Designing a peer-teaching activity to promote inquiry-based learning

This paper discusses findings of a study conducted to determine how to design peerteaching activities to promote inquiry based learning in a virtual learning environment (VLE) designed for a distance learning programme where teacher support is kept at a minimum level. A previous study conducted in the same environment, revealed that the students could engage in peer-teaching. Considering this ability and the instructional designers’ requirement to know how forum based activities should be designed, a peer-teaching activity was designed with necessary instructions to promote inquiry-based learning in the VLE. The activity was designed based on sets of collaborative and inquiry-based learning design principles. The findings of the study were used to improve the sets of design principles. In addition, sets of design guidelines were also prepared for easy application of the design principles.