DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ON DESIGNING PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH PROJECTS FOR BASIC EDUCATION TEACHERS

Critically reflecting on research practice can be an uncomfortable process for any researcher as you expose actions, and decision-making, reflect on some of the research assumptions you may have fallen into, and acknowledge your limitations. Yet, engaging in reflexive practice keeps us in check and is particularly important for researchers exploring the experiences of marginalization and oppression. This article presents our reflections on “Work Active,” a participatory action research (PAR) project that sought to improve employment outcomes for people with intellectual disability (ID). Although a great deal of literature suggests that the underlying intent of PAR is emancipatory through the mainstays of collaboration, inclusivity, and participation; however, there remain questions about whether emancipation can be truly achieved. We present our experiences of “stitching together” our service provider-led PAR project to reveal some of the challenges, points of tension, and our adaptions as we navigated the “curve balls” of undertaking a PAR project.

This purpose of this article is to explore challenges and tensions associated with a participatory action research (PAR) project that occurred in 2019 and involved the author and five teacher activist co-researchers. This article opens with some brief context on the PAR project under focus before specifying the article’s analytical methods. Next, the focus shifts to a longer discussion of several tension-producing aspects of this participatory research experience. These include challenges related to this project’s recruitment process, relationship building, and the author’s attempts to establish credibility within the activist community; tensions related to reflection and action; challenges related to epistemological orientations and facilitation style; and internal conflict and limitations related to the group’s concluding action.

Professional development (PD) programmes take a wide variety of forms. Lloyd and Davis (2018) present a model to map the diversity of PD programmes based on the extent to which intrinsic control of learning was afforded to the teachers by the PD. In this study, Lloyd and Davis’s model was applied to map two different PD programmes. Both programmes aimed to achieve similar outcomes, they ran over a similar timeframe of 2 years, and both were targeted at early career teachers (ECTs). Yet, despite these similarities, the ECTs mapped the programmes differently onto the model, and the extent to which the programme outcomes were achieved also varied. The degree to which ECTs considered that the PD afforded them a sense of control and an influence over the direction of their learning was found to be associated with the extent to which the intended programme outcomes were met. Building in an optimal balance of autonomy supportive opportunities into PD programmes is likely to be an important feature of their success.

This past five years has seen a drastic reform takes over in English Language Education. The reform prompts a significant change in the field of teaching, learning and the assessment system. To note, the recent implementation of CEFR-aligned Classroom-Based Assessment (CEFR CBA) demands teachers to be a comprehensive implementer in assessing students within their teaching and learning practices. As this enactment is concerned, teachers’ professional development (TPD) program plays the crucial roles to ensure teachers are well equipped with the content and pedagogical knowledge in the new policy. TPD has become an important professional learning medium for teachers in the aim of increasing their professionalism to enact educational change. Hence, this study was conducted to explore the enactment of teachers’ professional development program within two main contexts which are at the meso (school) and macro (education department) level. This study revealed that the enactment of TPD program for CEFR CBA was largely transmissive but lacking the sense of practicality to ensure the dispersion of knowledge can happened throughout the entire cascade system. Several challenges like the uncertainty to conduct in-house training, non-option teachers, participants engagement and limited time was discovered to become the factors which impede the effectiveness of TPD to serve its purpose in coaching and mentoring teachers to implement CEFR CBA. The findings of this study have the implication on the program designers and providers to better equip TPD which can address the needs of teachers at the micro level.

Purpose While it is particularly important that professional programs help teachers become members of a community of practice, especially in crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a lack of research about strategies to effectively encourage the development of a community of practice and to support teachers’ transformation of their way of teaching. Thus, this paper aims to report on lessons learned from a blended professional development (PD) program for elementary and middle school teachers in Japan focused on computer programming education. In particular, the authors explored how application of the creative learning principles in the blended teacher PD may have helped to nurture a community of practice among teachers in Japan, and how the creative learning principles may be a valuable framework for designing online or blended teacher PD to support teachers’ transition into emergency remote education. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on the lessons learned from two iterations of blended teacher PD situated within a larger design-based research project on applying creative learning pedagogy in teacher PD. Creative learning is a learning approach focused on engagement in personally meaningful projects by tinkering with materials and learning from peers. A total of 26 teachers and coaches participated, all of whom work in elementary or middle schools across Nagano prefecture in Japan. Participant experiences were evaluated based on a pre-survey and a post-survey conducted before and after the in-person kick-off camp; observation notes taken; a final report submitted by each teacher; a debrief meeting at the end of the program; and semi-structured interviews with three selected participants after the program concluded. For this paper, the authors focus on two participants who fully and actively engaged in the program, and they introduce their stories to highlight the outcomes from the PD. Findings The results highlight how a blended PD designed to support creative learning of teachers provided teachers with opportunities to gain help from other teachers and cultivate their expertise. The results also illustrated that how a community of practice emerged from the PD program, providing teachers with moral support when they tried new lesson designs. This paper offers several recommendations for designing professional learning experiences for instructional designers and professional developers that incorporate remote learning technologies. Originality/value While an increased number of studies have shown the values of online and blended communities of practice for teacher PD, there are still limited insights on different strategies to support teachers in transforming their teaching practices. They generally do not provide teachers with opportunities to continue learning with and from one another beyond the program itself. This study examined the teachers’ experiences in a unique PD that implemented a creative learning approach into a blended learning environment for teachers.

