How can I encourage multi-stakeholder narrative and reflection on the use of ICT in Teacher Professional Development programmes in Rwanda?

This is an action research enquiry into how I can improve my practice to encourage multi-stakeholder narrative and reflection on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programmes in Rwanda. I examine the complexity of the ICT-TPD landscape in the Africa Region. I describe two action research cycles in which I attempt to encourage reflection on ICT in professional development in Rwanda. In each cycle I explore the potential of an Activity Theory lens for probing the issues and examining the perspectives of the stakeholder community of teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers and researchers affiliated to national ICT in TPD programmes and initiatives. I integrate a “Most Significant Change” narrative technique to engage participants in telling stories of significant change in their practice with technology integration. Through the rigour of the action research living theory approach I come to a number of conclusions about my own values and how I actually live my values in practice as I engage with partners in discourse and reflection for mutual learning on the issues of ICT integration in Teacher Professional Development

Environmental education: The development of a curriculum through 'grass roots' reconstructive action

The case study reported in this paper started as a research and development initiative to improve environmental education and ecology fieldwork activities. A package of resource materials and activities was developed and pilot tested with teachers. Despite highly commended workshops, however, follow-up evaluation revealed that the curriculum packages were not widely used. The paper discusses a two year action research investigation of conceptual, evaluation and adoption tensions that led to a revised approach to environmental education and curriculum innovation. The rational and centre-to-periphery orientation of the initial research and development project was replaced by a teacher support network to facilitate 'grass roots' reconstructive action. This orientation was then investigated with two groups of science teachers in rural schools. The study revealed how external support services and a sustained dialogue around the prevailing science curriculum, local environmental issues and everyday classroom activities fostered reconstructive change at a local level. The transition from an external and rational strategy of curriculum development to a networking service in support of local reconstructive action is described. Some of the emerging management and design considerations for a revised political economy (policy and action framework) of environmental education curriculum change are discussed

A study of curriculum leaders' selves and attitudes toward action research in the postmodern age

Curriculum leaders are key agents of the recent curriculum reforms in Hong Kong. They are appointed in individual schools and their role is to make sure different reform measures and policies are functioning well and by and large leading to quality school curriculum. To convey these measures and policies to schools and schoolteachers, a key approach recommended by the authorities is to engage in action research as a means of professional and curriculum development. The purpose of this thesis is (i) to explore the attitudes which Hong Kong curriculum leaders have toward action research and (іі) to examine their perceptions of self which are formulated as a response to the education and curriculum reforms, in an era characterized by the term "postmodern". From a postmodern perspective the whole project of reform and its means-end logic can be seen as modernist, for it is assumed there is a "promising” vehicle for whole-person development and emancipation that will deliver predetermined outcomes. However from a postmodern perspective, norms are not to be found in foundations. To curriculum leaders, there is always the conflict between the official expectations of government bodies/policy makers and the actual problems they find in work. Thus, their selves are in danger of getting more and more fragile, more and more fragmented. This thesis provides research evidence not only of the attitudes curriculum leaders have toward action research, but also how they speak, think and act toward the project of education, how they perceive the critiques and merits of the education and curriculum reform, and how they conceptualize and put forth themselves as leaders for curriculum change. Methods used in this thesis include: first a survey research administering the Attitudes Toward Research instrument (ATR) with a large cohort of curriculum leaders who participated in one of the training programmes that aimed for advancing their work, and second an in-depth exploration, through a dialogical method of informal chats and interviews, with five of them. Survey results suggested: (i) curriculum leaders in general favoured using research in their work; (іі) apart from what the policy makers promoted as a "communal" sense of research significance for professional development, practitioners were concerned too with a "pedagogical" sense of research significance (which fits well with postmodern thinking) for providing individual solutions for teaching and learning challenges; and (ііі) policy makers need to have an alternative, wider concept of the purpose of action research, to empower curriculum leaders to believe more their own efforts of understanding and criticizing the present education context and to develop their own approach to reform. Informal chats and interviews suggested: (i) although the five curriculum leaders were very different in their life experience and perceptions of self working as curriculum leaders, they all encountered difficulties in leading curriculum change in schools and classrooms; and (іі) curriculum leadership was difficult. In order to spread leadership practices among the school, it is necessary for school leaders, as well as curriculum developers and policy makers, to disseminate curriculum information to schools and the wider public in terms of free and rich communication. The thesis makes recommendations on how reform policy might be conveyed to schools, curriculum leaders and teachers in a postmodern age

Environmental education case studies for curriculum development in science teacher education.

Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1998.Science student teachers' participation with practising teachers in developing curriculum in environmental education for implementation in schools has been a neglected field. This study focuses on the collaboration of science student teachers with practising teachers in developing an alternative curriculum for environmental education compared to existing traditional practices in most schools in South Africa. The science teacher educator, as the researcher, used action research or elements of it to facilitate the process. The action research component served as an inquiry into, and improvement of, the PRESET/INSET curriculum development model for teacher development. This dissertation reports on four case studies of curriculum development and environmental education in science teacher education practised at the University of Durban-Westville from 1991 to 1996. Innovative strategies serve as the basis of interventions in four primary school contexts, each representing a case study on its own, yet sequentially linked as action research cycles. The case study approach served the purpose of illuminating the curriculum development process with the intention of generating grounded theory through action research or elements of it. The outcomes of a survey of the status of curriculum development in institutions offering science teacher education in KwaZulu-Natal are also presented to support the need for an innovative approach to the PRESET/INSET curriculum development model

An investigation of the impact of a portfolio based curriculum on children's ICT independence.

