The Community of Inquiry: A Survey of Traditional Classroom and Webcourse Application

Abstract

Introduction:  An extraordinary depiction of the ideal community of inquiry is portrayed by Raphael in his fresco, «School of Athens.» Projecting ourselves into the fresco, we believe that we are walking, with Plato and Aristotle, into a community alive with doubt and wonder. The reflective community of inquiry, Lipman tells us, «is a self-critical practice, and all of it is exploratory and inquisitive... inquiry begins because what has been encountered - some aberration, some discrepancy, something that defies being taken for granted - captures our interest and demands our reflection and investigation.» We see this illustrated in the fresco in the figures of Plato and Aristotle, engaged in dialogue. Plato, holding a work of cosmology, points heavenwards, while Aristotle, holding a work of ethics, makes a gesture which expresses his commitment to the life of everyday. In the fresco we find Plato, Aristotle, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Socrates engaged in aspects of activity all of which are central to the conception of a community of inquiry: individuals who have a mutual trust and respect and a sense of common purpose, working cooperatively, learning to think for themselves by thinking with others, confronting problems and puzzles through the use of dialogue, and acknowledging alternative points of view. To use Roger Scruton’s language, «Such qualities require a social setting. They are not solipsistic achievements like the muscles of a bodybuilder or the mortification of the anchorite.»