, these functions tend to be the primary responsibility of the teacher. The first of these functions is the design of the educational experience. This includes the selection, organization and a first presentation of the course content, as well as the design and
development of learning and assessment activities. A teacher or instructor typically performs this function. The second function, facilitation, is a responsibility that can be shared between the teacher and some or all of the other participants or students. This sharing of the facilitation function is appropriate in higher education and common in computer-mediated education. Anyway, the Teaching Presence element is a means to an end – to sustain and enhance the cognitive and social presences for the purpose of obtaining educational / pedagogical outcomes.
3. Methodological Issues
This study derives from a qualitative research which uses Content Analysis as the main methodology for data treatment.
3.1. Research Context
The context of investigation comprehends a post-graduate course in Education developed by a Brazilian technological educational institute through the distance education mode (CPGEaD). Its main objective is to reflect on the occurrences of interactions mediated in Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). In this sense, the corpus of the research comes from data obtained through the capture of interacting posts in online discussion forums previously selected. More specifically, the research focus lies on the teacher's role as mediator in the discussion forums held in VLE (i.e., Moodle, in the case of the aforementioned course), by investigating the categories and indicators of mediation in the light of Garrison and Anderson’s Community of Inquiry Model (2003). Within this framework, we investigate to what extent such categories, constitutive of the elements named as Social Presence and Teaching Presence, promote teacher / student / content interaction, by supposedly facilitating collaborative construction of knowledge (cf. VYGOTSKY, 1934 / 2007).
This study analyzes the discussion forum proposed in the subject matter entitled Post-modernity and the contemporary – Necessary expression: art, literature and philosophy. Such a forum was offered in May of the year 2011, through the Moodle platform, in three Brazilian municipalities namely, respectively: Rosário do Sul, Picada Café and Balneário Pinhal.
3.2. Research Informants
The informants involved in this research are the teachers of the subject matter whose forums were analyzed and their students from the three aforementioned municipalities. For ethical reasons, to preserve the anonymity of the research informants, teachers are referenced by the acronyms of T1 and T2.
Teacher 1 (T1), besides being the author of the subject matter instructional design, was also the mediator of the forums of Rosário do Sul and Picada Café. Teacher 2 (T2), in her turn, was the mediator of the Balneário Pinhal forum.
4. Data presentation, analysis and discussion
Firstly, data analysis was done separately for each relevant post. Then, we proceeded to a comparative analysis of the forums and their mediators in order to discuss the occurring interactions, as well as the influences and implications of teacher mediation in relation to these interactions. In order to try to understand how the learning occurs in online forums, quantitative surveys of messages posted by teachers and students were made, and the most relevant indicators contained in the messages posted by the forum members were also observed.
In the three forums under discussion, i.e., the ones proposed to students of distance learning centers in the municipalities of Rosário do Sul, Balneário Pinhal and Picada Café, it was the teacher who posted the initial message, in which he / she explained the rules of the forum and introduced the guiding questions. Among the mentioned rules, it has been stablished, for example, that students should read the texts given as theoretical support, post comments and / or significant opinions, at least twice, and these should be posted no later than the eve of the face-to-face meeting. Besides that, students were required to periodically accompany the posts of teacher and peers to keep up to date.
Through comparative analysis of forms of mediation played by each teacher, it has been possible to reflect about their possible impacts on the interactions carried out in the three selected online forums.
As a starting point of the comparative analytical-route, we present, in Figure 1, a quantitative survey of teachers’ mediations in the three discussion forums under discussion.
Figure 1. Quantitative data of teacher’s mediations in the online forums of Rosário do Sul, Balneário Pinhal and Picada Café.
From this quantitative survey, we identify that the greatest number of teachers interventions occurred in the Rosário do Sul forum (T1’s 35 posts), followed by the Picada Café fórum (T1’s 14 posts) and, finally, the Balneário Pinhal forum (T2’s 2 posts).
In the Rosário do Sul forum, the first analyzed and the one that had T1 as the mediator, data have provided evidence of the teacher's hegemony with regard to mediation initiatives. Many were the students posts (85 of a total of 30 students), and they were consistent with the topics discussed, however, many times, the teacher intervened (35 posts), either to question some wrong positions or to agree to parts or all of what had been posted. In such cases, T1 tried to induce students to think critically, by encouraging them to reflect on the ideas and opinions posted, which often generated a student's return (15 returns).
We observed the occurrence of reflective interactions inside the Rosário do Sul forum, probably due to T1’s critical interventions. Based on the messages posted, we also identified, in the mediator's speech, all the indicators of the Social Presence and Teaching Presence, according to Garrison and Anderson’s Community of Inquiry Model (2003). That demonstrates the teacher’s commitment in creating a favorable community to the emergence of other / new learning. Such an attitude of the mediator may have stimulated the occurrence of Cognitive Presence.
We reiterate the fact that Cognitive Presence carries, in an immanent way, the potential to trigger learning among community interacting members. According to Garrison and Anderson (2003), actions performed by the teacher must present an integrative character, as Teaching Presence brings together Cognitive and Social Presences, in a synergistic way, and with purpose of obtaining educational outcomes.
