Social, cognitive, teaching, and metacognitive presence in general and focus group discussion: Case study in blended e-learning Linear Algebra class

Online discussion forum in mathematics teaching still needs to be investigated in order that educators can facilitate effective students online learning experience. The challenges faced in teaching Linear Algebra at the Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Indonesia are that students are freshmen who are used to being dependent learners; and there is a time restriction to face-to-face interaction, while this course requires high interaction between students and instructor. To enhance communication beyond the classroom, we have implemented a blended-mode in the teaching-learning process (face-to-face and online learning). For the purpose of the study, two types of discussion were utilized: general (class) discussion and focus-group discussion forums. This study used message as the unit of analysis. We found that students tend to exhibit teaching presence more intense in small focus-group discussion than in general forum. It is also interesting to note that the students regulated their cognition more in focus-group forum than in the general one.