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VOLUME 2015

ISSUE 2

ANNUAL

CONFERENCE

PROCEEDINGS

June 2-3, 2015

Ottawa, Ontario

EDITOR:

KURT CLAUSEN

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT:

DEANNA HODGINS

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The Canadian Association of Action Research in Education

Annual Conference Proceedings

VOLUME 2015, ISSUE 2

Editor KURT W. CLAUSEN Nipissing University

Editorial Assistant DEANNA HODGINS

Nipissing University (retired)

Canadian Journal of Action Research

Canadian Association of Action Research in Education Founding Conference Proceedings 2015

The CAARE Annual Conference Proceedings is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Action Research in Education. The proceedings are published through the Canadian Journal of Action Research and are available for viewing at http://cjar.nipissingu.ca. Questions arising from issues of membership, queries and business communications should be sent to the Canadian Association of Action Research in Education, a Special Interest Group of the Canadian Association for Teacher Education. Letters may be mailed to Kurt Clausen, editor of CJAR c/o Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, P1B 8L7. Alternatively, the organization may be contacted through the journal at [email protected] The views expressed herein are solely those of the individual author/s and do not represent official views of The Canadian Association of Action Research in Education, the Canadian Journal of Action Research, Nipissing University, the editor, the staff, or the editorial board. The CAARE Annual Conference Proceedings disclaims responsibility for statements either fact or opinion, made by contributing authors. Copyright © 2015 left to the individual author/s. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. Suggested Citation: Clausen, K. (Ed.). (2015). The Canadian Association of Action Research in Education 2nd Annual Conference Proceedings, Ottawa, ON: The Canadian Association of Action Research in Education.

http://cjar.nipissingu.ca/

mailto:[email protected]


Canadian Association of Action Research in Education Founding Conference Proceedings 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Keynote Panel – Action Research Networks in the Canadian Context THE ACTION RESEARCH NETWORK OF THE AMERICAS (ARNA) Cathy Bruce (Trent)

Page 1

THE ALBERTA INITIATIVE FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT (AISI) Pamela Adams (Lethbridge)

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK FOR APPLIED EDUCATION RESEARCH (KNAER) Katina Pollock (Western University)

Page 13

Presentations GOING DIVISION-WIDE: EXPANDING OUR TEACHER INDUCTION PROGRAM BEYOND THE INNER CITY Francine Lee Morin, Katherine Collis, Cathryn Smith (Manitoba)

Page 19

PARTICIPATORY VIDEO ACTION-RESEARCH IN NEW BRUNSWICK SCHOOLS: NAVIGATING INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES OF STREAMING AND DISCOURSE OF DEFICIENCY Matt Rogers (University of New Brunswick)

Page 24

HOW DO WE FIT ACTIVE RESEARCH WITHIN OUR CURRICULUM AT VARIOUS GRADE LEVELS? Paul Loranger (Independent Researcher)

Page 30

LISTENING PROJECT FOR ASSESSMENT PRACTICES TO SUPPORT MATHEMATICS LEARNING AND UNDERSTANDING FOR STUDENTS David K. Pugalee (Independent Researcher)

Page 31

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MODERATED MARKING GETS A MAKEOVER: THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO FACILITATE EFFECTIVE PRACTICES IN MODERATED MARKING Joseph Engemann, Crystal Morin, Karen Slattery & Alison Morawek (Brock)

Page 36

WILL THE INTRODUCTION OF INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES IMPROVE ESL STUDENTS’ WRITING IN YEAR 2? Frances Kalu (Calgary)

Page 39

TEACHING ACTION RESEARCH Barb Brown, Sarah Elaine Eaton, Roswita Dressler, Michele Jacobsen (Calgary)

Page 43

BREAKING BARRIERS IN TEACHER EDUCATION Rachel Moll, Riki Cox, Nadine Cruickshanks, Elisabeth Kroeker, Ron Sandland (Vancouver Island University)

Page 47

THE CHALLENGES OF RECRUITING AN ACTION RESEARCH SITE: DOCTORAL STUDENT’S NARRATIVE Kelly Kilgour (Ottawa)

1

CAARE Annual General Meeting Minutes of the Annual General Meeting Page 53











CAARE Proceedings | 1


Canadian Association of Action Research in Education 2nd Annual Conference Proceedings 2015, pages 1-3

Keynote Panel

THE ACTION RESEARCH NETWORK OF THE AMERICAS

Cathy Bruce Trent University

As part of this panel which discusses some of the various action research networks presently at work in Canada, Cathy Bruce, one of the organizers of the Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA) 2015 conference in Toronto, outlines the mandate and events of this nascent association. The following notes formed the heart of her discussion: What is ARNA? ARNA is a network that unites action researchers and participatory researchers throughout the Americas.

• Practitioner and participatory research efforts to improve professional practices and strengthen community capacity

• Knowledge mobilization across the Americas to extend the benefits of action research to wider constituencies

• Bringing together action researchers from diverse points of the Americas (and beyond) both virtually and physically to share findings and further develop practitioner inquiry and participatory research


The History of ARNA • It was first imagined in the Spring 2012 at San Diego University School of

Leadership and Education Science conference • Five researchers initiated the organization (Lonnie Rowell, Joseph Shosh,

Margaret Riel, Eduardo Flores & Cathy Bruce) • It was officially founded as an association in August 2012 • The leadership structure was decided upon (executive committee,

coordinating committee of 11 members, members at large) • The first conference was held in 2013 in San Francisco, California, with 5

Working groups • The 2014 Conference was held in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with 6 working

groups • The 2015 Conference was held in Toronto, Ontario with 14 working groups

Mission The Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA) unites college and university

students and faculty conducting practitioner inquiry in education and social contexts with fellow action researchers in public schools, private schools, community settings and workplaces throughout the Americas. ARNA members are committed to taking action locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally to promote action research conducted with a commitment to honesty, integrity, inclusiveness, multi-vocality, engagement, and achievement within sustainable democratic societies Mobilizing Knowledge

• Active website arnaconnect.org • Over 12000 visitors from around the globe • Information about ARNA and conferences, but also

research stories, videos, announcements, membership information

• Conference Proceedings (peer reviewed and made publically available)

Multi-vocality

• English and Spanish predominantly, but membership is from not just the Americas

• Spanish and English included at conferences, in publications, and on the website

• ARNA 2017 conference in Columbia


Networking • Affiliations with: CARN and AERA SIG on Action Research • Now exploring affiliation with CAARE and other important networks for

Action Research What Do I Like about ARNA?

• Sense of belonging • Sense of collective energy • Annual conference & proceedings • Multi-nations and many perspectives encouraged • Sense of action for social justice

New ARNA Members Welcome!

• $150 per year • Gives you a discount on the conference • Access to the website with authorship rights including announcements space • Opportunity to join a working group of interest (or initiate one) • Access to excellent AR resources and moderated blog (Peter Richmond of

New York Times is moderator at present) • http://www.arnaconnect.org/membership/becoming-members • Easy to do online

How Does ARNA Fit?

http://www.arnaconnect.org/membership/becoming-members



Canadian Association of Action Research in Education Founding Conference Proceedings 2015, pages 4-12

Keynote Panel

THE LIFESPAN OF AN ACTION RESEARCH NETWORK: THE ALBERTA INITIATIVE FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT (AISI)

Pamela Adams University of Lethbridge

Organic entities----educational organizations included---- often contain processes and structures in which collaboration and partnerships can be observed. These are usually complex systems with varying levels of centralization more likely to resemble a starfish than spider.1 Likewise in education, networks possess multiple appendages and appear fluid, often difficult to sustain in their original forms, with interactions that wax or wane depending on environment and circumstance. Similarly in such networks is sometimes formal, more often transient, usually well-intentioned and principled, if not fully effective. Furthermore, not unlike iterations of action research, these educational networks experience cycles of energy and favor, reflection and action, changes in direction and purpose, and varying levels of clarity and commitment about roles, results, and intentions. In the case of Alberta over the past fifteen years, socio-political, economic, and demographic factors have influenced the type and duration of educational networks that have been esteemed in the province; perhaps no example of this impact was more evident than the in Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI). Examination of various elements

1 Brafman, O. & Beckstrom, R. (2006). The starfish and the spider: The unstoppable power of leaderless organizations. New York, NY: Penguin.


of the lifecycle of this thirteen-year program offers insights into its accomplishments and the challenges associated with sustaining an action research network. It is fair to say that Alberta---its teachers, parents, students, government officials, and professional association---has had an historical love/hate relationship with educational change, particularly around big ideas such as high stakes testing, outcomes-based curriculum, holistic instruction, public or private funding, and technology integration. Although cautious skepticism is not unique to this province or, in fact, to Canada, Alberta has walked a fine line between innovation and convention; between re-architecting the deck and simply re-arranging the chairs. During the late 90s, education in the province was again faced with such a choice: to remain, re-tool, or re-construct. Several events had occurred up to that point that would culminate in a moment of decision-making and potential transformation. Severe budget restraints had resulted in waves of often-acrimonious cuts to the public sector. Many teachers and local professional associations had been through tumultuous negotiations and contentious ratifications. One particular ministerial order had been signed2 that attempted to concretized and delineate the knowledge, skills, and attributes comprising pedagogy; among some, this was viewed as favoring a competency-based approach constituting unnecessary and unwanted intrusion of politics into classrooms, and an affront to the professional status of teachers. New curricula were being written and implemented in a number of subject areas; some, such as the revisions to social studies and science, challenged deeply held notions about history, metacognition, and critical and creative thinking. Within this tense atmosphere of transition, dialogue began in some quarters about re-envisioning teaching and learning, and how the educational community might examine and integrate the essential, yet sometimes disparate, elements of leadership, school improvement, system capacity, and content delivery. So it was that, in 1999, Alberta’s education system was faced with a conundrum of conscience: which path would we choose as we entered the 21st century? How would we confront being more or less prepared to understand and act on the challenges of a systemic shift in perspective? In early 1999, the Ministry initiated conversations about strategies that might answer such far-reaching questions. One suggestion was to create a reward program entitled the School Performance Incentive Program (SPIP). The unfortunate title may have contributed to the lack of enthusiasm that greeted the

2 Ministerial Order #016/97: Teaching Quality Standard Applicable to the Provision of Basic Education in Alberta.


program in the early weeks of its inception; however, other socio-political events were also of some influence. Because the program was proposed in the midst of the Bush administration’s focus on No Child Left Behind (2001), some Alberta educators had a niggling sense that SPIP would establish the legislative parameters for programs that might more accurately be entitle No Child Left Untested or No Teacher Left Unevaluated. In truth, Alberta has had a schizophrenic history of standardized testing, and SPIP was perceived in this instance as the ministry’s efforts to further regulate and judge teachers’ performance through high-stakes testing and unproven Skinnerian systems of funding. However, one highly-positioned member of the Ministry stepped forward to champion an initiative of a different type, one that was broad-based and inclusive, meant to examine, promote, and disseminate current effective practices in school improvement. As a result, far-reaching consultation began. It included representatives from seven key stakeholder3 groups examining how enveloped funding could be directed to schools in ways that would meet their unique and specific contextual needs around student learning. In short order in early 2000, the Alberta Initiative for School improvement (AISI) was born, allotting school jurisdictions approximately $121.00 per pupil per year to build programs, process, structures, or activities that would cause educators to think differently about teaching and learning. Defined as “a bold approach to improving student leaning by encouraging teachers, parents, and the community to work collaboratively to introduce innovative projects that address[ed] local needs”, AISI continued from 2000 to its termination in 2013 to live and breathe in three-year cycles of change and growth. In the process, it created an expansive provincial, national, and international network of educators, researchers, and critics who participated in various ways to examine issues of pedagogy, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. AISI as an Action Research Network In the first of four three-year cycles of the improvement initiative, more than one government official was heard to declare that “AISI is not action research”, even as many participating stakeholders, teachers, and leaders recognized that the opportunity had never been better to engage in collaborative, inquiry-based