It should be noted the perception that interactive exchanges, in the Rosário do Sul forum, took place much more in the teacher-student / student-teacher relationship, probably because of the large number of teachers’ interventions. Truth is also the fact that the students have demanded greater attention from the mediator, especially in terms of clarification of concepts and ideas mistakenly presented or based only on common sense.
The foregoing is supported by the considerations posted in T1’s initial message.
We assume that all exchange of ideas requires that we're already in possession of an argument that is no longer the order of a mere "opinion" or a "perception". Albeit rather introductory, such an argument must accomplish an informed articulation, based on thinkers / researchers considered relevant in the area where they operate, in our case: Education, Culture, Philosophy. (Discussion Forum: Post-Modernity and the Contemporary, 2010)
In the Balneário Pinhal forum, the second analyzed, and who had T2 as the mediator, there was a low rate of teacher mediation. Actually, there were only two interventions performed by the teacher. Most of the Students sent only the two mandatory posts, trying to articulate them with the texts previously suggested as theoretical support (65 posts from a total 29 students). In some posts, there was reference to other authors that addressed themes consistent with those being treated in the forum, thereby demonstrating the student's interest in providing his / her considerations with consistent fundament.
Another fact evidenced in the forum was that several students (about one third) sought to reference one or another colleague at the beginning of their remarks, usually with expressions of agreement or praise to those posts made. Another point to note is that one or another student stressed out as a possible mediator (perhaps due to poor teaching mediation).
Probably greater mediation by T2, seeking to encourage students to reflect on the ideas posted and articulate them with the theme proposed in the forum and their teaching practice, would have raised a larger number of students posts, thus, favoring meaning negotiation and collaborative exchanges within the learning community. Apparently, there was not, by the teacher, any contextualization or incitement for the development of cognitive processes in students. That is a speculation that can inspire the planning of studies to come.
In her speech, in the case of performance of larger interventions, T2 teacher could have made use of several indicators of the categories of both Social Presence and Teaching Presence in an attempt to
Example
encourage greater student participation as well as the development of cognitive processes, seeking to generate new learning among the community members. The factors that led T2 not to make use of such indicators can also be deployed in provocative issues to be addressed and depth at another time. It should be noted that its treatment here would surpass the scope of the current study.
Regarding the participation in discussion forums, it is reiterated here the idea of Mattar (2012) that the teaching mediation must be balanced in order to avoid the monopoly of the discussions ("hindering thus the freedom of expression of students"). The opposite, however, should also be avoided, that is, the absence of the teacher's mediation ("giving the impression of abandonment students"). (p.121)
In the Picada Café forum, the last analyzed, T1 made 14 interventions, which could be considered little, comparing to the number of his interventions in the Rosário do Sul forum. However, it is assumed that maybe it was not so need for greater focus on teacher intervention in this forum. The number of students interventions was considerable (117 posts from 36 students) and their posts were very relevant and theoretically based. Around the middle of the forum, the mediator posted a comment praising the participation of all and commenting on the commitment of the students in the search for better education and also the commitment to raise issues through their posts.
In statements made in the Picada Café forum, the mediator T1, usually, after appreciating students’ considerations, added any comments to the posts, containing additional information about the issue addressed and questions with the intention of instigating the group to critically think from different angles. A few times the teacher intervened to undo some mistake posted by the student. The forum was evidenced as a dialogical and interactive space for the majority of its members. Perhaps due to the fact they were also teachers, several students stood out as potential mediators. Although not the focus of research, it was observed in the Picada Café forum, the presence of several indicators of both Social and Teaching Presences in some students speeches expressed in the posts.
According to Garrison and Anderson (2003), in a Community of Inquiry – scenario about which our discussions take place, all participants should have the opportunity to contribute to Teaching Presence, as for the authors: "if the ultimate goal is to learn to learn, students must be encouraged to become self-directed, and to manage and monitor their own learning appropriate to the task and their ability."(p.71). In this sense, the authors chose to refer to such a concept not as “teacher presence” but rather as Teaching Presence.
5. Conclusions
In general, it can be seen that mediations have been conducted primarily by the teacher, consisting of positive feedback (praise regarding student participation) as well as expressions encouraging debate. From such interventions, we noticed some increase in student participation through postings of effective teacher-student / student-student dialogical interactions. It could be observed, therefore, significant indicators of Social Presence, also reiterated by collaborative movement indicators, or, in other words, actions that point to collaborative construction of learning and knowledge, in a Vygotskian perspective.
Although this study has no prescriptive intention, nor has been concerned with establishing generalizations of any kind, it is seems reasonable to think of proposing procedures that may point to other / new possibilities and configurations, outlining open routes and potent findings, contributing, as a result, to a research continuum that does not end in itself.
More than that, it should be open up a path for other configurations regarding the learning in environments mediated by technology, that is, new compositions which might break the traditional professorial monologue by giving space to multiple voices so that collective-collaborative construction of knowledge could be effective.
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