This article features an account and analysis of a participatory action research (PAR) project that involved the author and five teacher activist co-researchers. This piece has two principal aims. The first is to contribute to practitioners’ knowledge and practice by offering an account of a PAR project, grounded in popular education, that provided a beneficial space for K-12 teacher activists. The second aim is to contribute to the teacher-activist literature by providing an analysis of the perceived benefits of popular education and PAR for participating teacher activists. Benefits included stronger relationships, developed knowledge and skills, emotional benefits, and the novel understanding that teacher activism includes forms of cultural activism. Implications include the notion that PAR may be useful for other teacher activists, and the conventional definition of teacher activism is likely too narrow.

An interdisciplinary participatory action research (PAR) project was designed in collaboration with local immigrant organizations to document the impact of deportation policy on Central American immigrant families living in the northeastern U.S. This paper reports on selected methodological challenges of university-based co-researchers in this community-university PAR process which is currently concluding its fourth year. The paper discusses the iterative action-reflection processes focusing on: (1) an overview of the PAR project and its multiple phases within the U.S. and in Guatemala; (2) select challenges and contributions of the PAR approach for participating immigrant families “living in the shadows” and, (3) methodological concerns from the three coauthors, who include a graduate student who joined the early stages of partnership-building; an assistant professor in the early stages of her career; and a senior scholar with many years of experience in activist scholarship. We conclude with thoughts on why, despite these challenges, PAR is “worth the trouble”.

Challenges relating to first-year student retention and learning outcomes are recognized as a multi-faceted issue in the tertiary education sector across many professional programs, including social work. Graduating students can find it difficult to establish themselves in the workplace. The researchers wanted to understand if fostering a sense of professional identity for social work students as part of the research experience might in and of itself enable retention because of improved opportunities for transformational learning, agency, and wellbeing as a student. The participatory action research project was designed around a community of practice of social work students facilitated by two recent graduates to undertake the collaborative design and creation of supportive educational resources. Student empowerment, connectedness, and wellbeing were improved by involvement in the collaborative professional task of doing research, with students reporting increased connection with the university and engagement in their learning. Implications for fostering professional identity development during social work education are explored.

Participatory action research is often informed by strength-based approaches such as appreciative inquiry. However, when social change and collective action appear to be difficult, feelings of powerlessness and suffering can arise. There is an ongoing debate on the place and importance of these so-called negative emotions within strength-based approaches. In a participatory action research project on citizen participation in the Netherlands we encountered a social and political context that was beyond our ability to change. We came to realize that change or action is not always possible in participatory action research and that ‘pushing’ for action can become a disempowering experience for those involved. In this article we share the moral dilemmas that we encountered and reflect on our own learning experiences as academic researchers. We argue that researchers need to anticipate upon these moral challenges by reflecting upon their personal position towards powerlessness and suffering. Nussbaum’s notion of compassion can help researchers to create space for these experiences and to acknowledge these experiences as sources of generative knowledge. Researchers should carefully navigate between fostering action and expressing compassion in participatory action research. With this article we aim to contribute to a care ethical perspective on participatory action research that acknowledges vulnerabilities and precariousness in research practices.

Professional development becomes relevant and effective when teachers are actively involved, collaborate, and when it is linked to teachers’ daily school practice (Hunzicker in Prof Dev Educ 37:177–179, 2011). Preparation of teachers for a curriculum implementation such as the new subject Nature, Life, and Technology can be done by a professional development programme where teachers are actively involved (Visser et al. 2010). This study evaluates the designed and implemented professional development programme with respect to its effectiveness in terms of degree of teacher learning and development. Effects are evaluated for five learning areas: Instructional strategies, differences in students’ prior knowledge, adjustments to the module, assessment methods and instruments, and field trips and guest lectures. Eleven teachers from four different schools participated in two professional development programmes, six teachers in the first professional development programme and five teachers in the programme for the subsequent module. Questionnaires and interviews were used to assess the effects in the different learning areas. The findings show that the professional development programme is a useful venture for teachers’ professional growth in different learning areas.

