Six young deafblind adults took a 1-week course on civic engagement and advocacy, which provided the focus for a participatory action research study with a collective case study design. They selected advocacy topics, were briefed on these policy issues, and were paired with experienced mentors for meetings with legislators in Washington, DC. Eight…

Whether you're an old hand at professional learning communities (PLC) or just starting out, you know that PLCs don't succeed on their own. They need a supportive environment, an effective structure and process, and a plan for study, sharing, analysis, and action. Here's a book that ensures you provide your PLC all that and more. Drawing from their…

This article presents the second segment of a qualitative study on the integration of traditional arts in tertiary level art and design education in the Philippines. It is focused on the experience of artist-teachers as participants in an in-service teacher training programme that aimed to prepare the teachers for the trial integration of…

This paper explores the nature of a critical friendship between two education advisers within a nation-wide New Zealand Ministry of Education (MOE, 2006-2008) research and development project. Over 18 months the relationship developed through evolving phases. This paper identifies and discusses the factors, circumstances, conditions and analytical…

Purpose: This paper seeks to provoke thoughts around the possibility of using the lever of practices and situated knowledge to trigger organisational change and to redesign it with the involvement of the whole organisation. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents connections between a psychosociological approach and a practice-based…

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to describe a design that mixes single-case (sometimes referred to as single-subject) and qualitative methods, hereafter referred to as a single-case mixed methods design (SCD-MM). Minimal attention has been given to the topic of applying qualitative methods to SCD work in the literature. These two…

An action research study was conducted at a campus college of a large Research I institution of higher education to explore transformative learning among higher education faculty as a result of participating in a blended program to prepare them to teach online. The purposeful sample included six full-time and one adjunct faculty, teaching a mix of…

Professional Development (PD) is an important tool in the field of education. Successful PD programs are those that include adult learning methods and opportunities for experiential learning and discussion. The university where this action research was conducted does not offer formal training to adjunct instructors. The adjunct instructors are…

Workforce development programs provide training and education to welfare recipients to prepare them to obtain and retain employment in their communities. Federal, state, and local investments are made to develop and implement programs. But, do these programs have relationships with local employers to obtain their input to provide the education and…

This paper explores the use of "learning circles" as one form of knowledge production in social action research. It reports on a project that used learning circles as a setting within which to increase the engagement of people living with low income in developing strategies for the reduction and elimination of poverty in Canada. It…

This paper explores ways in which student-teachers in the Lifelong Learning sector are able to draw on fictionalised accounts of their own teaching practice experiences in order to gain a clearer understanding of their models and expectations of professionalism, and of how they, as individuals, locate their current position within the profession…

Growing pressure to restructure and reform tertiary education is encouraging university academics to use innovative practices that assist students to develop "employable" skills. The hybrid approach described in this paper stimulated students to be self-directed adult learners who maximized their learning of content and skills by means…

This description of a teaching self-study focuses on a graduate research course for classroom teachers in which two issues central to improving teaching practice were addressed. First, it details the process of examining course design and curriculum in search of the most effective strategies for training classroom teachers to do research. Second,…

The purpose of this participatory action research study was to develop a plan to improve a professional development program to change faculty members' andragogical instructional practices when teaching students enrolled in online courses at a community college. A quantitative and qualitative mixed method approach to data analysis was used in…

This paper seeks to understand how practitioners learn about, develop and work with educational theory, and how this informs and influences their practice. It is based primarily on an in-depth interview with one pre-vocational program teacher working in a large, metropolitan TAFE (Technical and Further Education) institute. It also draws on the…