3 Representation initially included only four groups. By the time the initiative was fully introduced and implemented several months after its conception, members of the interdisciplinary Education Partners Steering Committee included representatives from Alberta Learning (Education), the College of Alberta School Superintendents, University Faculties of Education, Alberta School Boards Association, Alberta Teachers’ Association, Alberta School Councils Association, and the Association of School Business Officials of Alberta. This broad-based network of multiple, and sometimes rivaling, stakeholders contributed both positive and adverse perspectives on the use of action research as a guiding framework for undertaking the work of AISI.


explorations of teaching and learning. In fact, AISI guidelines mandated those who were designing projects to “go into greater depth….with new research (emphasis added), strategies, and measures” of success. Yet, in reality over 12 years, this potential was not fully realized among more than a few astute schools and jurisdictions. The opportunity was not clearly recognized or communicated that AISI could be promoted and organized as an exceptional grassroots structure through which to conduct purposeful and well-informed action research. To the contrary, in the early cycles, AISI funding was used to shore up jurisdictional or school budgets; to provide extra human resource time to lower class sizes or purchase additional support of educational assistants; or to purchase supplies or resources that had been decimated during previous budget cuts. This contributed to a view that AISI funds were most helpful for ‘doing’ programs that were du jour, rather than supporting, promoting, and sustaining a mindset and disposition toward evidence-based inquiry into teaching and learning. Nevertheless, as a network, AISI was successful in serving as a stimulus for unprecedented conversations across the province. Elaborate and multi-faceted structures and connections were created at many levels of operations to encourage online and face-to-face collaborations. What initially began as an isolated development of a few good ideas about things such as school infrastructure, classroom resources, curriculum, or instructional programs became, over time, a sophisticated network of learning support teachers and teams, district learning cohorts, inter-divisional learning communities, and interdisciplinary communities of practice. Most school districts were quick to take up the potential of this extra funding for professional development for teachers, to the degree that AISI professional development became a small economy in itself. Groups of teachers began attending conferences, reading literature, purchasing resources, and sharing expertise on a scale unmatched in living memory. In the process, a cultural shift could be seen in many schools toward including parents and community agencies as active participants in the AISI network. One superintendent described this shift as “Opening the doors, and raising the roof” that caused examination of what a ‘classroom’ or a ‘school’ could or should look like. Lessons Learned about Creating, Sustaining, and Growing AR Networks It is axiomatic that the amount of effort required to establish the conditions necessary to shift paradigms is also the minimum effort required to sustain such change. In this regard, insights about the activities of creating, sustaining, and advancing the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement may be parallel in some ways to those that are critical to creating sustaining, and advancing an action research network.


Creating the Necessary Conditions: Getting Traction When AISI was first born, its purpose and goals were developed collaboratively by many stakeholder groups in various geographic areas of the province representing a wide range of communities. This was an attempt to embrace voices of many members of the educational community and reflect the primary values and guiding principles that would direct the initiative and its network. Foundational policies, practices, and norms were agreed upon at the level of the Provincial Steering Committee, meant to then ‘waterfall’ down to the micro level of implementation in the classroom. The notion of professional trust was examined closely, and standards and protocols for collaborative work were established; this, in anticipation that dialogue would necessarily be contentious or, at least, provocative. A variety of leadership models were examined, particularly as they related to the ways that leadership structures could be flattened to encourage a wide array of participant’s assuming formal and informal responsibilities. Cycles of consultation were built into the structures of collaboration and policies were drafted to guiding decision-making at the jurisdictional and local levels. Furthermore, various configurations of collaboration were imagined in order to draw upon and benefit from a breadth and depth of expertise. Each of these strengthened and broadened the networking capacity of AISI. Despite this, some believed that those early days offered signs of the over-bureaucratization and appropriation that would plague the AISI network until its termination in 2013. Good intentions and valiant efforts notwithstanding, the network over the first three-year cycle consisted of a relatively small proportion of educators and community stakeholders who were ‘in the know’; in fact, for some educators in the province the acronym ‘AISI’ was not decoded for nearly a decade and, perhaps, its original purposes and potentials were never fully understood. It was not for six years until almost two cycles of projects had been completed that the extent of AISI networks across the province clearly moved into the educational mainstream. Sustaining the Necessary Conditions: Institutionalizing Process and Structures By 2006, AISI funding and processes had become firmly embedded in the budget lines and ways of approaching school improvement in most districts. Networks and dissemination activities were beginning to show signs of robustness, and the structures of electronic communities were being built.4 At that time, after

4 Researchers from at least two universities contend that this point in AISI’s evolution was

characterized by a cavalierness about the value of the oral narrative and storytelling that highlighted


completion of hundreds of projects and the collection of a trove of data, annual AISI conferences assumed greater importance in the Alberta educational calendar and the full extent of the network could be appreciated and celebrated.5 The high levels of participation, numbers of presentations, and appearance of national and international academicians and politicians made it clear that AISI had called attention to the need for a larger network around common over-arching ideas surfacing in education around the globe.6 The initiative now appeared mature enough to warrant conversations about sustaining the good efforts and learning that had been compiled over six years. What were some of the essential conditions necessary to sustain AISI and its growing network? Of prime importance was the need to acknowledge, consolidate, and grow relationships among all stakeholders. A focus on social capital, trust, and transparency characterized this phase of the AISI lifecycle. In addition, the purposeful use of data to guide and direct activities around teaching and learning was becoming more commonplace, as was a greater willingness to base decision-making about school improvement on shared, yet differentiated, evidence and expertise. There was a slight movement away from the norms of accountability toward those of shared responsibility, a move that caused educators to think differently about the notions of managerial compliance versus professional autonomy. There was a clarion call from many stakeholders for a multiple membership model to become the standard for decision-making and communication in the province. Perhaps of greatest note were the numerous opportunities for educators, students, community agents, and other stakeholders to ‘practice’ leadership and, in turn, for school districts to build capacity in all aspects of distributed leadership. In the process, the body of knowledge around leadership was demystified, and conversations were more frequent about clarifying and agreeing upon standards and competencies for leadership.

the professional learning of AISI teachers. They suggest that greater attention could have been paid

to increasing teacher engagement and learning through networks that focused on shared experiences

and stories, rather than by building an electronic space that required teachers to textualize and

sanitize their experiences.

5 During AISI conferences held from 2003 - 2013, participation increased annually to more than one thousand educators and the number of presentations highlighting project results and learnings numbered in the hundreds. 6 Invited presentations in Australia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and the Middle East were examples of the far-flung interest in the initiative and its’ networking potential.


Yet, of particular concern for sustaining the AISI network, close to half the educators who were playing primary, facilitative, or leadership roles were transitioning every three years or sooner into formal leadership positions at the school, jurisdictional, or provincial level. They took with them an enormous amount of institutional memory and accepted practices around culture, norms, and procedures. Many school districts realized that, while an impressive amount of capacity had been built to ‘do AISI’, a more expansive view of succession planning would be required to embed and sustain AISI’s growth, changes in practice, and shifts in perspectives. A larger question began to be asked: How could AISI grow into a network of learning, rather than a network of doing? Related to this question was an issue of iteracy and timing. As might be expected, based on a life cycle of three-years, many AISI projects were just beginning to yield student learning results when they were terminated or transitioned. This explicit requirement that project learnings were to be embedded after three years and new projects were to be created based on new needs and goals, left many educators feeling as though they were on a treadmill of change for change’s sake; that the real purpose of the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement was incessant change, not the improvement of teaching and learning. Growing the Necessary Conditions: Looping to the Beginning As the AISI network expanded beyond membership that had not been imagined a decade earlier, most educators were beginning to look more favorably at the idea that this was an opportunity to do research about teaching and learning, to inquire about and authentically examine practice in an environment that could be supportive and collaborative. Educators at all levels were becoming more amenable to and skilled in using action research as a tool to assume the role of reflective practitioner and to examine their curiosities about student learning. The notion of knowledge transfer was introduced into the AISI conversation after several cycles, primarily as concerns were raised by some stakeholders about such things as low effect size or lack of test score improvements. Extrapolation, scalability, and generalizability began to serve as the new goals of the network, even though compelling anecdotal evidence could be offered about the many benefits resulting from cross-pollination and reciprocity. At the school and district levels, there was apprehension about the idea that the initiative required mechanisms of frequent and regular evaluation to ascertain the extent to which it was meeting the goals of improved students’ learning. Some activities that constituted knowledge transfer were engaged in simply to comply with funding guidelines, even as one government official proclaimed that, “Collaboration is the new competition!” Another aspect of AISI speaks to a cautionary tale in growing action research networks. After the initial good will and a certain amount of sustained hard work, what indicators will be chosen to determine the network’s usefulness and which


data will be privileged as evidence that it is reaching the goals and serving the purposes for which it was originally established? Alternately, which data will indicate a need for change or refinement? At this crucial point, all participants must understand and be fully committed to a fairly rigorous and cyclical process of inquiry, often in the form of programmatic evaluation; further, they must commit to engaging in frequent cycles of authentic reflection, self-assessment, and evidence-based decision-making. In short, a mindset and disposition of growth is necessary for networks to advance, important and uncomfortable aspects of which are taking risks, discovery, and failure. This process is one that challenges the original purposes of the initiative and asks questions about the basic assumptions underlying its implementation. Without this important step, it may not be possible to honor the iterative nature inherent in most action research methodologies; neither might it be possible to fully achieve the potential of an action research network to live the numerous incarnations indicative of a healthy life cycle. Conclusion In the wake of the turbulent decade of the 90s, Alberta educators experienced an opportunity to merge a number of seemingly disparate movements, among them objective-based education (OBE), information technology integration (ITI), and 21st century learning. Implementation of the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) in 2000 included efforts to consolidate and provide direction for a different preferred future in provincial education and, when viewed retrospectively, processes similar to those of an effective action research network characterized its lifecycle. For example, the initiative evolved into a community of practice7 composed of multiple stakeholder groups with fluid memberships and a variety of sub-networks with slightly differing foci. In school districts that effectively sustained AISI projects, flattened leadership structures could be observed with an increase in activities that emphasized professional learning rather than professional development.8 In projects that advanced the original tenets of the initiative, innovation replaced change and discoveries that challenged the status quo in teaching and learning were valued and broadly distributed for critical consideration. However, as with several types of networks, including those with action research as a favored central theme, many lessons may have been learned too late.9 Among

7 Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) define a community of practice as “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.” 8 This differentiation in terms is based on assumptions, activities, and products that are grounded in a model of growth and development rather than one of training and accountability. 9 In 2013, the AISI was terminated by the government of the day.


some educators and in several projects, a great deal of valuable learning and time was lost replacing and re-culturing members who were new to the initiative, and the wheel was re-invented one time too many. As the initiative grew into its third and fourth cycles, some schools and districts were securely fixed in adoption-and-doing mode, rather than moving into innovation and discovery mode. Perhaps most damaging was the initiative’s inability to demonstrate large-scale indicators of increases in student achievement and, to a Treasury that had dedicated tens of millions of dollars in funding, the fight for optics outweighed unproven benefits to students. Yet, even two years after cessation of the program, AISI-like networks continue to flourish in the form of collaborations within and between schools and school districts. The idea of action research into learning, teaching, and leading is becoming more accepted by more educators, and some districts have assumed large-scale efforts to create praxis between research theory and practical application. Conversations about conditions that are essential to educational growth and innovation are more commonplace; these conversations, of course, must include AISI’s lessons that student learning resides at the heart of all educational networks, but also must attend to considerations of how to grow the kind of networks that will become avenues for sharing expertise and proven practices over extended periods of time.