Changing together is learning together. A participatory action research project on the role of the internist in promoting a healthy lifestyle This article describes the first three stages of an action research project. Following eight methodological principles of participatory action research, this article aims to give insight in the nature of the challenges and dilemmas involving internists, patients and patient representatives in the research process mention. Dilemmas included giving space versus limiting participation together with operating efficiently versus being flexible and honoring the input of all participants equally. It was a challenge to reflect not only on the content and procedures but also on everybody’s role in the learning process. In conclusion, action research offers a critical base for a participative and reflective method but it is also a challenge for busy healthcare practices that focus on content and concrete action and less on the learning process. Because reflection on the learning process is important for scientific standards, we suggest to give monitoring and reflection a central place in the action research cycle.

Journal article reviewing is often considered an unexplored or unknown practice. There is limited discussion about it, and what there is often rests on assumptions that reviewers are experienced and have knowledge about the topic of the article review, and that the model of practice involves double-blind reviewing. This curriculum review investigates a professional development program for article reviewers which was introduced by an educational journal in response to its reviewers’ request for professional development. The curriculum was based on a community of practice model and was reviewed by inviting stories of experience from the program participants. The review highlights that professional development initiatives can be evaluated based on participants’ perception of improvement in practice, and that hidden practice elements exist in any professional practice development program, and these can also be enhanced by professional development. The implications of this realisation for academic development practice emphasise not only the viability of a community of practice model for professional development but the value of participant stories in evaluating the impact of such initiatives.

Narrative criminology meets Participatory Action Research: a reflection on epistemological opportunities and challenges Critical narrative criminologists analyse dominant and institutionalised stories that can contribute to harm but they might also become more involved in interrogating and changing such narratives. The following question would be: in what ways can this be done? Based on experiences from a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project on stigma with people who use(d) illegal drugs, this paper reflects on the epistemological opportunities and challenges of fusing narrative criminology with PAR. Although such an integration raises potential tensions – especially with regard to the role of the researcher – PAR can amplify narrative criminology by offering a framework for practicing critical, ethical and socially engaged scholarship. Vice versa, narrative criminology can deepen PAR in its analysis of discursive power structures and the relation between narratives and action.

This study explored a professional development (PD) program preparing mathematics coordinators to lead effective PD in their schools. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic emerging in the midst of this study, the PD program and school team PD were performed online instead of face-to-face. We explored the PD program and school team PD design before and during COVID-19 period, and the coordinators' expertise-based PD leadership professional identity (LPI). Findings revealed structural stability of the PD program design, and support of coordinators’ LPI. Coordinators enacted a structural transition of effective PD design into the school team PD, demonstrating their LPI in practice.

This thesis explores the contributions of informal learning to the professional development of secondary school leaders in Cyprus. The research questions focus on the ways school leaders learn to lead, the contributions of informal learning to their professional development and the ways informal learning could be incorporated into a holistic professional development programme for school leaders. The study uses an expanded Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Design, in which priority is given to the qualitative aspect of the study (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2011). First, interviews with educators with multiple leadership roles were implemented, followed by a survey using a questionnaire developed from the qualitative phase. After this, a new qualitative phase employing interviews with experienced headteachers was used as an evaluation stage, to confirm or not the findings from the previous phases. The main findings reveal the ways in which secondary school leaders in Cyprus learn how to lead, namely through reflection, through a socialisation process, by sharing examples of good practice, by using informal apprenticeships, through incidental learning and through self-directed learning. Informal learning seems to facilitate the development of professional identity and school leaders’ qualities/characteristics to address successfully the complexities of headship. Moreover, this research study provides a discussion regarding the importance of the degree of formality in structuring learning processes, employing The Formality-Informality Model, and proposes a Blended-Learning Model for the Professional Development of School Leaders, which can guide the construction of a relevant professional development programme. This study further suggests that fostering a school leaders’ community of practice (Wenger, 1998) could be a starting point for enhancing a leadership culture throughout the Cyprus Educational System. Finally, a New Leadership Professional Development Framework for School Leaders in Cyprus is proposed, which can facilitate the holistic professional development of secondary school leaders in Cyprus.