The shift towards online education has significantly increased in pre-service teacher preparation, and ensuring active student engagement in this context poses a considerable challenge.
This presentation commences with an interactive segment in which attendees use Padlet to share their understanding of the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison et al., 2001).
Following the initial interactive segment is an overview of a research project conducted in Term 1, 2023. The project focused on applying the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework (Arbaugh et al., 2008) to (a) investigate students' engagement in a pre-service teacher unit designed to prepare them for teaching mathematics in early childhood and primary education settings, and (b) examine the extent to which students' experiences in the unit impacted their self-efficacy towards teaching mathematics (Enochs et al., 2000), their mathematics anxiety (Alexander & Martray, 1989) and their sense of teacher identity (Hanna et al., 2020). The key results will be presented after sharing how students rated each of the three CoI presences. These key results include how teaching presence and cognitive presence predicted changes in pre-service teachers' "teacher identity," with only teaching presence predicting changes in self-efficacy towards teaching mathematics. In contrast, social presence failed to predict self-efficacy or teacher identity changes. The presentation also examines some implications arising from these results, including reconsidering the role of teaching presence in improving social learning experiences.
In the closing segment, we return to the Padlet to add insights and reflect on how using the CoI framework might further our scholarship of learning and teaching.
Alexander, L., & Martray, C. (1989). The development of an abbreviated version of the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 22(3), 143-150.
Arbaugh, J. B., Cleveland-Innes, M., Diaz, S. R., Garrison, D. R., Ice, P., Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. P. (2008). Developing a community of inquiry instrument: Testing a measure of the community of inquiry framework using a multi-institutional sample. The Internet and Higher Education, 11(3-4), 133-136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2008.06.003
Enochs, L. G., Smith, P. L., & Huinker, D. (2000). Establishing factorial validity of the mathematics teaching efficacy beliefs instrument. School Science and Mathematics, 100(4), 194-202.
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical Thinking, Cognitive Presence, and Computer Conferencing in Distance Education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7-23. https://doi.org/0.1080/08923640109527071
Hanna, F., Oostdam, R., Severiens, S. E., & Zijlstra, B. J. (2020). Assessing the professional identity of primary student teachers: Design and validation of the Teacher Identity Measurement Scale. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 64, 100822. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.100822
(*Please note, unfortunately, due to technical difficulties with the audio at the time of recording this presentation the recording can not be made available)