Cognitive Presence

Cognitive presence is central to successful student learning. The quality of cognitive presence reflects the quality and quantity of critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and construction of meaning occurring in student↔student and student↔faculty interactions. You can model and support cognitive presence in your interactions with students in discussions, assignment feedback, and other communications.

practical inquiry model showing the movement from awareness via a triggering event through exploration/deliberation/integration to putting ideas into practice

Cognitive presence is based on the iterative relationship between personal understanding and shared dialogue. Building on the work of John Dewey, Garrison proposed the Practical Inquiry Model shown here. This model integrates these two aspects in a cycle beginning with a question or puzzle - called a triggering event - or just a general awareness that something isn't making sense. The learner then explores the available information and alternatives to make sense of the problem and connects this new information to previously learned concepts. Finally, the learner takes action to solve the problem or answer the question based on their newly integrated understanding.

The overlap between cognitive presence and teaching presence focuses on the co-regulation of learning and metacognition by both the instructor and the students. Paz and Pereira (2015) found several categories within Regulating Learning including

Confirming understanding of tasks
Assessing learning strategies and work processes and/or proposing corrections to those processes
Reminding others of tasks and encouraging them to focus on or contribute to tasks, resources, and activities
Helping with tasks, processes, or products of learning
Managing the movement through learning phases or tasks

Students also exhibit some of these aspects as self-regulation and as co-regulation in groups.

Depending on the course and the instructor, the amount of learning regulation will vary. More self-directed graduate students will need less co-regulation than first year undergraduate students. For example, effectively moderating online discussion is an important strategy for supporting cognitive presence. Moderating and modeling the way in which a beginner in the field should be thinking through a question, problem, or case may occur more often in undergraduate classes as the students begin to learn how to learn in the field. It is important to realize that simply interacting with others or with the content does not automatically translate into critical discourse or the integration of ideas into meaningful constructs (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005).