Supporting Communities in Caring for Salmon and Each Other: Creek Restoration as a Site for Multi-System Change and Wholistic Re/conciliation

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-94
Author(s):  
Cher Hill ◽  
Rick Bailey ◽  
Cheryl Power ◽  
Nicole McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
System Change ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Land Use Impacts ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
K 12 ◽  
A Site

This paper describes a unique collaborative action research project that brings together members of the q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie) First Nation, post-secondary and K-12 communities, as well as foresters and environmentalists, to restore creeks that have been compromised by land use impacts, forest removal, and global warming.  Identifying creek restoration as a site for multi-system change and wholistic re/conciliation, we explored the following questions:  How can we bring together members of our diverse communities to learn about the dire condition of our watershed and take action to help Salmon? How might this collaborative work strengthen community relationships?  What contextual factors enable and impede the enactment of our vison? Through iterative cycles of action and reflection, intentional trial and error, conversational inquiry, and storytelling, we identified ‘guideposts’ that will inform our work moving forward.  Our research has illuminated structural changes that could enhance environmental justice for Salmon, such as empowering the caretakers of creeks and rivers since time immemorial as sovereign leaders of restorative projects, affirming the rights of the Land and other sentient beings to receive care, developing leadership structures that serve to unite (rather than polarize) citizens in addressing environmental problems, and forming diverse relational webs that exceed partnerships. Action research, informed by Indigenous worldviews, can play a pivotal role in supporting communities in assuming relational responsibility in caring for the Land and one another.  As Donna Haraway (2016) contends, it is time to ‘make kin’ outside of our genetic and ancestral ties to ‘change the story’.

Fostering Student Engagement Through Showing Empathy and Caring in an Online College Course

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Sherri L. Horner ◽  
Mariana Mereoiu ◽  
Alicia A. Mrachko
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Universal Design For Learning ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
College Course ◽  
Design For Learning ◽  
Support Students ◽  
Undergraduate Teacher Education

This chapter describes a collaborative action research project in which one post-secondary instructor used the experiences in her undergraduate teacher education course to learn how to best support students and peers in a health crisis and social justice uncertainty climate. The authors used empathy and care theories and universal design for learning (UDL) to plan, implement, and reflect on ways to empathize and show care for students in a course that was online due to COVID-19. Using the action research processes, the authors found five themes related to using UDL practices and showing empathy and caring. They conclude with recommendations for other instructors interested in supporting their students in online classes and in times of crisis.

scholarly journals Aligning Action Research and Restorative Justice: Highlighting Epistemological Tensions

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Brunilda Pali
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Conflicts ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Local Participation ◽  
Culture Of Silence ◽  
A Site

The epistemology of participatory action research sets a high agenda for pursuing and engendering change oriented towards social justice. This article is based on a participatory action research project, anchored both in the principles of restorative justice and action research. The project aimed at mobilizing local participation, knowledge and resources and creating restorative dialogue and encounters in handling social conflicts in intercultural settings in four different countries. Restorative justice and action research are highly compatible in terms of some of their core principles, but the project revealed important tensions that this article will reflect upon. Zooming into a town in Hungary – one of the four action research sites – the article addresses these tensions by focusing on two central themes. The first theme, encountering the silence and micropolitics, relates to the challenges created in the site, due to our encounter with its micropolitics and the existing ‘culture of silence’ about social conflicts. How should researchers enter a site, how far should they stir the depths of conflicts and disturb the silence and status quo in order to unearth injustices, multiply narratives, and stage different perspectives? The second theme, rethinking conflict participation, relates to the tension created between a more naïve idea of participation and a more antagonistic one. In restorative justice, it is often assumed that if everybody were included and participated in restorative processes, staging their different perspectives, then consensus could be reached. But considering the possibility that different views cannot be reconciled, and power relations cannot be suspended, we need to rethink the meaning of conflict participation in restorative praxis. 

