Enhancing learning with authoritative actions: Reflective practice of positive power

Drawing from classic power perspective, my reflective practice illuminates how power action, traditionally recognized as negative and detrimental to teaching process and learning outcomes, could be shaped in a positive way to enhance learning. Insights gained from this action research set in a politically charged and culturally homogenous environment provide critical perspective to the research community and challenge traditional practices of teaching and learning. Implications gained call for attention to critical perspective of empirical studies that could provide lessons for educators and researchers to create a more effective teaching and learning environment with authoritative power. An action framework is created in the end to illustrate how the positive authoritative process can be achieved

Breaking down barriers in building teacher competence

Teachers may well be made, not born, and appointments to academic positions are often made without regard to the appointee’s prior experience or competence in teaching. In most New Zealand universities, compulsory teaching development is not required. Furthermore, enrolment in opportunities to help teachers to develop further, frequently do not attract high numbers. How can those of us who work in staff development work effectively with resistant staff? How can we ensure that what we offer has optimal value in diverse areas? This paper reflects on an action research process currently under way in a New Zealand university, which seeks to investigate the usefulness of current and new staff development initiatives and to maximise benefits to staff. The work was presented at the recent ALARA conference and reflections from this presentation are interspersed with accounts of the work. I have used italics to highlight the ‘process’ parts of the work as it was presented at ALARA

Distancing when undertaking first person action inquiry: Two devices

Action Inquiry is a methodology with the desired outcome of research action producing systemic change. In the context of a doctoral study seeking to explore how art-based pedagogies may empower educational practice, Action Inquiry was an obvious choice where empowerment involves social work practitioners exploring this question together. As part of a participatory approach, a process of self-examination is integral to the author’s inquiry as a means of contextualising professional practice in terms of social, cultural and political dynamics, and as a means to appreciate the journeys of participants in the author’s inquiry. In this article the author discusses distancing, a process of estrangement, as a means of exploring and analysing personally generated data. Two devices are developed to enhance distancing in self-inquiry, particularly when the data is challenging because it is ‘too close’ to the inquirer. The first is a visual Johari Window (Luft and Ingram 1955), involving a series of self-portraits and collaged images related to the author’s educational journey in life. The second is a dramatic device inspired by the work of Dorothy Heathcote (Heathcote and Bolton 1995) that involves the development of a fictitious character who presents the work of the author and provides opportunities for transformative reflection. The character of William Loveday is developed during a number of educational events using an iterative spiral of planning, performance, evaluation and further performance. The inquiry shows how visual art and drama can provided potent possibilities to critique and reappraise both doctoral work and practice education through a process of distancing. The author highlights how these devices can be adapted to numerous practice situations involving self-inquiry and participatory inquiry and to empower educational practice

Conferences: building a reflective learning community through creative interventions

Through a reflective practitioner -led perspective, this paper looks at five conferences in which creative learning processes were incorporated and used as participative experiential learning community building processes.  The paper explores how creative interventions were designed and used to connect conference participants and to encourage mutual inquiry, reflection and other ways of knowing.

PAR/RAP : Action Research/Research Action Participation

This is a creative piece inspired within and by the decolonising stream that emerged at the World Congress on Action Research and Action Learning, held in Melbourne, Australia in September 2010. It compliments the other works within ALAR Journal's specific edition on research experiences within the decolonising space

The transformative possibility of literary métissage: An action research report

This report describes and exemplifies ongoing action research advancing an inquiry method with the potential to reveal evidence of individual and collective relational learning resulting from teacher professional development.  The method of literary métissage encourages the emergence and merging of voices, and may be appropriate for use in contexts other than schools.  The report traces the design, enactment and outcome of a workshop presented at the ALARA World Congress, 2018, in which participants concerned with transformative social change experienced the method's potential.  Participants' products, involvement in the validation of the project, and authors' reflections on modelling the method are shared

Notice of world congress

Notice of 2015 world congres

Action research on action research: A facilitator’s account

This article describes research conducted by a facilitator of a statewide action research network, the Wyoming Teacher Policy Institute (WTPI). This group of teacher/action researchers organized with an aim of inserting teachers’ knowledge and perspectives into educational policy-making conversations. Teachers are typically excluded from the educational policy-making process (Kumar & Scuderi, 2000). The WTPI initiative attempts to change this situation by supporting teachers as they conduct action research and interact with policy-makers. The purpose of this study was to use action research methodology to document and analyze facilitator interactions with the teacher researchers.  This research focused on support strategies that enabled teacher researchers to conduct action research and affect educational policy. The study’s methodology is explained, findings are summarized, and resultant recommendations are outlined

Covers, review panel, table of contents

Front and back covers, spine, reviewer information, contact details, table of content

Doing participatory evaluation in Indigenous contexts

In countering the legacies of colonisation, aboriginal communities across Canada are beginning to mount their own locally inspired and developed initiatives in business, health, welfare and education to address needs that they have identified. This paper reports on one such initiative created and launched by the Cree Nation of Wemindji (in Quebec, Canada), called COOL (Challenging Our Own Limits) or Nigawchiisuun.2 The paper briefly outlines the creation, development and implementation of COOL and the theoretical and methodological framework that supports the project. The paper is organized into three sections. First, a brief background and discussion of the origins, impetus and eventual launch of COOL; second, a general theoretical framework situating participatory evaluation (PE) in relation to the broader field of participatory action research (PAR); and third, the implications and potential of this methodology for indigenous research. The paper concludes with remarks on participatory evaluation as an indigenous alternative to mainstream program evaluation and related managerial technologies