3,481 research outputs found

    A comparative case study of appreciative inquiries in one organization: implications for practice

    Get PDF
    Eight different sites in a large, Canadian urban school district engaged in an appreciative inquiry into “what do we know about learning”. Data collected over the following year indicate that four of the sites experienced transformational changes, two sites had incremental changes and two showed little or no change. This paper describes the AI intervention in detail and then explores differences in each site that may explain differences in level of change. The level of positive affect and ratings of success of the AI Summits at each site showed no meaningful relationship to change outcomes. Level of change did appear to be related to how generative the inquiries were, how well the Discovery phase was managed and the quality of Design statements that came out of the summits. Other factors exogenous to the design of the AI also appeared to play a role. These included relations between teachers and principals, credibility of local change agents, passionate and engaged leadership, and linkage to pre-existing, shared concerns. Recommendations for AI practice are given.Appreciative Inquiry Summit; Collective Dream; Transformation; Case Study

    Constructing a Prototype: Realizing a Scholarship of Practice in General Education

    Get PDF
    Why a scholarship of practice? Toward what end do we assess the merits of such a concept? John Braxton (2003) recommends a scholarship of practice as a means to enhance the utility of empirical research by developing and refining knowledge that improves institutional policy and practice in higher education. In essence, a scholarship of practice turns the scholarly assets of the academy on the work of the academy itself

    Navigating the SoTL Landscape: A Compass, Map and Some Tools for Getting Started

    Get PDF
    Since the scholarship of teaching and learning entails the design of, and evidence-based inquiry into, teaching, learning and pedagogical practice – faculty new to this field face the challenging task of mastering perspectives, processes and practices that can be disparate to their disciplinary foundations. This paper offers an introductory overview of some essential ideas that help shape the design and intention of SoTL activities, and provides guidelines for undertaking SoTL projects

    Remixing the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT)

    Get PDF
    The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) is a high-stakes, standardized literacy test that high school students in Ontario must pass before graduating with a high school diploma. However, each year, approximately 35,000 students do not pass the OSSLT, jeopardizing their chances to graduate. Critical literacies encourage readers to act upon what they are reading by responding to, evaluating, and/or rewriting what they are reading. Throughout this paper, I will be applying these theories by proposing an unsettling, a deterritorialization, and a potential hybridization, or remixing of the OSSLT to better meet the needs of the diverse group of students writing the test. Such a remix could also create a generative and open space for reflection and reconsideration of what we are trying to achieve with this literacy test. This paper focuses on issues of equity and social justice in the context of standardized assessments, specifically the OSSLT, because this literacy test has the potential to significantly impact the lives of youth in Ontario

    Writing Rangers

    Get PDF

    An Arts-Based Classroom Confronts Educations Metanarratives: Grand Narratives, Local Stories and A Classroom Teacher\u27s Story

    Get PDF
    This paper examines and deconstructs how a 4th/5th grade independent school teacher and his teaching partner were assessed based on their classroom management and teaching styles. The school administrator’s perspective and critique of this teaching team is expressed through a six-page performance evaluation report. As a member of the teaching team, the author presents an alternate perspective; advocating for self-initiated, interdisciplinary and creative approaches to learning. He viewed his practices as a site for a critical pedagogical discourse, ongoing analysis, reflection and revision. Here the author reflects on how two conflicting teaching paradigms perceive and evaluate the management style of this unconventional classroom

    SoTL Principles and Program Collaboration in the Age of Integration

    Get PDF
    The increasing acceptance of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) on our campus has led to spreading SoTL principles outside of the usual faculty classroom research projects and teaching/learning center. Three programs examined how SoTL principles aided in integration and initiative building. The programs are the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Program, and the Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching. Attempts at integration and collaboration have successfully brought SoTL principles into community building, consensus building, and program assessment. A unified voice, mutual respect, and responsiveness to institutional needs have been the necessary conditions to support the work, which may have directly and indirectly effected change in the campus cultur

    Experiencing higher education, transitions and the graduate labour market: the non-traditional student perspective: book of abstracts

    Get PDF
    In the last three courses 2014-15, 2015-15 and 2016-17, Integration of Contents and English has been implemented at the Faculty of Sciences of Education in University of Malaga (Spain), specifically in Primary Education Studies. The initiative corresponds to the continuity of bilingualism that in the Spanish Education Normative and Curriculum begins with Child schools, continuing in Secondary and High Schools. Consequently, Education Faculty is involved in the preparation of future professional teachers, who not only will be an interpreter teacher with a degree in languages, but with knowledge and content related to the different areas of learning and teaching. That is the reason why Social Sciences Education area is researching in using CLIL and sharing didactic strategies like poster seasons among classroom groups or Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) within different city Institutions as Malaga Museum Picasso, developing the need of being students and citizens part of the scaffolding learning in Higher Studies. Therefore, internationalizing territories in the University, city/town and its Museums will be a goal when talking about innovation for internationalizing employability and entrepreneurship.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂ­a Tech

    Re-imagining Arts-centered Inquiry as Pragmatic Instrumentalism

    Get PDF
    Arts education must continually provide justification for its inclusion in the K-12 curriculum. This dissertation utilizes philosophical and conceptual analysis to probe the tensions, ironies, and contradictions that permeate the arts education advocacy discourse. Using evidence from advocacy materials published online, scholarly critiques of themes in the advocacy discourse, and research reports describing school-based arts programs, I construct an argument that posits generative consequences for student learning when arts-centered inquiry is reimagined as pragmatic instrumentalism. Such a reimagining of arts-centered inquiry seeks to draw a distinction between utilitarian justifications for the arts and instrumental benefits the arts provide individual students in mediating complex and connected learning. In reclaiming the term “instrumental” for arts-centered inquiry, I offer a way to restore the notion of generativity to arts learning and a means to promote greater understanding among practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and advocates

    Leading for Truth and Reconciliation: Parent, Family and Community Empowerment in the Learning of Their Children

    Get PDF
    Almost ten years after the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, there remains much for schools to improve for First Nation, Metis, and Inuit students and their families. Focusing on Call to Action 10.vi: enabling parents to fully participate in the learning of their children, identifies a problem of practice. The impact of residential schools and systemic racism have created a separation between families and their children’s learning as well as a lack of trust in the school. Using the assumptions of positive organizational scholarship to understand the complex system of my school, as well as the belief that student learning is influenced by family, community and school, this organizational improvement plan uses an appreciative inquiry organizational model to implement change to the partnership between school and home. The proposed solution is an active partnership between teacher and family or community members to deliver some of British Columbia’s curricular competencies, and create opportunities for families to be empowered in their children’s learning. Leading this complex work will require the disposition of a compassionate systems leader balancing personal mastery, relational awareness and systems thinking. For decades research has demonstrated the positive influences of the parent in the learning of the child. Little of this considers the equitable inclusion of First Nation, Metis, and Inuit families
    • 

    corecore