This paper describes the work of teachers from United States and Belize, who took the opportunity that COVID's challenges presented to collaborate in building professional development for teachers in both locations. Leveraging both technology and relationships, educators representing a variety of skill sets, schools, and positions in Belize and in…

The paper introduces a virtual collaborative learning setting called "Net Economy," which we established as part of an international learning network of currently seven universities. Using the Community of Inquiry framework as guidance and Canonical Action Research (CAR) as the chosen research design, the discussion forum of the online…

The goal of this study was to explore the educational potential of Minecraft. This project was conducted with 118 elementary-school students from Canada during the 2016-2017 school year. To explore the educational potential of Minecraft on the students, we designed a "Minecraft challenge" for students. 10 game levels of ascending…

A year-long collaborative action research project used networked technologies to connect researchers at a university-based online professional development program and a group of practitioner researchers based in a range of schools and educational agencies in several countries. They studied the process and effects of online professional development…

This paper addresses one major question: What unique perspectives and skills does the university researcher, in interaction with the teacher/practitioner, contribute to help a collaborative research/evaluation team identify its research and achieve its goal? Case analysis of a recently completed National Institute of Education Project (Action…

The status of action-research is measured in this paper. First, the political character of action-research is identified. Then, the degree to which differing versions of its character may be said to be political is examined. Argument is for the creation of a balance between the institution and the individual in collaborative activity. Examined…

The Professional Development Schools Model (PDSM) allows universities and schools to work together at developing, implementing, and delivering meaningful professional development experiences for practicing educators. One such program is the Utah-Local Educators' Action Research Network (U-LEARN). U-LEARN is a 1-year, 8-credit-hour graduate course…

This paper describes an ongoing collaborative school evaluation program that involves a partnership of different stakeholders in southwestern England. Participants include student teachers, serving teachers, local authority representatives, and university teachers/researchers. The discussion demonstrates the ways in which school evaluation, based…

To advance educational innovation, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education supports a practitioner-based action research approach to educational improvement through project reporting, conferences, project clusters, Lessons Learned publications, feedback, policy revisions, and dissemination grants. The fund attempts to sustain a…

Educational collaboratives are organizations in which educational administrators, university and college faculty, classroom teachers, intermediate district staff, and graduate and undergraduate students share energy, expertise, time, and other resources to plan and implement joint programs of preservice and inservice education, action research,…

Outcomes of a parent/teacher action research project, the League of Schools Reaching Out, are described in this paper. The League is a group of nine schools working with the Institute for Responsive Education and the Center on Families, Communities, Schools, and Children's Learning as a resource exchange network. Project goals are to: investigate…

In 1994, Australian Catholic University personnel and 14 K-12 Catholic school teachers collaborated on an action research project to promote professional growth. The K-12 Professional Development Program involved classroom teachers in action research through which they could identify ways to create partnerships with parents. The action research…

This paper describes the design and outcomes of the University of Houston School-University Research Collaborative, a partnership that uses collaborative research and evaluation as a vehicle for educational improvement. Two of the collaborative's three research agendas are described in detail: (1) the collaborative-level research project,…

This paper introduces the antecedents and concepts underlying a 2-year investigation of Interactive Research and Development on Schooling (IR&DS). IR&DS is an alternative means of conducting school-based research and development and is seen as a means to: (1) involve school personnel in systematic inquiry; (2) improve the utility of…

A description is given of a project in which elementary school teachers acted as researchers in collaboration with a graduate school. The project began when in a meeting of educators a discussion centered on teachers' discontent with standardized test scores. A commitment was made to explore alternative indicators of student achievement. Although…