The educational challenges faced today are driving us toward a new step in the evolution of educational theory and practice. Educators are called to go beyond simply presenting alternatives, to integrating the best of mainstream and alternative approaches and taking them to the next level. "Integral Education" accomplishes this by…

The third annual conference of the National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (NAIRTL) was held at Trinity College Dublin on 11-12 November 2009, and was attended by over 300 delegates. The theme--"Research-Teaching Linkages: Practice and Policy"--was timely and generated some fascinating papers, workshops and…

Since 2002 the "Zurich E-Learning Certificate" offers lecturers and academic staff from the three main universities in Zurich the possibility to take part in a professional development program which supports the acquirement of eCompetence. The program is the result of a cooperation between the University of Zurich (UZH), the Swiss…

In recent years, a growing political emphasis has been placed upon the development of transformative assessment-driven reform in schools. There is global consensus on the value of assessment activities that are carefully designed to be consistent with desired learning outcomes, and which coherently connect learning theory, the curriculum,…

Clinical experiences, research within the American Indian/Alaska Native and Latino/a Los Angeles community, consultation with colleagues, and reflections on professional development indicate that cultural material exerts profound influence on individual, family, and community development. Reflections on practice are discussed that emphasize the…

The transnational widening of participation in higher education (HE) and the concomitant emphasis on promoting successful progression and high retention are focusing attention on how best to create supportive learning environments in HE. Using a phenomenographic approach, we explore variance in how first year undergraduate students experience the…

This paper makes a contribution to the theory and practice of educational action research by introducing two theoretical and methodological resources as part of a personal review of sustained professional experience: "appreciative inquiry" and the "enneagram". It is more than a theoretical exercise, however, because it also…

This article reports on a study into the ideological beliefs of first year prospective teachers. Here ideologies are understood as expressions of specific "world views" and certain collective interests. Data were drawn from tasks that attempted to get students to position themselves relative to and reflect upon questions and propositions…

A classroom-based activity was created to help undergraduate students in a course about the HIV epidemic explore and better understand the nature and scope of anti-HIV stigma. The activity asks students to assess the extent of their sympathy for several people living with HIV disease when given only a brief statement about how each person became…

How children are guided in the development of their thinking is now crucial in the twenty-first century. Over the past decades special thinking skills programmes have been developed to enhance thinking but these programmes have so far been unable to produce clear evidence to support their effectiveness. This article argues that due to the complex…

One of the principle tenets of action learning is that it provides the potential to explore and solve complex organisational problems. The question of how best to develop a future business strategy is such a problem. Existing literature on strategy making presents a multi-faceted debate, suggesting that the complexity of competitive environments…

In order to effectively meet the needs of families, this paper argues that there is a need for people working in the arena of family support to incorporate theory and research into their practice and to engage in a process of reflective practice. An inter-disciplinary cyclical model of training for experienced family support practitioners is…

In this paper, the author explores the views of a group whose perspectives have not often been included in discussions of new directions for foreign language education--students. Drawing from a larger ethnographic, discourse-analytic study of the nature of culture learning for one group of college students and their teacher, this paper presents…

Using a life notes methodology (Bell-Scott, 1994; Dillard, 2000, 2006; Simmons, 2007), I use personal narratives to describe my epistemological influences on my approach to educational practice, research, and the preparation of school leaders. Second, I share personal accounts of how my social justice lens expanded to be inclusive of lesbian, gay,…

Uncertainty about identity and the future is occurring at a stage of life when people do question what they have achieved and what they still want to achieve. The notion of midlife crisis has been in existence for some time but recently its occurrence has coincided with opportunities to take early retirement or redundancy. This has meant that the…