Exemplary Online Educators: Creating a Community of Inquiry

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Exemplary Online Educators: Creating a Community of Inquiry
What makes some online educators more effective than others? Using Garrison, Anderson and Archer's Community of Inquiry model as a framework, this paper undertakes a qualitative study of the question. "Online learning is not just a learning enhancement," write the authors, "it is an entirely new way of learning and teaching that is likely here to stay." Maybe, but the preliminary results from the study will sound familiar to anyone: effective online instructors are "challengers", they are "affirmers" and they are "influencers". More...