The purpose of this article is to share classroom action research studying the perception of students to a differentiated, alternative assessment model in a secondary science classroom. Results of the study indicated the majority of the students preferred the differentiated, alternative assessment model to solely traditional assessment. The…

In this article, the author poses the following questions: When was the last time you sat back and contemplated how effective your teaching is? What methods have you used to determine how students learn and apply their knowledge? and Have you investigated the effectiveness of your newly implemented curriculum based on Standards for Technological…

This article focuses on the use of portfolios for learning and professional development in Higher Education (HE). Recent research findings related to learning and assessment help to contextualize the study. The use of portfolios for summative assessment and development of teaching and reflective practice dominates the literature. What is lacking…

This paper suggests that some refinements might need to be considered to current codes of ethics for dissemination of research. The growth of research in music education over the last decade is reviewed, with examples from new journals, conferences and professional associations. It is argued that nowadays researchers have to address a…

This paper reports research into the micropolitical strategies used by five school leadership teams in the South Australian School-based Research and Reform Project. The research challenges many of the orthodoxies of educational managerialism. For example: the use of leadership teams made up of teachers, coordinators and senior school leaders…

This paper reports on the findings from a review of classroom-based action research reports by the masters students of an in-service teacher education programme offered by the Aga Khan University, Institute for Educational Development in Karachi, Pakistan. In these reports the students played the roles of researchers and mentors, i.e. they worked…

Participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly recognized as a viable approach to developing relationships with communities and working closely with them to address complex public health problems. In the case of domestic violence research, where ensuring the safety of women participants who are battered is paramount, participatory approaches…

This article proposes a multidimensional framework that takes into account multiple categories of difference and forms of oppression to understand and suggest interventions for gay and gender nonconforming Black male students in urban schools. The author builds the case for educators to develop these kinds of frameworks by describing two…

The development of reading skills is regarded as the highest priority area in contemporary education. Yet for many students who are deaf or hard of hearing, this is the academic area of greatest difficulty. Adding to this problem is the current demand that all students master higher levels of knowledge in content areas. In an effort to support…

This paper describes a 2-day conference at Lesley University for art therapists and people with mental illness who have experienced art therapy or make art for self-expression. Designed as a "participatory dialogue," the conference was a form of participatory action research (PAR) developed by the Center for Mental Health Services in Washington,…

This article examines the authors' experiences living action research through an art therapy activity known as YaYa that involved creating and sharing visual representations of themselves as beginning researchers. This activity was part of a graduate course on education action research and students in the course found the activity transformative.…

Although the use of action research has made its way into various faculties of education as a means of applying theory to practice, there remains a disconnect between the teacher as an educator and the teacher as a researcher. Research must be empirically based; therefore, it has traditionally been seen to reside in the domain of the theorist or…

This article examines the construction and experience of change agency within action research courses in preservice teacher education. Four preservice teachers' experiences of action research are analyzed, and tensions and challenges teacher educators and preservice teachers face as they attend to change processes in learning to teach are…

A previous keynote to the Act Reflect Revise Conference, focused on the significance of Creating Our Own Knowledge (Whitehead, 2000) for enhancing educators' professional knowledge-base. This 2005 keynote develops the theme of creating the author's and his colleagues' own knowledge in living theories of their productive lives in education. The…

The Pan African Society of Musical Arts Education (PASMAE) initiated the concept of Music Action Research Teams (MAT cells) at the grass-roots level for the collaborative sharing and learning of educators throughout Africa. The current number of 27 cells in Africa is a modest realization of the society's aims. However, it is strongly felt that if…