Chapter 3 | Facilitation

If you teach a person what to learn, you are preparing that person for the past. If you teach the person how to learn, you are preparing them for the future.

—(Houle, 1954, p. 372)

Facilitation of blended learning refers to arranging and supporting student-learning activities in both online and face-to-face classrooms. According to Bonk et al., (2004, p. 17), “blended learning is typically more complicated and multifaceted than either fully online or face-to-face learning. . . . [T]eachers must know when to shift gears or add new tasks or resources and when to let students wander off and explore their own interests.” Facilitation is the central activity in an educational Community of Inquiry for developing worthwhile learning experiences as well as awareness and strategies (shared metacognition) through sustained reflection and discourse among students and the teacher. Facilitative actions, “on the part of both the students and the teacher, create the climate, support discourse, and monitor learning. In the act of facilitation, students connect with each other, engage with the content, are cognitively present as intellectual agents, and carry out all actions central to the development and maintenance of the learning community” (Vaughan et al., 2013, p. 46).

The blending of online and face-to-face interactions results in a new learning environment that necessitates significant role adjustments for teachers and students (Cleveland-Innes et al., 2007). This transition from a teacher-centred to a learning-centred environment can be a challenge since many of us in higher education are conditioned to “teach how we were taught,” focusing on content delivery rather than the facilitation of learning. As a result, there is a need to understand the concept of teaching presence for deep and meaningful learning outcomes since the focus is now on the learning process and conceptual understanding rather than content coverage. The CoI principles of facilitation—establishing community and cohesion and inquiry dynamics (purposeful inquiry) for social and cognitive presence in a blended environment—are part of this required change.

The third principle is associated with social presence and focused on group identity and cohesion through open communication (Garrison, 2016). For students to be present socially, they must have the opportunity to interact. A Community of Inquiry emerges and maintains itself through the purposeful engagement, interaction, and relationships among members of the group. The teacher begins this process by encouraging, modelling, and supporting activities that allow each member of the group to become familiar with and possibly find a link to other members of the group. The nature and importance of these links become measures of the amount of cohesion found within each group and determine whether the group will or will not become a community. The more developmental and meaningful the engagement and interaction, the stronger the links, the greater the cohesion, and the more likely that deep and meaningful learning will occur. In a blended environment, this requires encouraging and modelling such activity both face-to-face and online.

The fourth principle is related to cognitive presence and reflects the facilitation of the process of inquiry. The Practical Inquiry process (Garrison et al., 2001) goes to the heart of cognitive presence and requires increasing amounts of cognitive effort and complexity. This process of changing complexity must be facilitated through appropriate discourse from a triggering event, exploration, integration to resolution, or application. Facilitation is necessary to set in motion and guide the dynamics of inquiry. In a blended environment, integrated face-to-face and online learning opportunities can allow for increased interaction, timely reflection, and continuous debate, all of which help to support the process of inquiry.

In essence, the teacher is responsible for modelling the development of shared metacognition in a course by helping to create and sustain constructive learning relationships (Littky & Grabelle, 2004). Creating a sense of community and collaboration is key to helping students develop their capacity (awareness and proficiency) for shared metacognition. Unfortunately, studies indicate that many students in higher education have little formal experience working collaboratively (Chang & Brickman, 2018). This chapter provides activities and resources for helping students to learn how to work successfully in groups.

Group Development

As we have indicated, many students in higher education have limited experience and guidance with how to work collaboratively. From our perspective, it is important to provide students with a rationale for group work (why bother?) as well as first-hand experience with a group development process. In terms of a rationale, we recommend having students read an article such as Theodora’s (2019) “Five Reasons Why You Should Love Group Work.” Then place students in groups and have them debrief about the article and identify

• the learning opportunities that group work provides;
• the challenges of group work; and
• recommendations on how they would like to work as a group.

