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According to the New York Times Bits blog, a recent study funded by the US Department of Education (PDF) found that on the whole, online learning environments actually led to higher tested performance than face-to-face learning environments.

“In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages,” writes the authors of the report (emphasis theirs). “At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction.”

We can conclude that those in online learning environments tested better, but not necessarily why.

Progressive inquiry relies on an idea of facilitating the same kind of good and productive practices of working with knowledge  -- progressive inquiry  -- that characterize scientific research communities in education. By imitating the practices of scientific research communities, students are encouraged to engage in extended processes of question- and explanation-driven inquiry.  Accordingly, an important aspect of progressive inquiry is to guide students in setting up their own research questions and working theories.  In practice, this means that students are making their conceptions public and working together for improving shared ideas and explanations.  It is also essential to constrain emerging ideas by searching for new information.  Participation in progressive inquiry, in the present case, is usually embedded in computer-supported collaborative learning environments that provide sophisticated tools for supporting the inquiry process as well as sharing of knowledge and expertise.