Keynote Panel

THE KNOWLEDGE NETWORK FOR APPLIED EDUCATION RESEARCH: NETWORKING LESSONS

Katina Pollock University of Western Ontario

The Knowledge Network for Applied Educational Research (KNAER) was established through a tripartite agreement between the Ontario Ministry of Education, Western University and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. The original initiative was the first of its kind in Ontario. The purpose of KNAER (www.knaer-recrae.ca) was to build, advance and apply robust evidence of effective practices in the education sector. KNAER did this by facilitating networks of policy-makers, educators, and researchers that enable them to connect research to practice. Specifically, KNAER supported 44 knowledge mobilization projects over a four-year period. At the end of the first KNAER initiative, the networks averaged 4 partners per project. In total there were more than 150 partnerships across Ontario with 57% of KNAER projects creating new partnerships and 43% working with existing partners. These partnerships included: 22 universities, 42 school boards, 12 professional associations, 11 health organizations, 5 governmental agencies, 11 colleges and 11 others. Many of these projects included action research initiatives, while others focused on other kinds of

This text was collaboratively created by Dr. Katina Pollock, [email protected], Twitter: @DrKatinaPllock; Dr. Carol Campbell (OISE/UT), [email protected], Twitter: @CarolCampbell4; and Dr. Patricia Briscoe (Western), [email protected], Twitter: @knaer_recrae or @drpbriscoe.



https://twitter.com/CarolCampbell4



knowledge mobilization strategies. While action research and knowledge mobilization have similarities, this panel and discussion is designed to concentrate on the networking aspect and report on the lessons learned as we work towards improving practice in the education field. Lesson One: Networks exist on a continuum At the beginning of the initiative, the KNAER team concentrated on the commencement activities and the designation of leadership responsibilities. These included establishing the Planning and Implementation Committee (PIC), launching the KNAER website, designing an announcement campaign, creating the call for proposals, administering the adjudication process, and providing knowledge mobilization advice. We soon realized that supporting networks required a particular set of skills and knowledge. It became clear after the first year or so that networks can exist at different stages. This was not unexpected, but it meant that in order to support networks to accomplish their goals we needed to know where each network was in relation to a growth continuum. Our initial thought about this growth continuum included the following stages: Inception, initiating and planning, launch or beginning, consolidating, sustaining and expansion.

Lesson Learned: It is important to understand the growth and stages of development of complex systems such as networks in order to provide the most appropriate supports. Lesson Two: Networks require structures During the second year of the original KNAER initiative, after reviewing interim reports, it appeared that those networks that were able to meet their planned goals were those that had specific kinds of structures in place. We will highlight four for this panel talk: network goals and objectives that were aligned with current government goals, key people and organizations that were included as members of the network, formal roles that were designated within the network, and some type of formal communication structure. Public education institutions are encouraged to spend wisely and be fiscally responsible. One way to achieve this is to make sure that fiscal spending aligns with school board and provincial goals. All projects were selected based on their alignment to provincial priorities and all projects were selected for success. However, those projects that were not able to make clear connections and links to the current public education priorities appeared to have less success in network

Inception Initiating &

Planning Launch or Beginning

Consolidating Sustaining &

Expansion


establishment and growth. One example of a KNAER network that demonstrated succinct alignment with ministry priorities was Extending the Child and Youth Mental Health Information Network: Sharing Mental Health Information with Educators Networks that structured their membership to include key people and organizations associated with the networks focus appeared to be more effective. All networks included partnerships and individuals from various stakeholder groups but not necessarily those that had some access to or degree of decision-making within that specific area. Greater dissemination of material and larger participation appeared to exist when key people and organizations were included within the network. For example The project, Assessing to Learn and Learning to Assess in Mathematics: Implementing and Evaluating Growing Success Recommendations for Evidence of Student Achievement of Primary English Language Learners formed a partnership with The Ontario Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat (LNS). It was a requirement for the KNAER projects to include multiple partners. Each network was also geographically quite large – from an entire board, to multiple boards, to province wide, to provincial representation, and beyond. Coordinating and working with multiple stakeholders over large geographical regions within a fairly short time period prompted some of the networks to delegate the work. Networks that created paid positions and hired staff specifically dedicated to the network appeared to maintain momentum and partner engagement throughout the original KNAER initiative and to accomplish more tasks in a shorter time period than other networks where much of the network work was carried out by volunteers. For example, the project Knowledge Mobilization to Close the Gap Between Principles and Practices in Assessment for Learning in Mathematics Education hired a project manager to communicate and organize three professional learning communities within 13 different school boards with multiple layers of networks and stakeholders of teachers and school board coordinators. Because our networks included multiple partners and these were also different stakeholders and usually over a large geographical region, some methods of communicating and sharing was required. There was a wide range of ways that networks communicated and shared information; some structured regular face-to-face meetings, while others included information communication technology to facilitate web conferences, create virtual learning communities, and online discussions. These modes of communication were deliberate and planned rather than utilized as needed. For example, the project Knowledge Mobilization on Decision Making for School Improvement: A Peer to Peer Network for School Principals created a virtual infrastructure as the space for their professional learning community with principals across Ontario. The participants could exchange, share, collaborate, discuss, support, access information and the project provided on line training sessions in a systematic way.

http://www.forum.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/extending-the-child-and-youth-mental-health-information-network-sharing-mental-health-information-with-educators



http://www.forum.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/assessing-to-learn-and-learning-to-assess-in-mathematics-implementing-and-evaluating-growing-success-recommendations-for-evidence-of-student-achievement-of-primary-english-language-learners



http://www.forum.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/knowledge-mobilization-to-close-the-gap-between-principles-and-practices-in-assessment-for-learning-in-mathematics-education



http://www.forum.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/knowledge-mobilization-on-decision-making-for-school-improvement-a-peer-to-peer-network-for-school-principals

http://www.forum.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/knowledge-mobilization-on-decision-making-for-school-improvement-a-peer-to-peer-network-for-school-principals


Lesson Learned: There are certain organizational structures such as goal alignment, inclusion of key people, official roles and formal communication systems that, once in place, appeared to increase the success of networks. Effective Network Activities The KNAER team observed a number of activities in which knowledge mobilization networks engaged, that were consistent across the various projects. Three of these included: incentives, opportunities for collaboration and co-creation, and a strategic plan. Network members were motivated by their own personal values or their institutional values to participate in the various networks, and this participation was voluntary. Because of the voluntary membership there were times when the momentum of the network work would slow down in terms of frequency of events, meeting attendance, participation in activities and/or in the production of an item. Some networks chose to use incentives to maintain network momentum. For example, teachers were given release time so that they could participate in activities and events. Researchers were encouraged to stay involved by allowing them to publish and report the work being carried out within the network. Practitioners, researchers and community partners (intermediaries) were included as co-authors on co-produced materials. For example, the project Extending the Child and Youth Mental Health Information Network: Sharing Mental Health Information with Educators included all three partners in co-creating the product Educators Guide to Child and Youth Mental Health. The type of partnerships established within the networks was also key. What we know from the literature is that there are a number of different approaches supporting knowledge mobilization from linear to systems models (Best & Holmes, 2010; Nutley, Walter & Davies, 2007). For example, in a linear approach material can be thought of as created by ‘experts’ within the network and then translated and transferred to practitioners associated with the network who would be the end-users. The adjudication process attempted to reduce these kinds of linear practices, by selecting projects that indicated an effort to collaborate and co-create material. It appeared that those projects that genuinely tried to work collaboratively with multiple stakeholders from the very beginning to research, learn and co-create material together were much more productive overall. These collaborative opportunities include communities of practice and action research projects. For example, the project Putting Theory into Practice: Finding Paths to Students’ Engagement and Equity hosted a series of information sessions with the project's visiting scholar, Dr. Stephen Lerman (Director of the Centre for Research in Education at London South Bank University, England) and the project's school board partners of practitioners and researchers who were currently conducting action

http://cymhin.offordcentre.com/downloads/Making%20a%20Difference%204-0.pdf

http://cymhin.offordcentre.com/downloads/Making%20a%20Difference%204-0.pdf

http://www.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/putting-theory-into-practice-finding-paths-to-students-engagement-and-equity

http://www.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/putting-theory-into-practice-finding-paths-to-students-engagement-and-equity


research projects. Together they examined their action research projects to improve the process. From the information gathered, then developed a seminar session of action plans to undertake action research projects. Followed by an opportunity for partnerships of practitioners and researchers interested in conducting action research projects to submit a proposal. They received 18 proposals and chose 5. The project continued to work together in a collaborative partnership. Lastly, it is one thing to have a strategic plan on paper as part of a proposal document; it is quite another to enact that plan. While the proposal process required projects to include a knowledge mobilization plan and most projects had little problem engaging in the proposed activities/events and producing material, it was the projects that aligned their activities, events and products to build from or complement each initiative that appeared to have the furthest and strongest reach into the education sector. Other projects held meaningful activities, events, and created meaningful material, but the synergy was limited when they were not strategically coordinated. An example of a strategically organized plan that generated great success was the project Mobilizing a Global Citizenship Perspective with Educators: Curriculum Development, Equity and Community Partnerships. It was strategic in their intention to enhance the preparation of student teachers and lead teachers in research-based strategies, curriculum development, and resources for developing global citizenship perspectives across elementary and middle school curricula. First, they generated interest by hosting a professional learning session and used their key partners to help disseminate the information. During this session they conducted a feedback survey to gain information from participants for their future planning. Then the project formed multiple steering committees to collaborate and co-create a series of professional workshops to be offered throughout the following year. Following each of the sessions, participants completed program evaluation surveys as a means for the project to gather important information in moving forward with their planning. The project consistently put methods in place to disseminate their products and findings by creating a website, planning for publications, conferences presentations and extending their networks to other school board partnerships. Then, as the steering committees expanded, there became a need for a more formalized role and a project manager was implemented to help coordinate the multiple stakeholder and learning communities. Overall, this project’s strategy was continuously proactive, based their actions on the needs of their project participants, and disseminated as widely as possible using learning workshops and networking strategies to increase knowledge mobilization. Lesson Learned: Networks can exist that are well structured but can have limited influence. However, there are some activities that help to support networks into action such as creating incentives, engaging stakeholders as collaborators or co-creators, and enacting a strategically sound plan.

http://www.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/mobilizing-a-global-citizenship-perspective-with-educators-curriculum-development-equity-and-community-partnerships

http://www.knaer-recrae.ca/about-knaer/our-projects/mobilizing-a-global-citizenship-perspective-with-educators-curriculum-development-equity-and-community-partnerships


References: Best, A. & Holmes, B. (2010). Systems thinking, knowledge and action: Towards

better models and methods. The Policy Press, 6 (2), 145-159. Nutley, S., Walter, I., Davies, H.T.O. (2007). Using Evidence: How research can inform

public services. Briston, UK: Policy Press




Presentation

GOING DIVISION-WIDE: EXPANDING OUR TEACHER INDUCTION PROGRAM BEYOND THE INNER CITY

Francine Lee Morin, Katherine Collis & Cathryn Smith University of Manitoba

ABSTRACT Induction and mentoring of beginning teachers is viewed by scholars as an integral part of the continuum of teacher education and development. A division-wide induction program employing two models—learning partners and communities of practice is the focus of this phase of a longitudinal participatory action research study. It is grounded in research showing that well-designed induction and mentoring programs have positive impacts on teacher commitment and retention, pedagogical practices, and student achievement. Research questions explored participants’ experiences with mentoring, communities of practice, and job-embedded learning, as well as their perceptions of its impacts on teaching practice and overall design. Data sources included: focus group interviews, exit surveys, and program artifacts. Qualitative data were thematically analyzed using interpretative strategies and survey data were analyzed descriptively using statistical software. All components of the induction program involving both models were highly valued and had positive, moderate impacts on teaching effectiveness. As a new component to this program, the communities of practice were effective, but inductees preferred that they be an additional form of support, rather than a replacement for individual mentoring. Conclusions will be presented, along with recommendations for improving induction programs for new teachers.


