ABSTRACT
The Collaborative Inquiry Cycle (CIC) is a process for designing structured collaborative learning experiences in which learners work together to explore a well-defined problem, an ill-structured problem, an issue, or a case. The CIC incorporates the building blocks of online wisdom communities—technology, communication, wisdom, mentoring, and learner support—to form an interactive, experiential process. The CIC begins with a learning challenge, or prompt. Once learners receive a problem, the cycle moves into an exploration phase. In the third phase of the cycle, learners work in small groups, pairs, and individually to research the problem based on the defined action steps. In the reflection phase, learners report out what they have learned so far and seek input from their group members. Negotiation is a collaborative process in which the small group evaluates and filters ideas presented in the reflection stage. The CIC ends with the preservation of the community's work.
