The premise of this article is that theoretical frameworks and models are essential to the long-term credibility and viability of a field of practice. In order to assess the theoretical challenges facing the field of distance education, the significant theoretical contributions to distance education in the last century are briefly reviewed. This review of distance education as a field of study reveals an early preoccupation with organizational and structural constraints. However, the review also reveals that the theoretical development of the field is progressing from organizational to transactional issues and assumptions. The question is whether distance education has the theoretical foundation to take it into the 21st century and whether distance education theory development will keep pace with innovations in technology and practice.Distance education methodologies have come into prominence during the last decades of the 20th century. The confluence of the need for continuous learning and unprecedented technological innovation in communications have pushed distance education approaches to the forefront of educational practice. However, whether the leaders of these initiatives are the technically literate or the politically powerful, they generally lack a coherent understanding of distance education practice and the full range of possibilities available to achieve desired outcomes. Senior administrators in higher education have become focused, not on educational issues, but the fiscal implications (i.e., cost savings) of distance education, and technology companies see profits (Feenberg, 1999).Conceptual confusion is created with the advent of new terminology (virtual, open, distributed and distance education), new technologies, new program demands, new audiences, and new commercially competitive providers. These developments present enormous challenges for educators to make sense of the distance educational options available. In the context of current change, competition and confusion, distance educators have an unprecedented opportunity to provide leadership and direction. The challenge is to provide theory that will explain and anticipate distance education practices for a broad range of emerging educational purposes and experiences. The question is whether distance

This paper uses the community of inquiry model to describe the principles of collaboration. The principles describe social and cognitive presence issues associated with the three functions of teaching presence—design, facilitation and direction. Guidelines are discussed for each of the principles.

The purpose of this study was to explore the dynamics of an online educational experience through the lens of the Community of Inquiry framework. Transcript analysis of online discussion postings and the Community of Inquiry survey were applied to understand the progression and integration of each of the Community of Inquiry presences. The results indicated a significant change in teaching and social presence categories over time. Moreover, survey results yielded significant relationships among teaching presence, cognitive presence and social presence, and students’ perceived learning and satisfaction in the course. The findings have important implications theoretically in terms of confirming the framework and practically by identifying the dynamics of each of the presences and their association with perceived learning and satisfaction.

The article begins with a review of the shared metacognition construct and its function within the Community of Inquiry theoretical framework. The primary focus of the shared metacognition construct is the role of learners to take responsibility and control for monitoring and managing learning in a community of inquiry. Pragmatic challenges are explored through an analysis of recent research and a discussion of implementation issues. It is emphasized that shared metacognition is shaped by the teaching presence construct (planning, facilitation, and direction instruction) and its overlap with cognitive presence operationalized by the phases of the Practical Inquiry model (problem defining, exploration, integration, and resolution). The manuscript concludes with a discussion of the potential for future research associated with shared metacognition and the use of a quantitative shared metacognition questionnaire.

This study focuses on understanding the social and teaching presence required to create a blended faculty development community of inquiry. Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s community of inquiry framework was used to analyze transcripts from the face-to-face and online sessions of a faculty learning community focused on blended learning course redesign. All three categories of social and teaching presence were detected in both forms of transcripts. The pattern of social comments changed considerably over time within the online discussion forum. The frequency of comments reflecting affective and open communication decreased while those with group cohesion increased dramatically. A similar trend was not observed within the face-to-face transcripts. In terms of teaching presence, the percentage of comments coded for design & organization and facilitating discourse decreased over time in both the face-to-face and online transcripts while comments containing an element of direct instruction increased considerably.