Community of Inquiry Research

This chapter reviews the recent Community of Inquiry (CoI) research and emerging insights into collaborative educational experiences. It also extends the review of CoI research provided in E-Learning in the 21st Century that previously documented developments in the first decade since its first publication. CoI framework represents a transactional deep and meaningful learning experience, and can be understood through the dynamic fusion of three presences: social, cognitive and teaching. Social presence has evolved to focus on identification with the academic goals of a learning community. Cognitive presence is the core of a CoI and, as such, focuses on thinking and learning collaboratively. Research has shown teaching presence to be the crucial element in establishing and sustaining a CoI. The self and co-regulation dimensions of shared metacognition defines the inseparability of cognitive and teaching presence for an inquiry based learning experience.