A blended community of inquiry approach: Linking student engagement and course redesign

The purpose this article is to describe an institutional initiative created to support faculty engaged in blended course redesign. This Inquiry Through Blended Learning (ITBL) program adapted Garrison, Anderson, and Archer's (2000) Community of Inquiry framework in order to provide faculty participants with a guided inquiry process for discussing and reflecting on key redesign questions, exploring blended learning from a student perspective, integrating the new experiences and ideas, and then applying this knowledge through the implementation of a course redesigned for blended learning. An overview of the ITBL program, the methods used to evaluate the redesigned courses, the findings, and conclusions are presented in this article.