The course has begun to explore the community of inquiry model in which cognitive presence is one of three overlapping concepts in the model. I was not previously aware of this model of learning and I suppose that is a learning in itself!
In Post 1, I considered student engagement to be important and wondered how to do so more effectively in an online environment. I see a lot of similarities between the idea of effective engagement and cognitive presence. In order to assess cognitive presence there must be engagement.
While I find the concept of cognitive presence interesting, I do find the term a bit confusing to use in practice as cognition itself is quite a broad concept and here this term is being used specific to critical thinking. The article “Critical Thinking, Cognitive Presence, and Computer Conferencing in Distance Education” by Garrison et al. introduces the model and mainly tests its use in online learning through courses with facilitated online discussions. I look forward to learning more about cognitive presence in other aspects of online learning. However, I can see the concept at work in my online course at TRU where a research project is required by the students and certainly requires critical thinking by the student guided by the online resources in the course and assistance from the instructor.