With regard to providing students with first-hand experience, we recommend the design and facilitation of collaborative activities that utilize Tuckman’s (1965) five stages of group development (see Figure 3.1). The model has withstood the test of time and consists of forming, storming, norming, performing, and re-forming/transforming phases.

Ideally, a low-stakes activity should be designed and facilitated at the beginning of the semester so that students can obtain a first-attempt-in-learning experience. In the case of an educational technology course, this could involve students working together on a case study to develop a solution to a school-related problem or issue (Schoology Exchange, 2017). The key is for the students to create a sense of shared metacognition through this group development process (see Figure 1.3). Shared metacognition is a process by which students take responsibility for and control of the processes of inquiry and learning. It represents awareness as well as personal and shared regulation of the learning process.

A diagram shows the five stages commonly associated with group development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and re-forming or transforming. — Figure 3.1
Developmental Sequence in Small Groups
*Note*. Adapted from Tuckman (1965).

This can be accomplished by having students document collaboratively their metacognitive awareness of and strategies used for each of the five stages of Tuckman’s (1965) model. Students can then apply this new knowledge to monitor and manage their shared metacognition in the subsequent collaborative activities and projects of a blended course.

Medicine Wheel

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the need to pay greater attention to students’ social-emotional well-being, especially in relation to group work, which can cause additional stress and conflict. Some teachers have begun to introduce the Indigenous Medicine Wheel framework in their blended and online courses in order to emphasize multicultural ways of knowing and being resilient.

The Medicine Wheel is a circle that consists of four quadrants. There are different ways that Indigenous Elders interpret these quadrants, such as the four directions, the four teachings, the four winds, and other relationships that can be expressed in sets of four (Bell, 2014). Often these four quadrants refer to the importance of balancing one’s spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental capacities. The Anishinaabe have used the Medicine Wheel to develop a framework for Indigenous education that they call the Gift of Four Directions, in some respects very similar to Garrison et al.’s (2000) Practical Inquiry model (see Figure 3.2).

In the east quadrant, where the sun rises, the gift of vision is found, and one is able to see or identify the triggering event. In the south quadrant, one spends time relating to the vision, the exploration phase. In the west, one uses the gift of reason to figure it out, the integration phase. And in the north, one uses the gift of movement to do or actualize the vision, the application and resolution phase.

Cajete (1994, p. 42) emphasizes that learning and change will not “come into existence in a linear way, as the result of a single-minded drive, but in a cyclic, circular, collaborative way, working in all dimensions of a culture, moving from one position to another, not in reaction but in interaction with other forces.” He adds that moving from linear models to the interconnectedness of the circle can guide the development of pedagogy and vision for the future.

A diagram shows the four quadrants of the Gift of Four Directions. The sun rises in the east, and this is the “vision” quadrant, in which we “see it” or begin to develop an awareness of a question or problem. We then move to the south quadrant, in which we spend time “relating to it” or understanding the question or problem. The next quadrant is the west, in which we “reason” or figure out the question or problem. Finally, we enter the north quadrant, which involves “movement” or taking action to solve the question or problem. — Figure 3.2
Gift of Four Directions
*Note*. From Bell (2014).

Absolon (2019, p. 36) states that “the teaching and healing process is evolutionary and cyclical in nature, as is the continuum of medicine wheels. It begins with a desire to understand and identify with the balance, wholeness and interconnectedness expressed in the medicine wheel.”

Structured Reading Groups

One particularly effective collaborative activity in a blended course is the use of structured reading groups (Parrott & Cherry, 2011). Two common challenges in higher education are getting students to complete course readings and having them engage in deep rather than superficial (scanning) reading. Structured reading groups can facilitate both deep reading and active discussion of course material. Early in the semester, students are assigned to small groups of six with a set of rotating group roles: discussion leader, passage master, creative connector, devil’s advocate, reporter, and choice.

In a blended course, the process begins with a pre-class activity. The entire class is provided with a reading related to key course concepts, and each student is assigned a particular role in the small group (see the text box below for a breakdown of these roles). Students are then responsible for completing the reading and posting a contribution to a discussion forum related to their assigned roles.

