Title:

Have We Created A New Epistemology For The New Scholarship Of Educational Enquiry Through Practitioner Research? Developing Sustainable Global Educational Networks Of Communication.

Authors & affiliations:

Jean McNiff; Caitriona McDonagh, Bernie Sullivan, Mairin Glenn, University of Limerick Joan Whitehead, Bernie Fitzgerald University of the West of England ; Marian Naidoo, National Institute for Mental Health England;

Jack Whitehead, University of Bath

Abstract:
(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this space)

We are a group of practitioner-researchers working across the levels of education systems. Each of us asks, ‘How do I improve what I am doing for personal and social good?’ Each of us aims to generate our personal educational theories to show how we are doing so through our contributions to the education of social formations in our own settings. We believe that the validity of our efforts lies in the generation of educational theories of professional practice. A criterion for the legitimation of such validity claims is the capacity of educators to show how they are holding themselves accountable for their work as they seek to exercise their educative influence at local and global levels. We explain how we are fulfilling our understanding that acceptance of individual responsibility for ourselves and to each other through collaborative self-study is at the heart of global influence.

We will produce evidence to support our claims that we are contributing to sustainable forms of global understanding through education. We will do this by offering descriptions and explanations of our educational practices in different settings, as we extend our educative influence for social good. We aim to show how our public accounts of theory-generation contribute to a systematic knowledge base. From the ground of clarifying the meanings of our embodied values and using them as educational standards of judgment we show how contributing to this knowledge base constitutes a form of theory-generation that has profound implications for educational practices world-wide.

Each of the presenters will explain their learning processes as they research the realisation of their educational values within their social situations.

The significance of our presentation for educational research lies in showing how, in response to Snow's call to systematize our professional knowledge-base, the collaborative production of evidence-based accounts can contribute to this knowledge base. We show how this knowledge base, in response to Coulter and Wiens, Feldman and Noffke, can influence the trajectories of social change. We show how what begins as the personal accountability of self-study has the potential to impact on processes of organisational and social change at local levels, and how this can transform into the education of social formations at global levels. We explain how the knowledge base, which contains multi-media presentations of personal enquiries undertaken collaboratively, can be disseminated through global networks, in live and electronic forms.

Title:

Ontological, Epistemological And Methodological Commitments In Practitioner-Research

Authors & affiliations:

Jack Whitehead, University of Bath

Jean McNiff, University of Limerick

Abstract:
(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this space)

We are both undertaking enquiries as we support educators in higher degree study in different countries. Our enquiries focus on explaining what we do as professional educators that will influence the quality of learning of others.

We encourage practitioner-researchers to ask questions of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing for personal and social benefit?’ as we do. Accepting that practitioner-research is a form of educational research that has significant potentials for the education of social formations, we therefore aim to transform discourses of regulatory principles into transformatory discourses of political practices (1). Our transformatory discourses include the transformation of our embodied values into living and communicable standards of judgement.

In our efforts to create a systematic knowledge base, in response to Snow (2) and Hiebert, Gallimore and Stigler (3), we explain how we are transforming the social, political, and historical contexts within which our research is located into new forms of global influence (see 4). Our methodologies are first to exercise self-critique in relation to the

judgements we make; second to invite critique through our networked communications with peers; third to present that critical process to an expanded critical forum in the shape of this presentation. We hope in this way to strengthen our interconnecting networks of communicative action in which individuals, groups, communities and networks can share accounts of learning in order to live more fully their educational values in their varied contexts.

1 Mouffe, C. (2000) ‘For an agonistic model of democracy’ in N. O’Sullivan (ed.) Political Theory in Transition. London, Routledge.

2 Snow, C. E. (2001) ‘Knowing What We Know: Children, Teachers, Researchers.’ Presidential Address to AERA, 2001, in Seattle, in Educational Researcher, Vol. 30, No.7, pp.3-9.

3 Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R. and Stigler, J. W. (2002) ‘A Knowledge Base for the Teaching Profession: What Would It Look Like and How Can We Get One?’ in Educational Researcher, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 3-15.

4 Herman, E. S. and McChesney, R. W. (1997) ‘Alternatives to the Status Quo?’ Chapter 7 in The Global Media: the new missionaries of corporate capitalism. London, Continuum.

Title:

Learning From And With Our Pupils As Practitioner-Researchers

Authors & affiliations:

Caitriona McDonagh, University of Limerick

Bernie Sullivan, University of Limerick

Abstract:
(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this space)

Our work as teachers focuses on helping our pupils to maximise their own potentials for learning. Our professional commitments are informed by our values of social justice that holds as sacred the right of all to learn, regardless of social or academic positioning, as well as our educational values to do with the right of all to exercise their originality of mind and critical judgement in order to learn in ways that are appropriate for them.