SUMMARY OF PAPER PRESENTATION Research Purpose and Questions. This study is part of a multiphase, longitudinal program evaluation study which aims to: 1) provide ongoing, reliable information that can be used to make decisions and recommendations regarding a large urban school division’s induction program and its impacts; and 2) inform the stakeholders and funders of the program. Questions guiding this phase of the evaluation study were: What are participants’ experiences with mentoring/communities of practice? What are participants’ experiences with job-embedded learning? What are participants’ perceptions of professional development? What challenges do participants experience related to the program? What impacts do the program components have on participants’ teaching practice? Conceptual Framework and Significance. Induction and mentoring of beginning teachers is viewed by many scholars as an important and integral part of the continuum of teacher education and development (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2005; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). There is clear evidence that well-designed induction and mentoring programs have positive impacts on new teacher commitment and retention, but the same does not hold true for pedagogical practices and student achievement (e.g., Darling-Hammond, Berry, Haselkorn, & Fideler, 1999; Howe, 2006; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Strong, 2009). While there are quite a variety of induction and mentoring programs in North American and abroad (e.g., Achinstein and Athanases, 2006; Howe, 2006; Villani, 2002), more research is needed to provide evidence of impacts of specific programs on teaching practice and student learning. This line of research is quite sparse and plagued by methodological issues such as an over-reliance on self-reporting and the difficulties of assessing the quality of teaching (Strong, 2009), suggesting the need for more robust evaluations of an induction program’s effectiveness. Methodology. A participatory program evaluation design is being employed for this longitudinal project consisting of annual yearend studies tied to its broad purposes. The project involves program leaders working in concert with an educational researcher. Internal program reviews such as this one belong to a family of methodologies called action research that aim to provide educators with new knowledge and understanding that enables them to improve teaching, curriculum, and learning practices or resolve any range of educational problems (Hendricks, 2009, McNiff & Whitehead, 2011; Stringer, 2008). In this work, the researcher is positioned as an outsider working in collaboration with insiders, the school division partner (Anderson & Herr, 2015). Overall, a mixed method approach to data collection and analysis is being undertaken and is required to: 1) obtain information on various dimensions of the induction program; 2) allow for the generation of convergent findings (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007); and 3) select and align methods to accomplish particular tasks within the evaluation study as a whole (Morgan, 2014; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009).


The Induction Program. The action strategy being monitored in this phase of the study involved the expansion of the school division’s induction program beyond serving its inner city schools to include a two-year program for all early service teachers in all schools across the division which is located in a large city in western Canada. Two induction models were implemented: 1) learning partnerships (LP) involving mentee-mentor pairs and individual mentoring; and 2) two communities of practice (CoP) involving one cohort of French immersion teachers and another comprised of high school teachers interested in student engagement. The cohorts were facilitated by divisional leaders who provided group mentoring and some individual mentoring. Core features of the induction program included: release time for the LPs and CoPs to meet; orientations and professional development sessions for all participants, including mentoring training; networking, and various forms of job-embedded learning (JEL). Data Collection and Analysis. Three data sources were used in this phase of the study: focus group interviews, exit surveys, and existing program artifacts. Surveys and interview protocols were designed by the researcher. Qualitative data generated from focus group interviews were analyzed using the interpretative strategies suggested by Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2011) and Stringer (2008). This theming method was undertaken manually by two coders and involved: 1) becoming familiar with data by reading and re-reading; 2) segmenting data into units of meaning; and 3) sorting units into categories using descriptive codes; and 4) identifying and reporting themes within data. Quantitative data generated from three exit surveys conducted with teachers was managed and analyzed using IBM SPSS Base for Windows (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/). Descriptive analyses were conducted to reduce and report: frequencies, distributions, percentages, and means. Sample size did not allow for comparative statistical analyses to be undertaken. Results and Conclusions. The results and conclusions will be presented in more detail at the conference, as data analyses and interpretation are now nearly complete. Samples of the findings follow. Focus group interview data indicated that all components of the induction program were highly valued and perceived to be having some positive impacts on participants. As a new component to the division’s induction program, the CoPs were effective, but early service teachers would prefer these groups to be an additional form of support, rather than a replacement for individual mentoring. High numbers of inductees indicated overall satisfaction with the induction program, and looked forward to being involved in it again next year. Important factors to consider when making matches between learning partners were found to be: subject or grade level expertise, proximity/accessibility, and shared context. JEL opportunities emerged as the most robust feature of the program for inductees, but interestingly most reported engaging in JEL with colleagues other than their mentors or outside of their CoPs. The JEL component of the program could be strengthened if it was formally structured to meet the needs

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/


of the inductees. Interestingly, the majority of LPs and about half of the participants in the CoPs did not use the full allocation of release time provided to them for JEL. Survey mean scores indicated a positive but moderate program impact on mentees’ teaching practice, and a low program impact on inductee’s practice in the CoPs. This finding paralleled another—just over half of the LPs shared the same teaching assignment, while the other half did not. To improve mentees’ teaching effectiveness, research suggests that mentees should be paired with mentors who share similar teaching assignments and subject specializations to provide optimal conditions for success, which may explain why the program impacts were not greater (Hobson, Ashby, Malderez & Tomilson, 2009; Smith & Ingersoll, 2004). The most significant PD sessions were the mentoring training sessions, the orientation, and sessions provided for the CoP inductees. There were mixed sentiments among participants regarding challenges they experienced while participating in the program, however the large majority felt that their administrators supported their involvement in the program. REFERENCES Achinstein, B., & Athanases, S. Z. (Eds.). (2006). Mentors in the making: Developing

new leaders for new teachers. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Anderson, K, & Herr, G. L. (2015). The action research dissertation: A guide for

students and faculty (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L., (2007). Designing and conducting mixed

methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Darling-Hammond, L. (2005). Developing professional development schools: Early

lessons, challenge, and promise. In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Professional development schools: Schools for developing a profession (2nd ed., pp. 1-27). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Darling-Hammond, L., Berry, B. T., Haselkorn, D., & Fideler, E. (1999). Teacher

recruitment, selection, and induction. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 183-232). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to

strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 1013-1055. Hendricks, C. (2009). Improving schools through action research: A comprehensive

guide for educators (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.


Ingersoll, R. M., & Strong, M. (2011). The impact of induction and mentoring programs for beginning teachers: A critical review of the research. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 201-233. doi: 10.3102/0034654311403323

Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2011). The practice of qualitative research (2nd ed.).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hobson, A. J., Ashby, P., Malderez, A., & Tomlinson, P. D. (2009). Mentoring beginning

teachers: What we know and we don’t. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 207-216.

Howe, E. R. (2006). Exemplary teacher induction: An international review.

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 38(3), 287-297. McNiff, J., & Whitehead, J. (2011). All you need to know about action research (2nd

ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Morgan, D. L. (2014). Integrating qualitative and quantitative methods: A pragmatic

approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, T., & Ingersoll, R. (2004). What are the effects of induction and mentoring on

beginning teacher turnover? American Educational Research Journal, 41(3), 681-714. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2008.09.001

Stringer, E. (2008). Action research in education (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall. Strong, M. (2009). Effective teacher induction and mentoring: Assessing the evidence.

New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Teddlie, C., & Tashakkori, A. (2009). Foundations of mixed methods research:

Integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches in the social and behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Villani, S. (2002). Mentoring programs for new teachers: Models of induction and

support. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.




Presentation

PARTICIPATORY VIDEO ACTION-RESEARCH IN NEW BRUNSWICK SCHOOLS: NAVIGATING INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES OF STREAMING AND DISCOURSE OF DEFICIENCY

Matt Rogers University of New Brunswick

This presentation offers a critical account of a participatory video action-research program I coordinate with youth and teachers in secondary schools in New Brunswick. The research questions guiding the presentation are: how do institutional structures related to academic streaming and dominant educational discourses shape, constrain, and/or open possibilities for participatory video action-research with youth in schools; and, how can this knowledge inform curriculum, classroom practice, education policy, and action-research methods? Problematizing the school filmmaking program, What’s up Doc?, the presentation addresses a growing concern at the paucity of critical scholarship devoted to participatory video research. Discussions draw on critical discourse analysis to identify how deficit discourses, operating in tandem with institutional structures of streaming, impacted in the program. I argue that the intersection undermined youth and teacher agency and possibilities for action. Research Context, Theoretical Framework, and Pedagogical Design The What’s up Doc? Program began in 2009. The program runs in four secondary schools, in streamed/leveled Grade 11 literacy classrooms. As the coordinator, I


engage in a participatory action-research approach with teachers and students to develop, implement, and analyze a praxis I call critical filmmaking pedagogies. Through the praxis, students, teachers and I explore issues such as race, class, ability, gender, and sexuality through participatory documentary filmmaking. This presentation is limited to an analysis of the events, responses, and films produced during the third year of the program in 2012. During that year, we collaborated on seven short films on a range of social justice issues, including intersecting dimensions of class, gender, dis/ability, and economic disparity. Our collaborative filmmaking approach draws on critical pedagogy (Agger, 1998; Freire, 1970; Giroux, 1981, 2011; Kincheloe, 2008). Adopting a critical pedagogy requires disrupting the taken-for-granted thinking that schools are neutral social entities (McLaren, 2009). This means accepting that schools are implicated in both perpetuating and challenging systems of oppression, including social inequities of, for example, class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and ability (Giroux, 2007, McLaren, 2000). For the What’s up Doc? program, and my research, I have drawn on critical pedagogy to develop school-based participatory filmmaking as a counter-hegemonic pedagogical tool. Our approach is also heavily influenced by participatory video (Milne, Mitchell, & de Lange, 2012). The field of participatory video focuses on the use of collaborative, community-based, documentary films intended to address specific social/political issues (White, 2003). The approach challenges traditional filmmaking by privileging multiple interpretive perspectives and validating the voices of research participants. In What’s up Doc?, we embraced the approach as a way to renegotiate classroom power relations so that students’ knowledges could become the force guiding the projects and films. We viewed participatory video as an entry point into critical dialogues to address marginalizing social discourses, practices, and policies. Recently, there has been a concerted effort to develop critically-informed approaches to participatory video. These efforts have attempted to address the growing concern over the impact of celebratory assumptions and empowerment discourses. The emergence of critical scholarship in the field has drawn attention to the way practitioners and researchers have, historically, adopted competing rationales for taking up video practices in their work. While there may be agreement that participatory video is intended to bring about change, there is disagreement about the types of change practitioners aim to entice. Whereas some practitioners and researchers have been using participatory video to help effect social, political, and structural change, others tend to frame works within personal empowerment or transformation discourses, i.e., “to promote self-transformation, self-empowerment, or finding one’s voice” (Mookerjea, 2010, p. 204). Shaw (2012) accents how this focus on personal empowerment causes important theoretical, methodological, and ethical intricacies to be neglected. These theoretical critiques have been very influential in my research. I agree with Walsh (2012) who argues it is problematic to assume that a focus on individualized development can necessarily