Structured Reading Group Roles

Discussion leader. Your job is to review the readings and come up with two to three questions for the group. The questions need to capture the main points or takeaways. You will also guide the online and face-to-face discussions, which means keeping track of time and asking others to share their questions and insights from their own preparations. You will encourage critical discussion, respectful disagreement, and debate but work to keep the discussion on track. Probe with an open question such as “Can you tell us more?” or “Can you give a specific example?” or “Why?”

Passage master. Your job is to review the assigned reading and highlight two critical passages. These passages have caught your attention for some reason, such as they eloquently capture the main points, or they are confusing and/or contradictory. Although your preparation should include the page numbers and/or locations of the passages, it must also include brief summaries of the passages and more detailed explanations of why you wish to draw the group’s attention to the passages.

Creative connector. As the name implies, you connect the readings to other ideas. These ideas can be social, political, or cultural. In MacPherson and Cherry’s (2011, p. 357) words, “this may include making connections to other reading assignments or artifacts in popular culture (advertisements, YouTube clips, cartoons, discussions of movies, etc.).” Some examples are a particular episode of The Big Bang Theory, a popular internet meme, a magazine ad, a TED talk, a personal photograph, a famous work of art, a familiar building, and a Disney character. It can also be a personal connection: something that happened to you as a child, a favourite saying of an elderly uncle, et cetera. Post your idea to the discussion forum. You need to include enough details for your group to understand the connections that you are making.

Devil’s advocate. In this role, you act as a critic. Develop a list of questions that challenge or poke holes in the main theories, ideas, and examples presented in the reading. Is there another side to the story? Are competing interests presented fairly? Which questions are left unanswered? What are some differing ideas or competing theories? Whose voices or experiences are not included? How does this stack up with historical practice? What are the pros and cons of the arguments presented? This role gives students explicit permission to disagree with the course material and to develop arguments contrary to popular opinion. Use one or two of these questions to guide your contribution.

Reporter. In this role, you have a laptop and take notes on the group discussion in a collaborative application such as Google Docs (Google, 2022a). This online and face-to-face discussion synthesis includes both points of general agreement and especially points of contention or disagreement. Highlight critical elements examined and sum up main points discussed. Find internet links for connections brought up as part of the discussion and include them in the discussion summary. Note points of confusion, areas for future study, or particular areas that students found interesting. You might also be asked to report back verbally to the entire class.

Choice. The sixth student can choose among devil’s advocate, creative connector, and passage master. This means that there will be more than one person in each group sharing one of those roles.

During class, students are given approximately 20 minutes to meet in their structured reading groups. They have time to discuss, debrief, and synthesize further the assigned reading. We strongly encourage the reporters to create their discussion summaries in a collaborative application such as Google Docs (Google, 2022a) so that these summaries can be linked and accessed by other students in the course learning management system. If time permits, we also recommend selecting one group for each class to provide an oral report of their discussion summary. It is important that all students are given an opportunity to take on each role in a structured reading group, and the following grid provides an example of a schedule for a blended course.

Structured Reading Group Schedule for a Blended Course

Date/Summary	Member 1	Member 2	Member 3	Member 4	Member 5	Member 6
Week 1	Discussion director	Passage master	Creative connector	Devil’s advocate	Reporter	Choice
Week 2	Choice	Discussion director	Passage master	Creative connector	Devil’s advocate	Reporter
Week 3	Post examples of your Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guideline and how it might be used in classrooms.
Week 4	Reporter	Choice	Discussion director	Passage master	Creative connector	Devil’s advocate
Week 5	Respond to questions corresponding to your group number on the discussion board.
Week 6	Respond to questions corresponding to your group number on the discussion board.
Week 7	Devil’s advocate	Reporter	Choice	Discussion director	Passage master	Creative connector
Week 8	Creative connector	Devil’s advocate	Reporter	Choice	Discussion director	Passage master
Week 9	Passage master	Creative connector	Devil’s advocate	Reporter	Choice	Discussion director

In the previous chapter, on design, we emphasized the importance of co-creating a set of engagement guidelines and provided an example for online discussions. For a blended course, we also recommend developing a set of guidelines for face-to-face discussions. The following text box highlights some suggestions.

