This application brief shares Phase One of an action research project for the Association of Leadership Educators. This project demonstrates how a member-based association can successfully engage its members in terms of identifying needs, defining strategic priorities, and detecting resource development opportunities. This body of work has various…

An unacceptable number of learners in under-resourced schools in South Africa are failing to perform adequately in national and international benchmark tests. Poor learner performance has been linked to poor-quality teaching, which, in turn, can be attributed in part to a lack of instructional leadership at schools. According to policy, heads of…

The Personal Librarian for Aboriginal Students (PLAS) program at the University of Alberta (UofA) is a creative outgrowth of the growing Personal Librarian programs in academic libraries, in which a student is partnered with an individual librarian for the academic year. In the case of the UofA's PLAS program, first-year undergraduate students who…

The purpose of this presentation is to describe some of the activities of a partnership forged between NYU researchers and senior leaders in NYC that was intended to provide research infrastructure and capacity-building solutions while also addressing jointly identified research questions about the "Pre-K for All" (PKA) program. The…

Conducting research can present a range of challenges for students because of the complex skills and knowledge required to have critical engagement with the entire research process. This paper looks at what was involved in shaping the research journey that I am currently undertaking at a Higher Education Institution (HEI). The focus is on research…

This paper explores how the incorporation of a social network such as Facebook can enhance the acquisition of specialised vocabulary in the context of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Such initiative took place in the second edition of the MOOC Professional English, the first ever English for Specific Purposes (ESP) MOOC to be launched in…

Drawing on analysis of student work, we will discuss the ways in which literacy supported youth's civic engagement in the context of sustainable democracy projects that engaged students from an alternative high school in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago in the investigation of social issues relevant to their communities. Our presentation…

The authors explore strength-based learning projects that value the lived realities and literacies of adolescent scholars of color, setting the stage for the powerful relationships through which meaningful learning happens.

This study describes four secondary physics teachers' action research investigations and perceptions of the action research process. Each of the action research projects used key aspects of brain-based teaching to address students' misconceptions about physics. Foremost among these were the use of technology and collaborative work with peers;…

This article explores some productive ways in which folklorists can support or enhance educational sovereignty occurring in communities. The authors detail the role of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) folklorists at Lac du Flambeau Public School--their work in grant writing, project implementation, and ethnographic documentation, and in…

Studies of second language learning have revealed a connection between first language transfer and errors in second language production. This paper describes an action research study carried out among Chilean university students studying English as part of their degree programmes. The study focuses on common lexical errors made by Chilean…

Research on teacher professional development is extensive but there are fewer studies about the practitioners who facilitate professional development. Here we report on a pilot programme for professional development facilitators rooted in a cycle of action research. Informed by a categorisation of professional knowledge and skills of facilitators,…

This article describes an action research (AR) project for designing and implementing a structured mentoring programme in a Spanish university. A student affairs unit, a team of researchers, faculty-mentors and student-protégés worked together on three cycles of AR. The result is a programmatic mentoring programme for the development of…

This article explains how research "on" practitioners can be turned into research "for and with" practitioners (Cameron, Frazer, Rampton, & Richardson, 1992, p. 22) by including these practitioners in the research teams. Methodologically, it draws on two decades of multimethod research and knowledge transformation at the…

This paper details the psychosocial changes in a group of gifted and talented middle-years students who engaged in solving a community-based problem--the lack of a teenage-safe space in their regional Queensland town ("N"). Supported by a Knowledge Producing Schools pedagogy, the young people worked with their local council, teachers, a…