Pedagogy, on the other hand, starts with learning as its center, not students or teachers, and the work of pedagogues is necessarily political, subjective, and humane.
I have not heard this before and am not sure I agree with it. After all, how can learning occur without learners?
Egginsand Slade (1997) suggest that responses and rejoinders (indications of mutual awareness)build and sustain relationships, express a willingness to maintain and prolong contact, andtacitly indicate interpersonal support, encouragement, and acceptance of the initiator.
I feel like this is sometimes missing from online courses. I have had multiple courses in which students are required to respond to others' posts, but often the discussion ends with that one response. It would be interesting if students were encouraged or even required to respond to those who responded to their posts.
characterized by short messages acknowledginga student's contribution and followed by guidance, increases student activity
It's interesting that just short, encouraging messages with guidance increase student activity. It doesn't surprise me though: feedback can be crucial to helping a student feel acknowledged and "seen."
Collaborative inquiry provides fora qualitative dimension beyond acquiring specific content of a discipline.
In science education, there is a push toward having students acquire the skills necessary to the discipline of science (engaging in argumentation, analyzing data, etc.) and not just mastering information and content. In order to achieve these competency goals, a certain amount of collaboration is necessary.
his raises the question as to whethercomputer conferencing encourages more convergent, in-depth thinking, while face-to-faceseminars might seem to facilitate more and divergent (i.e., creative) interaction.
This is an interesting point to consider. There is value in both convergent and divergent in-depth thinking. Perhaps even face-to-face classes could benefit from a computer conferencing component. This also supports the point of the authors earlier on that computer conferencing isn't simply a substitute for face-to-face interaction.
he second function, facilitation, is a responsibility thatmay be shared among the teacher and some or all of the other participants or students.
I am curious to see how facilitation can be shared among students. Would it be possible to have younger students take facilitating roles?
community of inquiry are able to construct meaningthrough sustained communication.
An important key phrase here is "construct meaning through sustained communication." Meaning-making should therefore not just be an individual process but a collective one.