Using a Sociocultural Perspective to Establish Teaching and Social Presences Within a Hybrid Community of Mentor Teachers

Abstract

Within the last decade, the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) has received increased attention in the field of online learning, yet little is known about applying key tenets of Community of Inquiry while leading a hybrid professional development initiative. This study describes how I established teaching and social presences within a 3-month community of practice comprising four educators and mentor teachers. I utilized a sociocultural perspective as I adapted concepts of teaching presence (Garrison et al., 2000) to continually reposition myself as a facilitator and caretaker. Challenges emerged as I negotiated decision making within virtual and physical learning domains. Evidence of these challenges and their relation to social presence are identified through qualitative analysis of written blogs, meeting transcripts, and journal entries. Implications for future research and practice include providing more defined roles and responsibilities for school–university liaisons that design and facilitate similar hybrid communities.

Type and degree of co-occurrence of the educational communication in a community of inquiry

“…Teaching aspects are also interrelated with social aspects, especially with group cohesion (use of vocatives and inclusive pronouns) when orienting people to the use of technology tools or general organizational questions. Our study confirms the findings of De la Varre et al (2011) and Caudle (2013) on the relationships between social and teaching presence.…”

Blended Learning: Balancing the Best of Both Worlds for Adult Learners

“…Future research should continue to investigate adults’ BL in comparison with fully in-person or online courses, and empirically examine and compare various BL formats. Other broad considerations, such as universal design for learning (Rogers-Shaw et al, 2018) and the role of the instructor (Caudle, 2013), also merit further attention.…”

“…BL can meet diverse learner needs by accommodating differing learning styles (Garcia et al, 2014) and through the variety of activities available by using both modalities (Hall & Villareal, 2015; Lai et al, 2016; Snowball, 2014). BL has been applied in many adult learning contexts, including nursing (e.g., Johansen et al, 2012), teacher professional development (e.g., Caudle, 2013; Frerichs et al, 2018), language learning (e.g., Ge, 2012), workplace learning (e.g., Kim et al, 2008), and adult basic education (e.g., Li et al, 2018).…”

Towards a taxonomy of meaning making: A critical latent content analysis of peer‐reviewed publications in adult education.

“…Trends showing contradictory and ambiguous usage emerged, both within the sample and between it and formidable adult education writings. Within the sample, numerous authors distinguished learning from meaning making (Caudle, ; Erichsen, ; Nicolaides & NcCallum, ; Sodhi & Cohen, ; Stuckey, ; Wang & Yorks, ), whereas beyond it, influential scholars have proposed “learning is a meaning‐making activity” (Merriam, Courtenay, & Baumgartner, , p. 172), and “At the heart of adult learning is engaging in, reflecting upon, and making meaning of our experiences” (Merriam & Bierema, , p. 104) .…”