Very rarely, in education, do we see innovation that promises and delivers educational benefits without negative consequence. In the early stages of the introduction of ICT into education, promises were made of improved learning, 'state of the art' resourcing and even a decrease in teacher's workload. However, the reality was associated more with problems of integration into the curriculum. That is to say problems associated with the assessment of learning, the lack of time or money and effective management of the new ICT resources. It is within this ICT context that this research is grounded. The purpose of the research was to investigate the extent to which ICT can support the development of children's independence and individual responsibility for learning. The study used an action research approach to track the ICT development of 30 Y4 children over a period of 15 months. During four distinct action research cycles, a variety of surveys were developed and used to assess the changes in the children's approached to ICT. Changes, that were as a result of the implementation of a portfolio-based curriculum, through generally, a more child centred approach to ICT. As a result of the implementation of the above approach, it was found that the children showed an increase in their independence. They became, on the whole, more responsible and competent through their ICT work. They developed a more positive approach to their ICT tasks and showed that they could be more self-supporting at home and at school. This research illustrates the effect of a more focussed ICT curriculum. It highlights how use of an ICT portfolio can develop children's ICT thinking, ICT skills and ICT language. It illustrates the effectiveness of an integrated approach to ICT and highlights the current curricular constraints on such ICT development

Collaborative learning: a connected community approach

Collaborative Learning in group settings currently occurs across a substantial portion of the UK Higher Education curriculum. This style of learning has many roots including: Enterprise in Higher Education, Action Learning and Action Research, Problem Based Learning, and Practice Based Learning. As such our focus on Collaborative Learning development can be viewed as an evolutionary. This collaborative and active group learning provides the foundation for what can be collectively called connectivist ‘Learning Communities’. In this setting a primary feature of a ‘Learning Community’ is one that carries a responsibility to promote one another’s learning. This paper will outline a developmental collaborative learning approach and describe a supporting software environment, known as the Salford Personal Development Environment (SPDE), that has been developed and implemented to assist in delivering collaborative learning for post graduate and other provision. This is done against a background of much research evidence that group based activity can enhance learning. These findings cover many approaches to group based learning and over a significant period of time. This paper reports on work-in-progress and the features of the environment that are designed to help promote individual and group or community learning that have been influenced by the broad base of research findings in this area

Education and Entrepreneurship: Best Learning from Helm Project at Cenderawasih University

In 2013, as part of the Higher Education Leadership and Management national initiative sponsored by US AID, Universitas Cenderawasih proposed an action research project to address the under-employment of UNCEN graduates through purposeful entrepreneurship education. Although entrepreneurship education had been introduced previously at UNCEN, it had never been custom designed to integrate theory and practice appropriate to Papua as part of the formal curriculum.  This paper focuses on the use of core principles of the action research process (ARP) to develop and implement a locally effective curriculum for students enrolled in UNCEN’s Faculty of Economics. A central value underlying the project was the development of a curriculum that could address social inequalities in Papua, specifically the significant under-representation of Papuan native peoples in the entrepreneurship sector.Through a mixed methods approach that used demographic, attitudinal and outcome data as well as observational, interview and focus group data, the ARP team designed an experientially-based learning module, documented implementation of thepilot learning module, evaluated its effectiveness, and developed proposals for improvement and institutionalization. As a result of its action research project, the ARP team suggests that future iterations of the entrepreneurship curriculum at UNCEN should adopt a culturally responsive pedagogy (Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 1995) that addresses the disparities in cultural and social capital shown to be significant in the ARP to entrepreneurship education

Curriculum beyond borders

This PhD by project used action research to design, evaluate, and refine a social studies curriculum fostering the development of critical thinking strategies in young adults in the refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border in 2004 - 2005. The broader focus of this action research project is to develop an innovative, collaborative, culturally relevant, community focused curriculum model for young adult refugees in places of temporary asylum. Action research is realized in this project through a constructivist approach to curriculum development where an improved curriculum is being built up from the values and worldviews of the students, teachers, and their community. The exegesis starts by providing a brief political background to the refugee situation and exploring where the participant community stands as far as education is concerned, while providing a concise review of literature on refugee education. The research draws its data from a detailed curriculum evaluation project that has been undertaken by the researcher and the participant teachers in 2004-2005. An integral part of this research project constitutes a set of study modules that have been reworked as a result of this evaluation. The findings and recommendations of this action research stress the importance of a curriculum contextualized to the situation of the learners as this has been found to have a an extremely strong influence on motivation and the development of critical thinking skills

Action research in higher education : the advancement of university learning and teaching

This thesis aims to contribute to the improvement and advancement of university learning, teaching, and staff development; to integrate educational theory and the practice of university teaching; and to contribute to the establishment of a new, emerging paradigm in higher education. The strategy towards achieving these aims comprises (1) an alternative research methodology in the interpretive, non-positivist paradigm; (2) an integrated framework drawing on a variety of previously unrelated theories to form an alternative model of university education; and (3) reference to the dialectical relationship between educational theory and teaching practice and their integration through action research in higher education. The thesis is not so much a critique of the traditional paradigm and of existing functionalist-structuralist approaches to higher education, but more a development and clarification of an alternative, dialectical, human action approach to higher education. The original contribution of this thesis to the theory and practice of higher education lies in the development (1) of an alternative model of university education based on an integration of previously unrelated domains of theory; (2) of a theoretical model of professional development as action research (the CRASP Model: Critical attitude, Research into teaching, Accountability, Self-evaluation, Professionalism); and (3) of action research projects in higher education. Action research is research by the university teachers themselves into their teaching practice, i.e. into problems of the curriculum and student learning. The case studies included in and appended to this thesis show that in one educational setting at least it was possible to improve and advance university learning and teaching through action research. The evidence for this advancement is provided in a number of previously published case studies compiled in the Appendix