The Community of Inquiry Theoretical Framework: Designing Collaborative Online and Blended Learning

Theoretical frameworks which make the learning process explicit are a useful guide. This chapter explains the concept of presence - social, cognitive, teaching and emotional - and shows how it can be used to shape design for blended and online learning. A Community of Inquiry theoretical framework is used to describe how students learn through active engagement with questions or problems, guided by a variety of interventions. The framework can be used to identify effective teaching activities and to map the different implications for learners. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) theoretical framework is a pedagogical model designed to offer ways of learning that are adaptable, collaborative, and engaging through process as well as content. The chapter provides a history, detailed description, research reference, application advice, and critique of the CoI theoretical framework. The CoI framework identifies teaching activity, based on theory and practice, to support guided inquiry.