Seven Suggested Guidelines for Face-to-Face Discussions

1. You owe it to the group members to come prepared for critical discussion. And you owe it to yourself to take advantage of the opportunity to learn from the ideas of your peers.
2. Disagreement is encouraged but must be respectful at all times.
3. You are responsible for the energy and tone that you bring to the space through your participation.
4. Rather than jump in with quick disagreement, listen first to the other side of an argument, and try to understand the rationale behind the differing viewpoint.
5. Come prepared with evidence and examples to back up your opinions and contentions.
6. As opposed to asking questions with fixed “yes” or “no” answers, ask about the “why” or “how.” Listen to the rationales offered.
7. Agreed upon group conclusions are not required; many areas are grey.

World Café Conversations

Another method of structuring blended discussions is engaging in World Café Conversations (2022). Brown and Isaacs (2005) developed this conversational framework. World Café is a discussion protocol that fosters diverse conversations on important topics. Typically, it is held as three rounds of discussion on questions of increasing complexity. Table groups of four or five participants spend time on each question and “harvest” their thinking via a summary statement identifying the pattern or theme that emerged from the conversation. Between each round, groups are “shuffled” so that participants can connect with different people who bring a range of ideas and perspectives.

In a face-to-face environment, the World Café method (Primera, 2019) consists of the following five components.

World Café Method

1. Setting. Set up are round tables with flip chart paper and markers or a laptop and the use of a collaborative writing application such as Google Docs.
2. Welcome and introduction. The key is to make the students of the World Café feel welcome and safe with an introduction and to set the context of your class World Café.
3. Small group rounds. The process starts with the first of three 20-minute rounds of conversation in the small groups seated around a table. At the end of the 20 minutes, each member of the group moves to a different table. They might or might not choose to leave one person as the “table host” who welcomes the next group and briefly fills them in on what happened in the previous round.
4. Questions. Questions (triggering events) are one of the most important aspects of the World Café. Asking a powerful question that starts the process is vital, so take your time with it.
5. Harvest. After the three rounds of conversation are done, the groups are invited to share their insights and reflect on the whole process. They can use the flip chart paper or a digital method to report the key findings from their conversations.

One of the recommendations in the EDUCAUSE Horizon Report (Pelletier et al., 2021) is that higher education classrooms need to be reconfigured to support blended learning approaches that utilize large-scale collaborative activities such as the World Café approach.

Recently, Hite (2020) has adapted the World Café method for online discussion forums. He suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to Zoom fatigue and Webex weariness and that it is important to utilize strategies to reduce that tiredness and provide meaningful online experiences. He emphasizes the importance of first establishing a purpose for the session; students must always be clear why they are spending time in conversation together. After the purpose has been established, Hite recommends developing collaboratively a set of questions to guide each of the three rounds. Similar to the face-to-face format, the questions must be important and worth exploring. He recommends questions that increase gradually in complexity, beginning with a broader and less personal question for the first round, focusing on more personal experiences in the second round, and ultimately homing in on what the conversation might inspire in the third round.

Students should also be provided with instructions on how to harvest the thinking between each round so that they can capture patterns and themes that emerge during each conversation. Hite (2020) indicates that the word harvest is both a verb and a noun, and both are required in order to capture the essence of the conversation. The following instructions illustrate a process for harvesting a conversation.

Conducting a virtual World Café can be facilitated by using web-conferencing applications such as Google Meet (Google, 2022d), MS Teams (2022), and Zoom (2022). These applications can be used to move students easily into breakout rooms for the conversational rounds. Students in each room are asked to nominate a conversation host responsible for guiding the discussion and creating a summary statement to capture key patterns and themes. The broadcast feature in web conferencing applications allows the teacher to post the question and provide time checks to keep the groups on track.

