Principles of Blended Learning: Shared Metacognition and Communities of Inquiry

by Norman D. Vaughan, Deborah Dell, Martha Cleveland-Innes

The rapid migration to remote instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic has expedited the need for more research, expertise, and practical guidelines for online and blended learning. A theoretical grounding of approaches and practices is imperative to support blended learning and sustain change across multiple levels in education organizations, from leadership to classroom. The Community of Inquiry is a valuable framework that regards higher education as both a collaborative and individually constructivist learning experience. The framework considers the interdependent elements of social, cognitive, and teaching presence to create a meaningful learning experience. In this volume, the authors further explore and refine the blended learning principles presented in their first book, Teaching in Blended Learning Creating and Sustaining Communities of Inquiry, with an added focus on designing, facilitating, and directing collaborative blended learning environments by emphasizing the concept of shared metacognition.

185 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 17, 2023

Reviews

[Jason Albertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is essentially the same book as Vaughan et. al.'s 2013 one, with a few added comments about COVID19 and indigenous ways of knowing that are not well-integrated into what the book is doing.

What the book is doing: it is a 2-chapter manifesto about what the Community of Inquiry framework means and how it facilitates clear and insightful thinking about how to design learning activities in a blended class.

And then it is 5 other chapters that should've been companion podcast episodes interviewing ed practitioners. There aren't further insights about the framework in these chapters, just a restatement, then "and here's a list of tech tools that can help a teacher fulfill this principle."

But chs 1-2 are worth digesting. really solid stuff.