Using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Model and Bloom's Revised Taxonomy to Support 21st Century Teaching and Learning in Multi-User Virtual Environments

Online learning in higher education has, until most recently, been delivered primarily through learning management systems (LMS) such as BlackBoard, Moodle, and others. However, responding to budgetary concerns and burgeoning enrollments, delivery of online learning via multiple open source (free) formats, is quickly becoming an attractive and inexpensive option for online distance and learning programs. Multi-user virtual environments, or MUVEs, are one such option that provides an interactive and socially rich learning experience for learners. In this chapter, the authors propose a dually fused pedagogical framework that has the potential to provide both asynchronous and synchronous online learning activities the elicit critical thinking skills and that further align with additional skills twenty-first century learners and instructors need to compete in today's global society.