result in emancipatory social change. Responding to this, my research, and this presentation, echoes that a focus on personal change or empowerment does little to impact change around the socio-structural antecedents of oppression. Data and Analysis What’s up Doc? follows a participatory action-research model (Smith, 2007). The process is pushed further, however, through participatory video methods (Mitchell, 2011) Each year, teachers, students, and I plan critical filmmaking pedagogies, implement activities, analyze tensions and contradictions, and make amendments in practices until the films are completed. My inquiry also borrows from critical action research (Brown & Jones, 2001). The critical paradigm challenges apolitical theoretical foundations and questions progressive and the emancipatory assumptions that suggest that educational action-research will necessarily result in empowerment (Ellsworth, 1992; Gore, 1993). Taking these positions as a point of departure, I gathered various forms of information and texts for critical analysis. I sought students for focus groups and interviews. I asked about the films, responses to the program, their thinking about the pedagogical practices, and their collaborative experiences in the classroom. I also conducted interviews with the teachers involved. These interviews centered on their responses to the program, their thinking about critical filmmaking pedagogies, and their experiences in the classroom. I maintained a reflexive journal, collected students’ and teachers’ filmmaking texts, and examined footage from the behind-the-scenes documentary. My analysis borrows heavily from Foucauldian perspectives on discourse (Foucault & Gordon, 1980; Foucault, Bertani, Fontana, Ewald & Macey, 2003) and critical discourse analysis based on feminist, queer, neo-Marxist, and dis/ability critiques. Critical discourse analysis is used to explore how language, social interactions, and texts play into, perpetuate, or undermine dominant power relations. As such, critical discourse analysis explores traces of power and ideology in linguistic utterances (Van Dijk, 1993) to disrupt the tacit forces that operate through seemingly neutral words (Briscoe, Arriaza & Henze, 2009). Results conclusions or interpretations This presentation raises conversations about how institutional structures of streaming, operating in unison with deficit discourses, shaped and limited the possibilities of critical and participatory action-research practices when implemented in schools (Taylor, Rizvi, Lingard, & Henry, 1997). In the program, streaming and deficit discourses, privileged some students while marginalizing others. This shows how locating the program in streamed classrooms contributed to tensions in the schools, and may have contributed to discourses that construct Level 3 students as weak, incapable, and deficient. The analysis shows also how discourses constructed the purpose of the program as instrumental to the personal development and empowerment of participants. If a goal of critical filmmaking pedagogies is to support social justice, it is problematic to suggest that its purposes have only to do with personal development. In this way, I agree with Mookerjea


(2010) who argues that efforts to support the empowerment of marginalized groups must always have a “connection to a militant struggle against [the social structures that maintain] oppression” (p. 206). This also accents Walsh’s (2012) view that, unless broader elements that structure disempowerment are addressed, personal growth and empowerment may only ever be superficial. The presentation concludes that this individualistic discourse is condescending for students, undermines their political agency, and enables teachers, administrators, and the public to disregard the calls for action and change in their films. It also shows that, while video work with youth can foster counter-hegemonic discourses, it can, at the same time, reinscribe oppressive power relations. Educational Importance This work can contribute to educational knowledge and inform curriculum, policy, and practice. Primarily, the contributions deal with the negotiation of critical filmmaking pedagogies in schools. This analysis reminds practitioners that power does not cease to operate simply because critical pedagogies and participatory action-research have been implemented (Ellsworth, 1992). It solidifies the importance, for educators, of being constantly vigilant and reflexive in challenging marginalizing discourses that may surface in the context of critical pedagogy initiatives. It also shows the importance of being attentive to how critical initiatives, like the What’s up Doc? program, may contribute to the marginalization of students involved. The analysis has helped me come to realize that, to support social justice, educators, like myself, must maintain a continued resolve to draw attention to the more political and critical goals in the students’ work. This also shows the need for greater emphasis being placed on critical literacies and social justice education in the curriculum and draws attention to structural elements of education, (e.g., streaming) that can be renegotiated to better support broader projects of social justice. By making these discursive contributions, the work adds to research on education for social justice (Clover & Stalker, 2007; Young, 2000), supports curriculum development and teaching/learning practices and, most importantly, can contribute to knowledge about educational practices that have a potential to facilitate social change in the lives of youth (Gale & Densmore, 2007; Kellner, 2000). References Agger, B. (1998). Critical social theories: An introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview

Press. Briscoe, F., Arriaza, G., & Henze, R. (2009). The power of talk: How words change our

lives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Brown, T., & Jones, L. (2001). Action research and postmodernism: Congruence and

critique. Buckingham, PA: Open University Press.


Clover, D., & Stalker, J. (2007). The arts and social justice: Re-crafting activist adult

education and community leadership. Leicester, England: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.

Ellsworth, E. (1992). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the

repressive myths of critical pedagogy. In C. Luke & J. Gore (Eds.), Feminisms and critical pedagogy (pp. 90 -119). New York, NY: Routledge.

Foucault, M., & Gordon, C. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other

writings, 1972-1977. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M., Bertani, M., Fontana, A., Ewald, F., & Macey, D. (2003). Society must be

defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-76. New York, NY: Picador.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Herder & Herder. Gale, T., & Densmore, K. (2007). Engaging teachers towards a radical democratic

agenda for schooling. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press. Giroux, H. A. (1981). Ideology, culture and the process of schooling. Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press. Giroux, H. A. (2007). Democracy, education, and the politics of critical pedagogy. In

P. McLaren & J. L. Kincheloe (Eds.), Critical pedagogy: Where are we now? (pp. 1 - 8). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Giroux, H. A. (2011). On critical pedagogy. New York, NY: Continuum International. Gore, J. M. (1993). The struggle for pedagogies: Critical and feminist discourses as

regimes of truth. New York, NY: Routledge. Kellner, D. (2000). Multiple literacies and critical pedagogies. In P. Trifonas (Ed.),

Revolutionary pedagogies: Cultural politics, instituting education, and the discourse of theory (pp. 196 - 224). New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.

Kincheloe, J. L. (2008a). Critical pedagogy: Primer. New York, NY: Peter Lang. McLaren, P. (2000). Critical pedagogy. In D. Gabbared (Ed.), Knowledge and power

in the global economy: Politics and rhetoric of school reform (pp. 345 - 352). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.


McLaren, P. (2009). Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts. In A. Darder, M. Baltodano, & R.D. Torres (2009), The critical pedagogy reader (pp. 61 - 83). New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.

Milne, E.-J., Mitchell, C., & de, Lang. N. (2012). Handbook of participatory video.

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Mitchell, C. (2011). Doing visual research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Mookerjea, S. (2010). Dalitbahujan women’s autonomous video. In K. Howley (Ed.).

Understanding community media (pp. 200 - 209). Thousand Oaks: CA: SAGE.

Shaw, J. (2012). Interrogating the gap between ideals and practice reality in

participatory video. In E.J. Milne, C. Mitchell, & N. de Lange (Eds.), Handbook of participatory video (pp. 225 - 241). Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.

Smith, M. K. (2007). Action research. The encyclopedia of informal education.

Retrieved from www.infed.org/research/b-actres.htm.Taylor, S., Rizvi, F., Lingard, B., & Henry, M. (1997). Educational policy and the politics of change. New York, NY: Routledge.

Van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Society,

4(2), 249 - 283. Walsh, S. (2012). Challenging knowledge production with participatory video. In E.J.

Milne, C. Mitchell, & N. de Lange (Eds.), Handbook of participatory video (pp. 225 - 241). Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.

White, S. (2003). Participatory video: Images that transform and empower. New

York, NY: SAGE. Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford, England: Oxford University

Press.

http://www.infed.org/research/b-actres.htm.Taylor



Canadian Association of Action Research in Education Founding Conference Proceedings 2015, page 30

Presentation

HOW DO WE FIT ACTIVE RESEARCH WITHIN OUR CURRICULUM AT VARIOUS GRADE LEVELS?

Paul Loranger Independent Researcher

Long before action research came into existence, teachers throughout the world realized that children do not envision their inquiries in the same way at various grade levels. As adults, we assume that our inquiries would be of interest to the child but curriculum guidelines built from the feedback of teachers at various grade levels, clearly show that this is not the case. The purpose of this talk is to show and distinguish what can be achieved in making inquiries at each grade and to note how they build on each other . In this manner, you can get the full support of your teaching staff in implementing active research in your school. The aim is to respect the present passive research done on instructions in regards to the subject while recognizing the natural metacognition development of the student which occurs in active research with his environment. As Peter Gray said in one of his Webinar “We need a means to listen to our students and disseminate the vast research that is presently being done in education”. It is as if we have discovered many answers but have failed to ask “What is the question?”




Presentation

LISTENING PROJECT FOR ASSESSMENT PRACTICES TO SUPPORT MATHEMATICS LEARNING AND UNDERSTANDING FOR STUDENTS (APLUS)

David K. Pugalee Independent Researcher

ABSTRACT Teachers using a web-based elementary mathematics assessment system focused on students’ understanding of number concepts have the flexibility to assess students at multiple time points with flexibility in location. The system provides immediate assessment results and comprehensive reports. Teachers may use computers or handheld devices. Through an action research process, give teachers from this project engaged in a ‘listening’ process designed to reinterpret practice using and identify teaching actions. The majority of teachers improved their linking and questioning practices. One first grade teacher made significant shifts in practice including implementing practices from model teaching and extending questioning practices. Her story highlights the potential of using ‘listening’ to reinterpret teaching.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to explore how extending teachers thinking about listening and questioning might influence their practices related to implementing an assessment system designed to measure student’s performance on a variety of numeracy tasks. This study investigated the following:


1. Does professional development focused on modes of listening and

questioning techniques increase teacher’s use of formative assessment in their classrooms?