We work with young children with so-called ‘special educational needs’. Some of these children come from the Traveller community, a community that is educationally marginalized in Ireland (1). Through studying our practices, we have been able to crystallise our initially tacit concerns into explicit concerns about how our children were not learning because they were systematically disadvantaged by the traditional socio-political contexts of education that banish children who are ‘different’ to the educational margins (2). In trying to teach our children so that they could learn, we concluded that our traditional pedagogies were contributing to the marginalisation, and we needed to develop new pedagogies that were grounded in the pupils’ ways of learning. Our research, as adults involved in professional learning and mindful of the new challenges of educational theory and practice (3), involved generating evidence to show how we could support our claims that our new ways of working had implications for organisational and social change (4). Our evidence demonstrates the validity of theorising our practices as a new (for us) integrated model of professionals’ and pupils’ learning, rather than perceive teaching and learning as separate realms of discourse. At our presentation we will produce some of this evidence, using multi-media forms of representation. We also hope to explain how our research is impacting on our institutions, and on what counts as good professional practice in Ireland.

1 Kenny, M. (1997) The Routes of Resistance: Travellers and Second-LevelSchooling. Aldershot, Ashgate.

2 O’Boyle, M. and MacAonghusa, M. (1990) ‘The Alienation of Travellers from the Education System: A study in values orientation.’ M.Ed. thesis, University College Dublin.

3 Schoenfeld, A. H. (1999) ‘Looking Toward the 21st Century: Challenges of Educational Theory and Practice, in Educational Researcher Vol. 28, No. 7, pp. 4–14.

4 McNiff, J. with J. Whitehead (2000) Action Research in Organisations. London, Routledge.

.

Title:

New Ways Of Working With Mentors And Trainees In A Training School Partnership As Practitioner-Researchers.

Authors & affiliations:

Joan Whitehead, University of the West of England

Bernie Fitzgerald, University of the West of England

Abstract:
(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this space)

As university-based teacher educators involved in a Training School working with PGCE trainees and school-based mentors, we have been involved in developing a model of mentoring which has given trainees and mentors a critical voice and vocabulary of reflection whilst building a more democratic community of professional practice. We see as key to this new model, which involved using multimedia to record collaborative reflection and critique by mentors and trainees, a particular quality of relationship between them and between university and school-based staff. This we believe is best characterised by a climate of professional learning involving mutuality, trust, and respect as well as open-mindedness (1). Such qualities have enabled dialogue to take place, the situated learning of mentors, tutors and trainees to be recorded and as Herbert, Gallimore and Stigler (2) have advocated, to be made public via a multi-media website thereby contributing to a professional knowledge base for teaching. This process has both enhanced the learning of participants as well as contributed to a network of communication about the nature of professional knowledge and learning within and beyond this particular community of practice (3). We see this presentation as another way of communicating our work to ascertain its credibility and usefulness to other teacher/ researchers and to those involved in formulating and enacting policy about teacher training and development.

1 Zeichner , K. M., and Liston , D. P.(1996). Reflective Teaching: An Introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

2 Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R. and Stigler, J. W. (2002) ‘A Knowledge Base for the Teaching Profession: What Would It Look Like and How Can We Get One?’ in Educational Researcher, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 3-15.

3 Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge Press.

Title:

Creativity And The Emergence Of An Authentic Sense Of Self. How Can I Use Creative Process To Improve My Practice As A Facilitator Of Healthcare improvement.

Authors & affiliations:

Marian Naidoo, National Institute for Mental Health England

Abstract:
(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this space)

I am a storyteller, and as a consequence of this my practitioner-research is in the form of a narrative. It tells the story of my learning and the emergence of an authentic sense of self as I have engaged with others in a creative and critical practice over a sustained period, focusing primarily on the last six years of my practice.

This narrative demonstrates how I have encouraged people to work creatively, critically and imaginatively in order to improve the way they relate and communicate in a multi-professional health care setting in order to improve both the quality of care provided and the well being of the system.

In telling the story of the unique development of my practice I will show how I have been influenced by the work of theatre practitioners such as Augusto Boal, educational theorists such as Paulo Friere and drawn on and incorporated ideas from complexity science. This original account of my emergent practice challenges the dominant management theories of life in organisations which focus on the reduction of uncertainty rather than as is explored in this thesis, developing the capacity to live creatively within uncertainty.

Title:

How Am I Enhancing Inter-connections with ICT?

Authors & affiliations:

Mairin Glenn, University of Limerick

Abstract:
(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this space)

I am a primary teacher in a small rural school on the west coast of Ireland. I am also a doctoral student with Jean McNiff at the University of Limerick and I am exploring ideas around inter-connections in education and how technology can assist in the nurturing of such connections. Basically I am looking at my understanding of the relationality between my work with my class and how this is connected to the community outside the school, to the environment, to others in far-flung lands and the wider cosmos in general. I am using technology such as video, e-mail, sound recording, web design and so on with my class to support such relationality and am investigating how it allows my students the opportunity to engage with both the creation of their own knowledge ( see http://www.iol.ie/~bmullets/Lanslide/index.html for one example) at one level and the representation of their knowledge at another level (see http://www.iol.ie/~bmullets/beach/index.html ). I can see connecting webs or the 'web of betweenness' as described by John O'Donoghue (2003, p 132) in 'Divine Beauty' between my students and their environment in the work we undertake in class. These webs are further connected when others who view my students' work on the internet engage us in conversation through email.