When a conversational round is completed, the groups return to the main room, and each host is asked to type the summary into the chat window to share it with the entire class. Doing so allows everyone to notice and share commonalities or differences among the breakout conversations. When it is time for the next round, students are shuffled randomly into new conversation groups, and the host facilitation pattern is repeated.

Hite (2020) reports that web-conferencing applications make it easy and efficient to get students into conversation groups because no one has to move physically to a table. Another benefit is that the harvest from each round is typed into the chat window, so immediately everyone has a digital record of each group’s thinking.

Critical Friends

Besides group work, the use of critical friends has been introduced in many institutions of higher education that see themselves as learning organizations and know that learning requires honest and regular feedback (Senge, 1990). A critical friend provides such feedback. As the name suggests, a critical friend is a trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critiques of a person’s work as a friend (Lambrev & Cruz, 2021). A critical friend takes the time to understand fully the context of the work presented and the outcomes toward which the person or group is working. The friend is an advocate for the success of that work (Costa & Kallick, 1993).

Since the concept of critique often carries negative connotations, a critical friendship requires trust and a formal process. Many people equate critique with judgment, and when someone offers criticism they brace themselves for negative comments. We often forget that Bloom et al. (1956) refer to critique as a part of evaluation, one of the highest orders of thinking in their original taxonomy.

There has been a great deal of discussion about the formation of critical friends (Bambino, 2002). The two main options are having students select their own friends and having the teacher assign them. The issue with students who select their own friends is that they are often reluctant to provide honest and meaningful feedback since they might not want to upset their friends.

Regardless of how critical friends are selected, the process must begin by building trust (social presence). The critical friends need to agree that they will

• be clear about the nature of the relationship and not use it for assessment or judgment;
• listen well by clarifying ideas, encouraging specificity, and taking time to understand fully what is being presented;
• offer value judgments only upon request from the learner;
• respond to the learner’s work with integrity; and
• be an advocate for the success of the work.

Once this sense of trust has been established, the critical friends meet in a conference. The time allowed for this conference is flexible, but we have found it useful to limit the conference to 20 minutes. Once critical friends are accustomed to the structure, the time can be shortened. We recommend the following guidelines for facilitating the conference.

Guidelines for Facilitating a Critical Friend Conference Session

1. The student describes the assignment and requests feedback. For example, a student might describe a writing assignment or project.
2. The critical friend asks questions in order to understand the assignment described and to clarify the context of the assignment. For example, the friend might ask the student “What do you hope other people will learn from your project?”
3. The student sets desired outcomes for this conference. This allows the student to be in control of the feedback.
4. The critical friend provides feedback on what seems to be significant about the assignment. This feedback provides more than cursory praise; it also provides a lens through which to elevate the work. For example, the student’s critical friend might say “I think your project will be significant because you are trying to bring a new insight into the way people have understood the changing role of women in Canada.”
5. The critical friend raises questions and critiques the work, nudging the student to see the assignment from different perspectives. Typical queries might be “When you do this project, how will you help others to follow your presentation?”
6. Both participants reflect and write. The student writes notes on the conference, an opportunity to think about points and suggestions raised. For example, the student might reflect on questions such as “Will changes make this work better or worse?” and “What have I learned from this refocusing process?” The critical friend writes to the student with suggestions or advice appropriate to the desired outcome. This part of the process is different from typical feedback situations in that the student does not have to respond or make any decision on the basis of the feedback. Instead, the student reflects on the feedback without needing to defend the work to the critical friend.

Vaughan and Lee Wah (2020) investigated the use of critical friends in a third-year blended educational technology course. The students involved in this study identified the following benefits of the critical friend process.