2. Does learning to listen and question interpretively change teachers’ classroom practice?

BACKGROUND AND PERSPECTIVES Assessment Practices to Support Mathematics Learning and Understanding for Students (APLUS) is a grant funded project supporting the implementation of an assessment model in grades K-3 with an emphasis on use of Assessing Math Concepts (AMC) assessment materials (Richardson, 1998). AMC is a set of formal assessment tasks with accompanying rubrics to be used in elementary mathematics. A well-designed formative assessment must 1) allow teachers and students to articulate mathematical learning goals, 2) serve as catalyst for instruction, 3) permit students to use teacher feedback to move forward in their learning, 4) create the opportunity for peer assessment, 5) be based upon educational research and cognitive literature, 6) make students’ reasoning visible, not just their answers, and 7) be closely tied to classroom discourse and interaction (Baroudi, 2007; Black & Wiliam, 1998; Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2004; Heritage, 2007; Hodgen, 2007; Huinker & Freckmann, 2009). Listening employs an enactivist framework using listening as a metaphoric lens through which teachers reinterpret practice as a basis for teaching action (Davis, 1997). Teachers in this study engaged in this process as they worked with students around the big ideas of numeracy. Building on the ‘listening’ metaphor, teachers developed ideas around this collaborative action research process. DATA SOURCES While the project has engaged approximately 1,000 K-2 teachers in using the AMC program, this action research study focuses on five female elementary teachers: 3 Kindergarten and 2 First Grade. Data consisted of interviews, pre and post analysis of videos of classroom practice, audio recordings of mentoring sessions, and students’ assessment data. The overarching goal of this component of the project was to uncover how teachers could extend their thinking about the use of formative assessment data through listening/questioning practices. The analysis was based on a constant comparison methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) using concepts of teaching practice on based on the work of Boston and Wolf (2004). Teachers were full participants in the study, including the analysis and review of data. RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS This project centers on the use of formative assessment number tasks. One of the assessments that teachers at the K-1 level can perform are called Hiding


assessments. In the excerpt below, a first grade student, Tyrone, engaged in the Hiding Assessment and the interviewer began with the number 8. The intent of the Hiding Assessment is to determine if the student knows parts of numbers quickly, without counting to figure them out. To begin, the interview asks Tyrone to count out 8 chips and place them in her hand.

I: OK. Put them in my hand. How many did you put in here? T: 8. I: 8. Alright. Well, I’m gonna take 2 of them and here’s two of those 8. How many are left in this hand? T: Two of those, 8. So it’s just like taking away. 6. I: 6. Did you just know that one? T: Yes.

The interview has to enter two pieces of data, what answer the child gave which would be entered as a 6. Then, she must code his strategy and in this case clicked the button for “Knows quickly.” She would then press the next button and pose another hidden task using the same beginning number 8. The interview continues with the teacher recording student responses. Tyrone solves the first one by recollecting the relationship that 7 and 1 make 8. On the second task, Tyrone did not just know it by memory, he used a compensation thinking strategy to determine the hidden number. In other words, he knew that 6 and 2 made 8 from the previous problems, so 5 and 3 make also. According to Cobb and Merkel (1989), Tyrone used a sophisticated thinking strategy for determining the missing addend. This would be coded as “Related Combinations” in the computer. Interviews and debriefings with teachers identified several perspectives about teaching, reflecting on teaching practices, and interaction with students’ conceptions around numeracy. First, teachers initially considered daily interactions with students to be informal and therefore, not assessment. Second, they used their informal interactions with students to tailor instruction by grouping students into homogeneous skills groups. Third, they used weekly, group-designed formal assessments for re-teaching skills, not focus on number sense. Fourth, the teachers thought that the counting-on strategy was the pinnacle of number sense for students and that the next step was memorization of facts, not reasoning with number relations. Over the course of the semester, the length of this action research study, 4/5 teachers improved their average score on questioning (based on IQA rubrics teaching practice from Boston and Wolf). One 1st grade teacher showed remarkable shifts in listening and reflecting on children’s discourse – reinterpreting her teaching practices and actions.


EDUCATIONAL IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY These results show that teachers can engage in critical reinterpretation of their actions and practices to improve students’ reasoning and make better informed decisions about instruction. As project teachers become proficient with the assessments, it is critical that they engage in ‘listening’ so that the data becomes a source for their reinterpretations about instructional practices and actions. REFERENCES Baroudi, Z. (2007). Formative assessment: Definition, elements and role in instructional

practice. Postgraduate Journal of Education Research, 8(1), 37-48. Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. & Wiliam, D. (2004). Working inside the black

box: Assessment for learning in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(1), 8-21. Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom

assessment. Phi Data Kappan (October, 1998), 139-148. Boston, M. and Wolf, M.-K. (2004). Using the Instructional Quality Assessment (IQA)

Toolkit to Assess Academic Rigor in Mathematics Lessons and Assignments. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego CA, April 2004.

Cobb, P., & Merkel, G. (1989). Thinking strategies as an example of teaching arithmetic

through problem solving. In P. Trafton (Ed.), 1989 Yearbook of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, (pp. 70-81). Reston, VA: NCTM.

Davis, B. (1997) Listening for differences: An evolving conception of mathematics

teaching. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(3), 355-376. Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for

qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Heritage, M. (2007). Formative assessment: What do teachers need to know and do? Phi

Delta Kappan, 89(2), 140-145. Hodgen, J. (2007). Formative assessment: tools for transforming school mathematics

towards dialogic practice? Paper presented at the CERME 5: Fifth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Larnaca: Cyprus.

Huinker, D. & Freckmann, J. (2009). Linking principles of formative assessment to

classroom practice. Wisconsin Teacher of Mathematics, 60(2), 6-11. Richardson, K. (1998). Developing Number Concepts: Counting, Comparing, and Pattern.

New York: Dale Seymour.




Presentation

MODERATED MARKING GETS A MAKEOVER: THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO FACILITATE EFFECTICE PRACTICES IN MODERATED MARKING

Joseph Engemann, Crystal Morin, Karen Slattery & Alison Morawek Brock University

Purpose In moderated marking, teachers come together to collaboratively assess students’ work using predetermined assessment criteria such as the Ontario curriculum guides, rubrics, and checklists. The moderated marking sessions have two main purposes. The first is to create exemplars to ensure fair and equitable marking. The second is to develop a plan of action for future instruction. In this way, teachers are forming professional learning communities and student success becomes a team responsibility. The goal of moderated marking is to align assessment and instruction within grades, divisions, and schools. This alignment can only happen within a culture of trust where norms have been established by a facilitator. Teachers who engage consistently in the moderation process are able to assess student performance more consistently and fairly and identify areas of need based on student learning (Little, Gearhart, Curry, & Kafka, 2003). At the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), provincial-level large-scale assessments in Grades 3, 6, 9, and 10 are subjected to moderated marking in a process called range finding. This has been a successful practice for EQAO since its infancy. In its technical report (EQAO, 2011), range finding is explained as follows: “During the range-finding process, subject experts from the Ontario education system, under the supervision of EQAO staff, meet to make recommendations about high-quality scoring tools and training materials for scorers, in order to ensure the


accurate, reliable and consistent scoring of open-response items on EQAO assessments” (p. 13) The purpose of this action research project was to build onto EQAO’s success and involve teams at the primary and junior levels in online based moderated marking sessions to improve assessment and evaluation practices within schools and capitalize on the flexibility that technology brings to professional learning communities. Theoretical Framework – Situated Cognitive Learning Learning is a process of constructing knowledge that occurs in a situated educational context (Wilson & Madsen Meyers, 2000). Technology-based moderated marking can be used as a situated educational context to construct knowledge about technology, pedagogy, and content. A key feature of this emergent view of human development is that higher-order functions develop out of social interaction. Within discourse communities, learners not only learn through the tools and contextual settings, but also through their interactions and communication in that community. People in these kinds of communities learn to think and how to think through conversational exchanges with peers and others in authentic and meaningful ways (Wilson & Madsen Myers, 2000). When teachers engage in moderated marking, they are using their own student samples and engaging other teachers in reflective practices. Tasks are authentic and familiar to the extent that discoveries can be made and the teachers are able to generate solutions through the guidance of a model. Learning is achieved through collaboration, social interaction, and social knowledge construction in learning communities and cultures. This is indeed the case for moderated marking because teachers ensure that fairness and equitable practices are in place so that improvement strategies are created (Pelegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001). Methods/Techniques A professional network of educator-collaborators will be created. Approximately 20 educators from two school boards will complete qualitative questions regarding their experiences with the moderated marking process and with online tools such as wikis, blogs, and discussion boards. A general picture of experience with moderated marking, the tools used, the barriers and supports to their use, and the background of those using them will be created. Next, participants will enroll in an e-workshop about the framework of moderated marking and participate in four moderated marking sessions over the course of 3 months. During the sessions, participants will be guided with questions such as, “What is your reasoning behind the assigned level of achievement? Which descriptors in the rubric best match the student’s writing? What evidence from the student’s writing do you see that helps you determine the rating? What are the areas of improvement that will move the student forward? How will you give formative feedback to the student?“ (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007). Finally, the participants will conduct a survey about their experiences with online, moderated marking and provide feedback for wider future use within the educational community.


Results, Conclusions, and/or Interpretations We expect that conclusions of this study will inform researchers and educators about effective practices for collaborative marking, using online tools to situate moderated marking in a technological society, as well as provide educators with exemplars of student work that can be used for student improvement planning. Educational Importance of the Study Change is difficult for anyone; it is particularly difficult for teachers who are largely isolated from their colleagues. For change to occur, a shift in one’s behavior and practices helps to shape one’s beliefs (Fullan, 2007). In fact, when a person experiences success after implementing something new, attitudes and beliefs can shift (Guskey, 1999). This is exactly what the goal of the action research project is – to initiate a change in beliefs, attitudes, and practices about moderated marking and the use of technology to ensure a successful outcome. References Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO). (2011). EQAO’s technical report

for the 2010-2011 assessments. Toronto, Canada: Queen’s Printer. Fullan, M. (2007). The new meaning of educational change. New York, NY: Routledge. Guskey (1999). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Little, J. W., Gearhart, M., Curry, M., & Kafka, J. (2003). Looking at student work for

teacher learning, teacher community, and school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(3), 185-192.

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2007). Teacher moderation: Collaborative assessment

of student work. Ontario Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. Capacity building series. Secretariat special edition #2. Retrieved http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/capacityBuilding.html

Pelegrino, J. W., Chudowsky, N., & Glaser R. (Eds.). (2001). Knowing what students

know: The science and design of educational assessment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Wilson, B. G., & Madsen Myers, K. (2000). Situated cognition in theoretical and

practical context. In D. Jonassen & S. Lan (Eds.), Theoretical foundations of learning environments (pp. 57-88). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated, Inc.

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/capacityBuilding.html

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/capacityBuilding.html




WILL THE INTRODUCTION OF INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES IMPROVE ESL STUDENTS WRITING IN YEAR 2?

Frances Kalu University of Calgary PURPOSE The purpose of this action research study was to improve the writing ability of my year two students while teaching in the Middle East. The main idea was find out if the introduction of new techniques will improve students’ writing. Innovations that were introduced include:

Integrating reading and writing in the classroom, so they were no longer taught separately as we were doing.

Reading different stories daily, to give students an opportunity to build a vocabulary bank that they could use in writing.

Promoting the use of daily journals and collaborative writing techniques. CONTEXT My school was a single gender Islamic girl’s school, and we used the National Curriculum (England and Wales) as our main curriculum, with the medium of instruction being English. The students were predominantly Arab, who came from conservative middle and upper class families and were interested in learning and excelling in English language. My year two class was made up of 22 girls ranging from ages seven to nine, who had been identified with different Special Educational Needs (SEN). There were 5 students who were repeating the year, a legally blind student and 16 other students who had been identified with various behavior issues. All of these students had varying abilities in accessing the curriculum, with seven of the students attending separate English lessons with an ESL teacher, as they lacked basic English skills.


A writing assessment carried out in my class based on the National Curriculum Standard (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2010), showed that:

22% could express their thoughts in writing at Level 1 - Pupils’ writing communicates meaning through simple words and phrases. In their reading or their writing, pupils begin to show awareness of how full stops are used.

