Unlocking Practitioner Inquiry

Key components of practitioner inquiry provide an effective approach to lasting educational change. By including narratives of practice from across diverse early childhood settings, this book investigates issues that arise during implementation of inquiry-focussed professional learning cycles. It presents practitioner inquiry as a vehicle for empowering educators and educational systems. Research-based, this book brings together theory and practice from authors and internationally recognised commentators to inform and inspire early childhood educators. Chapters are thematically grouped in three focus areas. The first centres on background contextual information to set the scene, the second offers real-life stories based on authors’ experiences and the third provides insight into broader issues of leadership and professional learning. Voices of educators, teachers and leaders are included to provide multiple points of entry for readers with different interests, backgrounds, and levels of expertise. As a resource to support ongoing professional practice in the prior-to-school sector, this book is essential reading for early years educators, teachers and leaders of educational change. It is relevant for those investigating how educators in early childhood centres, executive offices and consultancy positions can use data-based, locally relevant investigations of practice to improve educational outcomes.

How does practitioner inquiry impact education? Examining the experiences of practitioners who have participated in inquiry projects, the authors present ways in which this work has enabled educators to be positive change agents. They reveal the difference that practitioner inquiry has made in their professional practice, their understanding of student learning, their content area knowledge, and their career trajectories. Attesting to long-lasting changes in ways that these educators approach professional challenges, the authors identify the “ripple effect” of these changes through school communities and beyond. Impactful Practitioner Inquiry includes in-depth case studies as well as chapters specifically focused on the design and analysis aspects of inquiry. Book Features: An examination of how practitioner inquiry impacts professional practice, school culture, and career trajectories.The use of complexity and network theories to understand how practitioner inquiry is able to create its ripple effect.Testimonies from educators with up to 10 years’ experience as inquirers.Practices from early childhood and school settings, classroom and leadership roles, general education and specialist settings. “This in-depth reflective analysis will be invaluable to action researchers and school–university collaborations in designing inquiries that positively impact student lives and learning.” —JoBeth Allen, professor emeritus, University of Georgia “Incorporating extended examples, helpful frameworks and critical analysis, this will be a must-have book for teacher-researchers and educational professional learning communities internationally.” —Barbara Comber, research professor, University of South Australia and Queensland University of Technology

Informal Learning, Practitioner Inquiry and Occupational Education explores how practitioners in a variety of occupations perform their jobs and argues that working and learning are intricately connected. Drawing on theories around working and learning in informal, formal and lifelong settings, the book gives insights into how workers negotiate their occupational practices. The book investigates four related concepts – informal learning, practitioner inquiry, occupational education and epistemological perspectives. The combinations of theories and empirical case studies are used to provide a conceptual framework of inquiry where knowledge, abilities, experiences and skill sets play a significant aspect. It presents 11 case studies of professions ranging from conventional occupations of acting, detective work, international road transportation to emerging professions of boardroom consultancy, nutritional therapy and opinion leadership. This book will be of great interest for academics, scholars and postgraduate students who are engaged in the study of informal education, vocational education and occupation-related programmes. It will also offer significant insights for related education practitioners wanting to have greater understanding of their own journeys and practices.

Provides a step-by-step process for conducting practitioner inquiry projects by collecting, analyzing, and using data, and offers guidelines for developing counselors' advocacy, leadership, and collaboration skills.

This text focuses on learning about primary PE and its potential to contribute not only as a discrete curriculum subject but also across the whole curriculum and to some of the many strategies and initiatives that have been set up to enhance primary practice and achievement.

"This comprehensive publication rightly establishes early childhood as a critical phase in the education of young people and makes the case for developing our insights regarding early childhood education (ECE) practices through the eyes of practitioner inquiry in the context of collaborative partnerships. It achieves its goal through a series of insightful case studies that not only illuminate the text as stories from the field, but also contribute to our understanding regarding ECE learning and pedagogy."- Susan Groundwater-Smith, Honorary Professor, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney. Bringing together theory and practice, this book draws on the projects and experiences of senior and new researchers implementing various forms of practitioner research. Chapter discussions are informed by international literature to provide insightful reflections on research processes and the contribution of practitioner research in changing practice. The diversity of perspectives across the chapters provides an excellent resource for those undertaking research within early childhood contexts. Features include: the contribution of practitioner research to curriculum and social change. professional development and strengthening learning communities how practitioners can be supported in documenting and articulating their work the relationships between the research community and field of practice through practitioner research projects contemporary problems and issues that frame the practices of early childhood educators case studies from Australia, South Africa, Sweden and Chile A diverse range of case studies that use a range of internationally recognised research methods are presented. The book offers guidance, support and inspiration to practitioners on how to research their implementation of meaningful and sustainable changes in early childhood contexts.

This collection applies the principles underlying values education to addressing the many social and learning challenges that impinge on education today . Insights in the fields of social and emotional learning, student wellbeing, and, increasingly, educational neuroscience have demonstrated that values education represents an efficacious pedagogy with holistic effects on students across a range of measures, including social, emotional, and intellectual outcomes. With schools in the 21st century confronting issues such as gender identity, stemming radicalism, mental health, equity for disadvantaged groups, bullying, respect, and the meaning of consent, values education offers a way of teaching and learning that integrates and enhances student’s affective and cognitive functioning. The earlier edition of this book has become a standard reference for scholars and practitioners in the fields of values education, moral education, and character education. Its citation rates, reads and downloads have been consistently and enduringly high, as have those of its companion text, Values Pedagogy and Student Achievement. A decade on, the main purpose of the revised edition is to update and incorporate new research and practice relevant to values education. Recent insights in the fields of neuroscience and social and emotional learning and their implications for education and student wellbeing are more overt than they were when the first edition was being compiled. Additionally, advanced thinking in the field of epistemology, how humans come to know and therefore learn, has also sharpened, especially through the later writings of prominent scholars like Jurgen Habermas. The revised edition has preserved the essential spirit and thrust of the original edition while making space for some of these new insights about the potential of values education to establish optimal and harmonious learning and social environments for both students and teachers.