• Improving the quality of my work. He was also able to give me some constructive feedback that always ended up benefiting my assignment (Student 17).
• New perspectives and ideas. They were very beneficial because it helped me to see concepts and topics from different perspectives, and it challenged my opinions (Student 9).
• Friendship, collaboration, and support. I was able to form more connections this semester. I talked to people I have not talked to before and worked with people I have not worked with before (Student 10).
• Stay focused, keep on track and motivated. Having someone as a reminder to help keep one another on task and motivated (Student 6).
• Peer teaching and learning opportunities (teaching presence). Was able to bounce ideas off another individual and practise giving constructive feedback (Student 2).

Conversely, the same group of students identified the following challenges of the critical friend process.

• Providing feedback online is challenging. It was hard meeting with my constructive friend online. I think in person would be better (Student 1).
• Communication and scheduling challenges. Sometimes we had conflicting ideas or schedules, which made it hard to work together or get some of the responses back for the blog (Student 2).
• Not being able to be a reliable constructive friend. I was behind this semester, so I was not always able to give my friend the feedback that was needed (Student 1).
• Different perspectives. It was challenging to work with other people simply because of their very different perspectives (Student 3).
• Pathological politeness. Giving feedback can sometimes feel challenging because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Although we know that it’s coming from a loving place, it can be challenging (Student 3).

In terms of recommendations for improving the critical friend process, the students provided the following suggestions.

• Mixing up the constructive friend pairings throughout the semester. I didn’t like the idea of working with only one person for every single meeting (constructive friend). This should have been mixed up. I only received one person’s perspective for the entire semester. It would have been way more beneficial to mix it up and have others to comment on my blog post (Student 22).
• Have the teacher select the constructive friends. Random picking of friends by the teacher was great because I got to work with someone I didn’t know (Student 32).
• Peer review accountability process. Having some sort of peer assessment process for the accountability and quality of feedback from our constructive friend (Student 8).

Student-Moderated Discussions

Finally, an effective way for students to appreciate metacognitive awareness and co-regulation of the learning experience is to have the students in a blended course moderate online and face-to-face discussions. Doing so provides students with the opportunity to learn experientially the art of facilitating discussions in terms of knowing when to intervene, when to move the discussion along, and when to summarize key points.

It has been demonstrated that peer facilitation can increase engagement and cognitive presence (deNoyelles et al., 2014). Student moderators are less intimidating and therefore have the ability to engage and draw in more participants to the discussion. Rourke and Anderson (2002) indicate that higher-order thinking can be achieved when discussions are facilitated by peers. In addition, Dennen (2005) reports that the level of dialogue is higher when the teacher is actively involved but not dominating the discussion.

We recommend that the teacher moderate the first online and face-to-face discussions in a blended course. That way the teacher can demonstrate, model, and debrief the expected requirements for a discussion moderator. In terms of guidelines, Wise (2020) has developed a set of roles for students to reflect on as they moderate an online discussion forum. These roles could also be adapted for face-to-face discussions in a blended course.

Student Moderation Roles for Online Discussions

Role 1: Starter

Goal

Kick the discussion off right by sharing ideas, asking questions, and raising what you see as the most important issues to discuss.

Questions to Ask Yourself

• What are the most important ideas in the course material? Have new ideas been introduced?
• How do the ideas in the material fit together? Do they support each other? Or do they offer different points of view?
• Which concepts are difficult? Which ideas do you want to understand better?

Ways to Take Action

• Be ready to contribute to the discussion as soon as it opens.
• Focus on the course material, but make your posts broad enough that your peers can add their own perspectives.
• Provide new ideas if a discussion seems to have stalled.

Role 2: Motivator/Responder

Goal

Make the discussion a place in which everyone feels comfortable and encouraged to participate.

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Is everyone contributing? Are a few people dominating the conversation?
• Are everyone’s ideas being acknowledged and addressed?

