The SEL Innovations series aims to help the field imagine new, more expansive and equitable approaches to social and emotional learning (SEL) and wellness to ensure that all children, adolescents, and adults feel safe, supported, and seen so that they can thrive. This is the second report in a series exploring innovations in SEL. The purpose of…

"Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All" (NCTM 2014) emphasizes eight teaching practices for effective mathematics teaching, one of which is to "use and connect multiple representations" (NCTM 2014, p. 24). An action that describes how teachers might promote this practice is to "allocate substantial…

This paper argues that action research finds a rationale in the pragmatic position that knowledge is provisional and generated through a transaction between agent and environment. Action research finds a further methodological rationale in the pragmatic view that knowledge is generated within indeterminate situations, requires habits of reflection…

In this article we present and discuss experiences developed through a dialogue conference which we organised as part of a three-year participatory action research project related to primary education and agricultural education in Tanzania. We explore how dialogue conference as a research method can fill a gap between traditional ways of mutual…

Two well-accepted ideas among educators are (a) performance assessment is an effective means of assessing higher-order thinking skills and (b) data-driven instruction planning is a valuable tool for optimizing student learning. This article describes a locally developed performance task (LDPT) designed to measure critical thinking, problem…

Solutions to the countless crises middle schools face are typically proposed by policy makers with little actual classroom experience. Meanwhile, essential insights from students on the issues they experience firsthand every day are largely ignored. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) can help, as social researchers collaborate with youth,…

This article is based on a pedagogical action research initiative comprising two research cycles. The study explores what constitutes meaningful experiences in the classroom from the pupils' perspectives and how understanding pupils' perspectives can foster the development of teachers' practical theory and classroom actions. Photography and group…

As a team of teacher educators at a university in the United States, we engage in participatory action research to reflect on how reflective tools which we design engage teacher candidates (TCs) in their reflecting on teaching. In this paper, we describe how we invite TCs to write in-class reflections, respond to self-assessment probes, and…

The aim of this study was to develop a store service operations practice course based on simulation-based training of video clip instruction. The action research of problem-solving strategies employed for teaching are by simulated store operations. The counter operations course unit used as an example, this study developed 4 weeks of subunits for…

Teaching how to solve problems--from solving simple equations to solving difficult competition tasks--has been one of the greatest challenges for mathematics education for many years. Trying to find an effective method is an important educational task. Among others, the question arises as to whether a method in which students help each other might…

This paper reflects on the challenges and benefits of multidimensional collaboration in an action research study to evaluate and improve preoperative education for patients awaiting colorectal surgery. Three cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting were designed to evaluate practice and implement change in this interactive setting,…

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is based on the heliotropic principle, which has been variously described as art and science, holistic theory and practice, and practical philosophy and change process. AI engages people and organizations in discovering what gives life to human systems when they are most effective and constructive and using that knowledge…