Definition of Student Engagement

17 Engagement Elements Characteristics Cognitive Presence The learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through discourse in a critical community of inquiry, able to expending their effort in the learning activity, and able to integrate the new material with previous knowledge. Teacher Presence The teachers provide the design, facilitate the learning, and direct the learners’ cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes. Furthermore, Garrison 2007 explains each element of the student engagement. The following section discusses each element in detail. 1 Social Presence According to Garrison 2007, social presence is the ability to establish personal and purposeful relationship with friends. It has three main aspects, namely effective communication, open communication, and group cohesion. This presence will less important if the students are only as the information receivers and there are no collaborative assignments where student can learn from the others’ perspective about the learning. Collaborative learning can be built from an effective communication. The effective communication can be formed if the students have secure feeling to communicate with the community and together with their friends build a goal to maintain the sustainable communication. Garrison 2007 adds if the respect, effectiveness and open communication, are created, the group cohesion will establish. In this case, the social presence needs personal and purposeful relationship with friends. The students should have the sense of belonging to the community and develop personal relationship with their friends. 18 2 Cognitive Presence The next element is cognitive presence. Garrison 2007 states that “cognitive presence is defined as the exploration, construction, resolution and confirmation of understanding through collaboration and reflection in a community of inquiry p. 65. The three main points that really influence students’ cognitive presence are exploration, integration, and resolution. It means the students are exchanging information within the students, connecting the ideas and applying new ideas to improve the prior knowledge. 3 Teacher Presence The third element is teacher presence. According to Garrison 2007, teacher presence concerns to three main points, namely design, facilitation, and instruction. The teacher presence is a significant determiner of the student s’ satisfaction in learning. In this point, the design is related to the lecturers’ role to inform the materials to the students during the learning process. The lecturers also give clear instruction of how to participate in the learning activities and clearly communicate the time allocation of the learning activities to the students. The lecturers are not only giving the design but also guiding the students during the learning activities. They observe the students ’ understanding, keep the students on learning track, engaging in productive works, and encouraging them to explore more on the courses being discussed. Related to the direct instruction, the lecturers focus on the discussion held in the community and provide relevant feedback for the students. Hence, their learning activities become more meaningful.