78% were writing below Level 1 - they could not convey meaning at all. However, at the end of year two students are expected to be at Level 2 - whereby pupils' writing communicates meaning in both narrative and non-narrative forms, using appropriate and interesting vocabulary, and showing some awareness of the reader. Also, ideas are developed in a sequence of sentences, sometimes demarcated by capital letters and full stops. For my class, it seemed to be a daunting task as none of the students seemed to possess the capabilities to achieve level 2 in writing. Drawing inspiration from my teaching philosophy that every child can learn if, we as teachers take time to discover how best each individual child learns and create the right conditions to enable the child access the curriculum. This belief strengthened my resolve not to give up on any child, and that despite labels it was possible that every child could learn. I decided to engage in an action research in my class, to see if by introducing new techniques, I could help my students improve the quality of their writing. OBJECTIVES The Manoa writing program (2008) argues that ESL student’s primary writing problems typically involve difficulty expressing concepts and ideas in English. Especially at a young age, they may have difficulty expressing themselves in a second language as they may lack the necessary vocabulary acquired by first language children from infancy. To build the writing skills of my students, I introduced the use of journals for student’s to record various events like school trips and what they did over the weekend, as students learn to read and write faster when they have real reasons to communicate: journal writing or letter writing (Strategies to improve instructional practice, n.d). As part of our practice as a school, students were taught grammar rules and how to make sentences before they were allowed to express themselves in writing. I merged speaking and listening as well as reading and writing into one lesson, to help students acquire the vocabulary they need for speech and writing. Through reading stories, I hoped that students will pick up new vocabulary that they need as it is believed that reading supports and shapes ESL student’s writing through acquisition of language input when students are performing reading tasks (Tsai, 2006).


Collaborative writing is another technique through which students can develop writing skills. It involves writing with a peer either during group or paired work. Using the collaborative approach was meant to encourage students to learn from their peers, as students learn most from their peers and from people with whom they identify (Dulay, Burt & Krashen, 1982). As students communicate with their peers, they practice their language skills in a secure environment and are able to scaffold their learning by writing with their more able peers. METHODS/TECHNIQUES The method of data collection used was qualitative. I collected data from different artifacts within the classroom; these different sources of data (triangulation) will be used to ensure the accuracy of data being collected in relation to the research question. In analyzing data collected, I looked for themes that occurred in the students writing; like using punctuation to show meaning, using correct sentence structure, using words that convey true meaning and an increase in the choice of vocabulary used. Data was collected three times at different intervals and a table used to record and analyze data. DATA SOURCES My data sources were:

Students writing examples – Examples of writing done by students during the first term, before the innovations are applied which served as a baseline. And samples collected at two different intervals during the term.

Students test scores – Students test scores on formal writing assignments was also collected. They were test scores before and after new writing techniques were applied.

Informal observations in class - To find out how the students are applying the different innovations in their writing.

RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS Though a lot of improvement was noticed in students writing, not all students were writing at the level they should in year 2, some students were still below level 1 at the time of collecting data and two showed an actual reduction in their writing level. But a definite improvement overall was noticed in the vocabulary range of students and quality of their sentence construction.


REFERENCES Dulay, H., Burt, M., & Krashen, S. (1982). Language two. New York, NY: Oxford Press. Manoa Writing Programme. (2014). Working with ESL Students' Writing:

Opportunities for Language Learning. Retrieved from: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/mwp/program-research/writing-matters/wm-6

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. (2010). The National Curriculum Level

descriptions for subjects. Retrieved from http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/10747/1/1849623848.pdf

Tsai, J. (2006). Connecting reading and writing in college EFL courses. The Internet

TESL Journal, Vol.12. Retrieved on 13th March 2009 from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Tsai-ReadingWritingConnection.html

http://manoa.hawaii.edu/mwp/program-research/writing-matters/wm-6

http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/10747/1/1849623848.pdf

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Tsai-ReadingWritingConnection.html




TEACHING ACTION RESEARCH

Barb Brown, Sarah Elaine Eaton, Roswita Dressler, Michele Jacobsen University of Calgary

ABSTRACT In this paper, action research is explored in two ways: (1) as a methodology used by student-researchers in a course-based master's program in education and (2) as a process for instructor reflection, professional learning and collaboration. First, action research is discussed as the methodological foundation for a graduate level course. Action research was used in the course to facilitate students' design and enactment of a site-based action research study. Qualitative data from reflective journals maintained over a two-year period from multiple sections of online and blended versions of the course informed the conduct of action research. Second, action research is discussed as a methodology used by course instructors who reflected on their practice in order to engage in continuous quality improvement. Using action research to collectively deepen understanding about teaching action research proved to be a valuable reflective experience that informs instructional design processes and the development of future research agendas related to instructor collaboration and action research in graduate education. Action research is growing in popularity as a discipline (Beaulieu, 2013) and is characterized as a study of one’s practice to improve quality (Mertler, 2014, Parsons, Hewson, Adrian & Day, 2013). The purpose of this study is to use action research to explore the professional learning related to the teaching of a collaboratory of practice course and to improve understanding and teaching of future course iterations. The collaboratory of practice course is offered in blended


and online formats to graduate students across different specializations in a Master of Education (M.Ed.) program. The present study is the result of an ongoing community of practice (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) among three instructors who individually taught different sections of the same collaboratory of practice course. This course is offered in blended and online formats to graduate students in a Master of Education (M.Ed.) program across different specializations. The instructors adopted a practice-centered approach (Wilson & VanBerschot, 2014) for designing, teaching and adopting coherent learning designs through collaboration, reflection and responsive pedagogy. The instructors interact regularly in professional collaboration as a group and in consultation with the associate dean, who is the fourth author, who oversees the design, development and delivery of the courses and provides academic leadership of graduate programs. This process of instructor collaboration is considered a professional learning community (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker & Many, 2010); the professional learning of each instructor informs the teaching of each section of the course and experiences in teaching multiple sections of the course in turn informs instructor collaboration, action research and leadership, and enhances the overall quality of the students’ experience. Theoretical framework Creswell’s (2012) key characteristics of action research informed the design of the course and provide a theoretical framework for the instructor collaboration. The six characteristics of action research include (1) a practical focus – the instructors strive to improve their own understanding of action research and their teaching of the course; (2) the teacher-researcher’s own practice – each instructor examines her own practice and reflects on her own teaching; (3) collaboration – instructors consult with one another on a regular basis and as concerns arise, provide each other with constructive feedback; (4) a dynamic process – through a spiral of activities between reflection, data collection and action the instructors use their learning to inform subsequent iterations of the course, adapting the pedagogy to meet the specific needs of learners as well as to improve instruction based on an assessment of earlier instructional challenges; (5) a plan of action – instructors co-construct a plan of action for future course iterations and future collaborations; and (6) sharing research – instructors disseminate their professional learning through conference presentations and articles in academic journals. Methods Adopting Mertler's (2014) four steps in action research, the instructors engaged in research about their practice to improve the quality of their teaching through stages of (1) planning, (2) acting, (3) developing and (3) reflecting. Throughout the action research, the four stages occurred as an ongoing, cyclical and collaborative process. Themes were drawn from the data and examined for commonalities and diversity of perspectives and reviewed again periodically by each of the instructors using a


constant comparative method of data collection and analysis (Mertler, 2014) during the iterative cycles of action research. Data collection and triangulation occurred over two years (2012-14) using multiple sources and perspectives of the instructors while repeating sections of the same course (n = 15) across specializations such as educational technology, leadership, languages and diversity, and interdisciplinary studies. Data sources for this study include the instructor’s individual reflective journals used to record professional insights, observations and ideas occurring while teaching the course and collective shared documents used during the ongoing professional collaboration. The instructors also maintained notes from communications and meetings organized to discuss and improve practice. Communications occurred electronically and in-person to exchange ideas about practice and included the program administrator for course outline design, review and approval, program development and academic leadership, and research ethics. Three themes emerged as teaching challenges in the course: developing ethics in academic writing and action research, writing a systematic literature review and engaging students in a critical community of inquiry. Overall, the professional collaboration in the community of practice resulted in improved practice for subsequent iterations of the course and greater understanding to facilitate students’ understanding of action research and development as research active practitioners. Educational Importance The action research presented in this study is significant for those interested in studying or supporting practitioners with employing an action research design. This work can inform institutions considering collaborative approaches in designing and improving blended and online graduate courses and programs. There may also be implications for institutional leaders in fostering professional learning communities and supporting instructor collaborative-partnerships in pursuit of continual improvements to teaching and learning in higher education. References Beaulieu, R. J. (2013). Action research: Trends and variations. Canadian Journal of

Action Research, 14(3), 29-39. Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating

quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: A handbook

for professional learning communities at work (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.


Mertler, C. A. (2014). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators

(4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. Parsons, J., Hewson, K., Adrian, L., & Day, N. (2013). Engaging in action research: A

practical guide to teacher-conducted research for educators and school leaders. Edmonton, AB: Brush Education Inc.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Synder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of

practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Wilson, B. G., VanBerschot, J. L. (2014). Co-teaching an online action research class.

Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 40(2), 1-17.




BREAKING BARRIERS IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Rachel Moll, Riki Cox, Nadine Cruickshanks, Elisabeth Kroeker, Ron Sandland Vancouver Island University

PURPOSE The purpose of this paper is to present the design of the final semester of our teacher education program and to share the results of our ongoing scholarly inquiry into students’ and faculty members’ experiences. In Spring 2014 the Faculty of Education at our small teaching university redesigned a semester of our post-baccalaureate program to incorporate several teaching practices including inquiry-based learning, community based projects, placed based learning and professional learning communities. The program was implemented in the Fall of 2014. Four of the five required courses were completed via individual inquiries by students. Each week students crafted and explored an inquiry question that addressed course outcomes and presented the results to their professional learning pod (a group of 7-10 students). The program also emphasized place-based learning through participation in a community action project. Faculty members were involved in the program as either instructors who supported inquiries in content areas or mentors who worked closely with a professional learning pod. To engage in scholarly inquiry we plan to conduct focus groups with our students and with faculty, and to collect samples of student work. Our research questions are:

1) What are faculty and students’ experiences in a teacher education program redesigned to incorporate teaching practices such as inquiry-based learning, community action, professional learning communities and place-based learning?

2) How has participating in the program impacted faculty and students’ perception of teaching (in general) and of the practices incorporated in the program (specifically)?


