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With all the attention focused on "fake news" I began to think about how the principles and processes of the CoI framework might be relevant to this issue. The attached paper (abstract below) is an exploration of the relevance and impact such an approach might have on developing skepticism and critical thinking with regard to the problem of fake news.

If you wish to read the full paper, please click on the attached file at the bottom of this post. 

While information and communication technologies (ICT) transform the world of work and leisure, largely for the better, the question is whether these developments are changing how we consume information? The concern is that social media encourages ideological cocooning (living within a set of beliefs without challenge) as much as it connects us. For example, Twitter and social media inherently undermine critical discourse. This leads us to ask, does social media have a broken relationship with facts and the truth? Is social media the source of the concern with "fake news?" Are we moving from the information age to the disinformation age? If so, how do we address this in order to develop critical thinkers?

When people are selecting their own facts unchallenged, critical thinkers will be hard to find. So how do we get people to be more skeptical about what they read; to challenge assumptions and ideas? Counterintuitively, thinking is not an individual private experience. The argument here is that critical thinking is best nurtured by collaborative, transactional approaches. A core reason for learning collaboratively is that humans are inherently selective in seeing and reinforcing existing beliefs (confirmation bias). The inherent tendency or bias to reinforce what we already believe while rejecting alternative perspectives speaks to the core strength and a reason for a community of inquiry approach.

The Community of Inquiry framework is strongly embedded in the learning sciences and is a direct contribution to understanding thinking and learning in a connected knowledge society. The core dynamic of the CoI framework is grounded in Dewey’s method of practical inquiry. Practical inquiry is simply an everyday means of thinking and learning that models the scientific method. It demonstrates how thinking is distributed across groups of learners. Thinking collaboratively in a community of inquiry provides the balanced tension between individual thoughts and input from the group. Thinking collaboratively is the dialectic push and pull of the personal, interpretive realities of the individual and the empirical realities of the shared world. Communities provide the means to integrate the personal and shared worlds and cohesively engage participants in critical discourse.

Creating a successful community of inquiry is challenging. The complexity of designing and sustaining a community of inquiry that supports thinking critically demands more than recipes or a short list of best practices. This necessitates that we have the benefit of a coherent theoretical framework that provides the order and rationale to manage the complexity of personal reflection and collaborative discourse. At the core of creating and managing such a community of learners is shared leadership that can ensure constructive progression of the learning experience while adjusting to shifting interests and challenges.

Technology does not replace a purposeful and collaborative learning experience. Being able to operate a smart phone and staying connected through Twitter says little about critical thinking and knowledge construction not to mention innovative thinking. On the other hand, technology has the potential to unbundle time and space where discourse can be sustained over time. Exchanges can be read, re-read and revised based on feedback and evidence. The asynchronous nature of ICTs can provide the opportunity to reflect and engage in sustained discourse with the expectation of mitigating the insidious presence of fake news.

INDIVIDUAL FILES
Editorial10_criticalthinkingands.pdf · 301.9KB