What do you know now that you did not know prior to starting the course?

• I learned that critical thinking can be empirically evaluated using trigger words. This framework can easily be used to compare teaching methods.

What gaps or discrepancies do you notice between your ideas in Post 1 and what you have learned since then in Lesson 1?

• In Post 1, I thought that it was most important for the students to be engaged by the material. I have since learned that this is simply the first step in learning and that critical thinking should be encouraged.

What questions would you like to explore on the topic of cognitive presence?

• I think that it would be interesting to lower the user bias in the study conducted by Garrison et al. It would also be interesting to compare the analysis of an in-class discussion with an online discussion.

Provide an example of how you have seen effective cognitive presence modeled in online learning.

• My example of effective cognitive presence does not come from an online learning environment but rather from my own experiences as a student. One of our physics labs did not produce the expected results. My class was encouraged to think for ourselves and figure out why the lab wasn’t working. We ended up evaluating our equipment and found that our “oil drops” were too old and had degraded in quality. I learned more from this experience, than from the lab results.