BACKGROUND The literature review provided focuses on a key element of the program – the inquiry-based pedagogy that was used by students and instructors to explore course content. Although inquiry was only one of the elements of the program, its inclusion was what allowed for space to be made for other elements to be incorporated such as time for students to spend in communities and to work in professional learning pods. Inquiry-based learning has been extensively studied in education literature (e.g., Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008), particularly in the area of science education (e.g., Anderson, 2007) and is supported with constructivist learning theory and research in the learning sciences (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). The BC Ministry of Education recommends “supporting and encouraging student-driven inquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning” (BC Ministry of Education, 2014, https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/rethinking-curriculum) as part of recent efforts to transform the K-12 school system. Studies in the area of inquiry-based learning and teacher education often focus on including inquiry as a topic in the curriculum (e.g., Syer, Chichekian, Shore, & Aulls, 2013), or incorporating an inquiry module into a program (McQuillan, Welch, & Barnatt, 2012). Some studies from Finland describe the effects of inquiry-based teacher education programs. For example, Litmanen, Lonka, Inkinen, Lipponen, and Hakkarainen (2012) compared pre-service teachers’ emotional experiences in a traditional lecture-based program and in an inquiry-based program and found that participants enjoyed the inquiry-based program and found the work intensive and challenging. Byman et al. (2008) found that students in a research-based teacher education program scored higher on tests of pedagogical content knowledge than traditional teacher education students. With the results from this project we aim to contribute to the literature in this area with data from a local context. METHODS This action research project is being undertaken by a team of instructors who worked together to design the program and who are interested in reflecting on and sharing our experiences. Data sources for the study include focus group interviews with faculty (instructors and mentors) in which we shared and reflected on our experiences and the impact they had on our understandings of teaching. Focus group interviews with students will be conducted in January 2015 (after the program is complete) to gather data on students’ experiences and their learning. Up to 18 students will be recruited to participate from a total of 90 students who were enrolled in the program. Students will be asked to make connections between their experiences and learning in the program and their final practicum experiences. Student work will also be collected from participating students in order to examine breadth and depth of learning in the program. Once all the data has been collected the research team will work together to examine the data for common themes that address the research questions. We will also use the results of the study to inform the design and implementation of the next year of the program (Fall 2015).

https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/rethinking-curriculum


PRELIMINARY RESULTS To date only faculty focus groups have taken place since research ethics protocols limit the recruitment of and data collection from students until the program is complete and final grades have been submitted. The instructional part of the program is complete and students are currently completing their final practicum. Thus, two focus group sessions with faculty members (n=12) were conducted in mid-October 2014. Data analysis is not yet complete, but we can offer some preliminary results or themes that have emerged from a first pass through the focus group data. Faculty (both instructors and mentors) were overwhelmingly positive about the experience of being involved in the program. Elements that faculty found particularly beneficial and supportive were regular lunchtime brownbag meetings to discuss experiences and the website where information about all the elements of the program were shared. A key to the success of the program was that all faculty met regularly to design the program so that all the elements (courses, expectations, and assignments) complemented the overall philosophy and inquiry-based nature of the program. Faculty also described challenges such as negotiating their role as mentor or instructor in terms of how much oversight and/or guidance to provide the students. Instructors who were concurrently teaching in our other teacher education programs (more traditionally organized around timetabled courses) experienced tensions while being engaged in two different program models. Some of us have found ourselves looking for more opportunities to incorporate inquiry-based teaching strategies and community action into other teaching contexts. A richer presentation of results from both faculty and students will be presented in the final paper. EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE Engaging in scholarly inquiry around our experiences in a re-imagined teacher education program will inform our future practices as teacher educators, will help us to improve future iterations of the program and to implement the principles in other areas of our teacher education programs. Sharing both the design of our program and the results of our inquiry into our experiences and those of our students will be informative for the teacher education community that is always striving to implement new and innovative models of teaching; particularly models which support recent calls for transformations in the k-12 system. REFERENCES Anderson, R.D. (2007). Inquiry as an organizing theme for science curricula. In S.K.

Abell & N.G. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook of research on science education (pp. 807-830). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Barron, B., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2008). Teaching for meaningful learning: A

review of research on inquiry-based and cooperative learning. In L. Darling-Hammond, B. Barron, D.P. Pearson, A.H. Schoenfeld, E.K. Stage, T.D.


Zimmerman, G.N. Cervetti, & J. Tilson (Eds.), Powerful learning: What we know about teaching for understanding. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (Eds.) (2000). How people learn.

Washington, DC:National Academy Press. Byman, R., Krokfors, L, Toom, A., Maaranen, K., Jyrhämä, R., Kynäslahti, H., Kansanen,

P. (2008). Educating inquiry-oriented teachers: students’ attitudes and experiences towards research-based teacher education. Educational Research and Evaluation, 15(1), 79-92.

Litmanen, T., Lonka, K., Inkinen, M., Lipponen, L, & Hakkarainen, K. (2012).

Capturing teacher students’ emotional experiences in context: does inquiry-based learning make a difference? Instructional Science, 40, 1083-1101.

McQuillan, P.J., Welch, M.J., & Barnatt, J. (2012). In search of coherence: ‘inquiring’ at

multiple levels of a teacher education system. Educational Action Research, 20(4), 535-551.

Syer, C.A., Chichekian, T., Shore, B.M., & Aulls, M.W. (2013). Learning ‘to do’ and

learning ‘about’ inquiry at the same time: different outcomes in valuing the importance of various intellectual tasks in planning, enacting, and evaluating an inquiry curriculum. Instructional Science, 41(3), 521-537.




THE CHALLENGES OF RECRUITING AN ACTION RESEARCH SITE: DOCTORAL STUDENT’S NARRATIVE

Kelly Kilgour University of Ottawa

Purpose: The purpose of this paper presentation is to describe the challenges and possible solutions of recruiting and establishing an action research (AR) site. AR provides an active, systematic framework for inquiry while supporting collaboration between the researcher and diverse stakeholders. AR is a “strategic approach to knowledge production, integrating a broad array of methods and methodological approaches in specific ways to create new understanding for participants and academics through solving practical and pertinent problems and supporting problem-owners’ democratic control over their own situation” (Levin & Martin, 2007, p. 220). AR encourages open collaboration between clients, practitioners, and administrators while offering a useful means to connect academia with real world practitioner issues and workplace learning (Greenwood & Levin, 2005; Noffke, 2009; Riel, 2012). While research ambiguity, data collection diversity, as well as research ethical board problems are known (Christ, 2010; Coghlan & Shani, 2005; Schaenen, Kohnen, Flinn, Saul, & Zeni, 2012), the challenges of recruiting a research site are sparsely articulated in the AR literature. This gap of knowledge lends to greater naivety for any novice researcher, in particular graduate students, when conducting an AR study. The engagement of a research site is further complicated by the hesitations or uncertainty of potential research sites and its relevant stakeholders. Potential stakeholders can be already overwhelmed with frequent workplace changes – new procedures, policies, technologies, paperwork and, even, administration. These changes may be driven by wider governmental policies through to narrower


individual organizational enhancements. As a result, their disinterest of another workplace change or professional development, regardless of its positive intent, further hinders the planning and initiating of an AR study. Perspective: Since this paper presentation is based on a doctoral student’s reflective account of recruiting an AR site over a one year period, the perspective is an autoethnographic narrative. Specific presentation objectives are to: a) raise awareness of AR site recruiting challenges, and b) offer potential solutions to overcome the applied gaps of establishing an AR site. Data Sources & Methods: In this paper presentation, the author will briefly introduce AR. Next, challenges of recruiting and establishing an AR site will be discussed, based on collected narrative data from email correspondences, meetings and field notes from a doctoral student’s reflective account of recruiting an AR site over a one year period. The author will then examine how these challenges can be minimized or addressed in order to better support mutual learning, professional development, and collaborative research partnership. Results & Interpretations: Results will address an understudied theoretical and applied issue of AR. By the end of this paper presentation, participants will gain a greater theoretical and applied understanding of the challenges and potential solutions of recruiting an AR site within a diverse educational healthcare setting. Interpretations will be discussed surrounding three standpoints: graduate student, academia, and potential research site (organization). Educational Importance: This presentation has educational importance for graduate students considering an AR methodology, academic supervisors advising on AR studies, as well as educational and health care organizations interested in gaining professional development and mutual learning from collaborative AR partnerships. Furthermore, the educational implications of improved organizational supports for stakeholders’ professional development and workplace change as well as greater methodological comprehension surrounding the recruitment, establishment, and initiation of AR studies for novice researchers is emphasized. References Christ, T.W. (2010). Teaching mixed methods and action research. In A. Tashakkori,

& C. Teddlie (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioural Research. (2nd ed., Chapter 25, pp. 643-676). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Coghlan, D., & Shani, A. B. (2005). Roles, politics, and ethics in action research

design. Systematic Practice and Action Research, 18(6), 533-546.


Greenwood, D.J., & Levin, M. (2005). Reform of the social sciences and the universities through action research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed., Chapter 2, pp. 43-64). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Levin, M. & Martin, A.W. (2007). The praxis of educating Action Researchers: The

possibilities and obstacles in higher education. Action Research, 5(3), 219-229.

Noffke, S. E. (2009). Revisiting the professional, personal, and political dimensions

of action research. In S. E. Noffke & B. Somekh., The Sage Handbook of Educational Action Research. (Chapter 1, pp. 6-23). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd.

Riel, M. (2012, April). Action Researchers’ Collaboration Through Learning Circles.

Paper presented at the Symposium of the American Education Research Association (AERA) 2012, Vancouver, BC. Retrieved from AERA Action Research Special Interest Group website: https://sites.google.com/site/aeraarsig/aera-2012-papers

Schaenen, I., Kohnen, A., Flinn, P., Saul, W., & Zeni, J. (2012). ‘I’ is for ‘insider’:

Practitioner research in schools. International Journal of Action Research, 8(1), 68-101.

https://sites.google.com/site/aeraarsig/aera-2012-papers




Minutes

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF ACTION RESEARCH IN EDUCATION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Attending: Kurt Clausen, Manu Sharma, Glenda Black, Kelly Kilgour, Cathryn Smith, Sharon Murray 1. Welcome 2. Review of Past Minutes, Resolutions and Reports CAARE - Constitution. 3. President Report (Kurt Clausen): Last year we came into being. A few of the big events: Constitution, Ratification of SIG. Over the year the SIG has attracted more members and now sit at about 35. Talked with Tim Howard to open the bank account (Now there is $35.00 in account). This past year we had an executive board composed of the CJAR Editorial Board 4. Conference Proceedings (2014) Conference going along quite well – had 6 sessions last year and a published conference proceedings. This year there are 5 sessions. It is a typical fledging organization - we are depending on people’s input. Deanna, the coordinator of CJAR did not come this year. However, she and Kurt worked together to post the conference proceedings on the CJAR site.


5. The Canadian Journal of Action Research - Editor’s Report (Kurt Clausen) One of the main reasons for creating this association was to network Action Researchers, which led to the creation of CAARE. The Canadian Journal of Action Research is now changed from a Nipissing journal to a national journal with CAARE as the publisher. 6. Liaison with the Action Research Network of Americas Kurt went to ARNA last month. Next year the conference is Knoxville, Tennessee. ARNA suggested that CAARE send a representative to the meeting. 7. CATE Polygraph Series Kurt and Glenda are putting together a polygraph as a way to create momentum for Action Research. We are reaching out and asking people to contribute a chapter – from across the country and topics/approaches to get a cross section. Suggestion from Cathryn Smith to use a working group model. Part of a group is to build a community and to create a dialogue about Action Research. Kurt: ARNA has 14 working groups. It is difficult to keep the momentum going. For this polygraph it is a way to bring together Action Researchers Manu – for CATE working conference need to submit a proposal and need to stay for the three days, and keep to the timeline to completion. Need topic, time, and location – then you work together Friday, Saturday, Sunday and there is a dialogue, and people work. Kurt – we can move in the direction of pulling together to network 8. Election of new members to the CAARE Executive President: Manu Sharma Vice President: Glenda Black Secretary-Treasurer: Sunny Lau Members-at-large: Tara Flynn Editor of CJAR: Kurt Clausen Student Rep: Kelly Kilgour Next year we will try to accommodate a Keynote, a book launch, and grad student session. The goal is to pull in new members and talk about working conferences. Call for proposals can be round tables too to get conversations going. Ideally, it will be nice to create a nice network – could create an online site. CJAR and CAARE to work in tandem – and do we put them on the same website? 9. Adjournment

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