Ways to Take Action

• If someone’s posts aren’t getting responses, then try to make a point of replying to them.
• If someone’s ideas aren’t clear, then try asking for clarification or reflecting on what you think the person said (e.g., “Are you saying that . . . ?”). If you see examples of people dominating the discussion or shutting others down, then let your instructor know.

Role 3: Elaborator/Questioner

Goal

Ask your peers to go deeper, elaborate an issue, or defend their ideas. Entertain different arguments and ask for evidence. Consider counterarguments.

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Is the argument in a post well reasoned? Does it have evidence to support claims, or is it based primarily upon an opinion? Does it draw from course readings, research, or theory?
• Which objections can be made to the argument? What about possible counterarguments to this position?
• Does the group seem to be in complete agreement at the outset without fully considering alternatives?

Ways to Take Action

• Be a questioner. Ask “Why do you think X?” or “What implications does your point have for Y?”
• Be an elaborator. Take others’ ideas further by building upon them or their implications.
• Be a devil’s advocate. Take a contrary position to a classmate’s idea and make a reasonable defence of it as a logical position to take (and be respectful while doing so).
• Be an angel’s advocate. Provide support for an idea being challenged.

Role 4: Traffic Director

Goal

Keep the discussion moving in a positive direction. Get the discussion back on track if it stalls.

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Are we questioning our ideas? Are we building upon each other’s contributions? Are we generating new ideas? Are we critiquing and comparing existing ones? Are we working toward a collective synthesis? (If your group isn’t asking any of these questions, then you might be stalled or off track.)
• Were enough different ideas generated initially?
• Is our discussion addressing the questions that we asked ourselves at the beginning? What has been lost inadvertently along the way?

Ways to Take Action

• If the discussion seems to be off track or ideas have been dropped, then make a post bringing up these ideas or pointing out where you think the discussion needs to go.
• If the discussion has stalled, then try introducing some new ideas to the conversation or raise some of the initial questions again if they haven’t been answered.
• Often a stalled discussion is a sign that it’s time to summarize what’s already been discussed. Seeing the big picture can help you to find new ways to move forward.

Role 5: Synthesizer

Goal

Make connections among posts, pull comments together, summarize key ideas, and point out overlapping thoughts, problematic issues, and unresolved questions. Push the conversation forward (maybe in new directions).

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Given everyone’s initial posts and any discussion that has resulted, where are we at in terms of answering the questions that we posed (or others that have arisen)?
• What do we as a group agree on? What do we disagree on?
• What have we still not discussed/resolved?
• What other important ideas/themes have arisen during the discussion?
• What have we not considered yet?

Ways to Take Action

• Create a post about halfway through your discussion that summarizes where things stand.
• Identify where you think the conversation needs to go next.
• You might want to highlight individual contributions or focus on group ideas; this will depend on the discussion. If you are naming individuals, then think about how you are portraying them and their ideas, and try not to focus on any one person’s ideas too much.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have demonstrated that integrating online and face-to-face engagement results in a blended learning environment that necessitates significant role adjustments for teachers in higher education. Educators must become facilitators of learning rather than delivery vehicles of content. They must become more than a “guide on the side or sage on the stage.” Facilitators must model the “ways of thinking in their disciplinary or professional practice” (Vaughan et al., 2013, p. 46). Of all the aspects of the CoI framework, the activities of facilitation are the most critical. Facilitation monitors and manages the overlaps (setting climate, supporting discourse, and regulating learning) between the presences and is at the core of the dynamics of a Community of Inquiry (see Figure 1.1).

Facilitation is most critical in the earliest stages of interaction, whereas direct instruction becomes more important as the complexity and cognitive load of a task or an assignment increase. Our experience suggests that facilitation is necessary to set in motion the dynamics of inquiry, but direct instruction is required when techniques of facilitation no longer move the process of inquiry to the integration and resolution/application phases. Our focus in the next chapter is on strategies of direct instruction that “nudge” students further along in their process of inquiry and help to improve their ability to monitor and manage shared metacognition.

4. Direct Instruction