scholarly journals Glocalization, Representation and Literacy Education

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-274
Author(s):  
Heather Lotherington
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Emergent Literacy ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
New Literacies ◽  
Literacy Education ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Textual Representations ◽  
Narrative Thread

This article uses a comic program to graphically summarize a collaborative action research project that brings together York University researchers and elementary school teachers at Joyce Public School in northwest Toronto to experimentally develop multiliteracies pedagogies in a context of emergent literacy education. The project, which has been continuously developing since 2003, searches for ways of socializing both children and teachers into new literacies in the primary and junior grades from a grassroots perspective that operates within the constraints of the modern political machinery that organizes formal education. The teacher-researchers who work in this community of practice carve out preferred trajectories for new literacies action research through narrative projects, focusing on perspectives such as playing with the myriad junctures between and across alphabetic page and iconic screen; creating dynamic textual representations; including community languages towards globally focused linguistic learning; and creating multiple representations of a narrative thread across language, genre, and culture. We work collaboratively to bridge theory and practice using a blended model that includes regular face-to-face workshops. Now an online workspace, and in its seventh year of consecutive funding, the project is moving into ludic approaches to multimodal literacy education through gaming.

Winds of change

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Evans ◽  
Barbara Reed ◽  
Henry Linger ◽  
Simon Goss ◽  
David Holmes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Process Analysis ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Records Management ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Analysis

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the role a recordkeeping informatics approach can play in understanding and addressing these challenges. In 2011, the Wind Tunnel located at the Defence Science Technology Organisation (DTSO)’s Fisherman’s Bend site in Melbourne and managed by the Flight Systems Branch (FSB) celebrated its 70th anniversary. While cause for celebration, it also raised concerns for DSTO aeronautical scientists and engineers as to capacities to effectively and efficiently manage the data legacy of such an important research facility for the next 70 years, given increased technological, organisational and collaboration complexities. Design/methodology/approach – This paper will detail how, through a collaborative action research project, the twin pillars of continuum thinking and recordkeeping metadata and the three facets of organisational culture, business process analysis and archival access, were used to examine the data, information, records and knowledge management challenges in this research data context. It will discuss how this perspective, was presented, engaged with and evolved into a set of strategies for the sustained development of FSB’s data, information and records management infrastructure, along with what is learnt about the approach through the action research process. Findings – The project found that stressing the underlying principles of recordkeeping, applied to information resources of all kinds, resonated with the scientific community of FSB. It identified appropriate strategic, policy and process frameworks to better govern information management activities. Research limitations/implications – The utility of a recordkeeping informatics approach to unpack, explore and develop strategies in technically and organisationally complex recordkeeping environment is demonstrated, along with the kinds of professional collaboration required to tackle research data challenges. Practical implications – In embracing technical and organisational complexity, the project has provided FSB with a strategic framework for the development of their information architecture so that it is both responsive to local needs, and consistent with broader DSTO requirements. Originality/value – This paper further develops recordkeeping informatics as an emerging approach for tackling the recordkeeping challenges of our era in relation to maintaining and sustaining the evidential authenticity, integrity and reliability of big complex research data sets.

scholarly journals Collaborative action research: Building authentic literate practices into a foreign language program

2011 ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Theresa Austin ◽  
Mark Blum
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Language Program ◽  
Literate Practices ◽  
Authentic Literacy

Two university professors collaborate to carry out an action research project on literacy in a world language program. This article reports on their negotiations to define literacy, how they adapt the use of texts to the cultural backgrounds and interests of their learners and integrate native speakers in a community that builds various understanding of texts through discussion. Our collaborative process provides one example of how action research can systematically inform teaching and learning to build authentic literacy practices in a second or foreign language program.

scholarly journals A Reflexive Eye on a Collaborative Action Research Project in School

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kitt Lyngsnes
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Collaborative Action ◽  
Teacher Researcher ◽  
Teachers Professional Development ◽  
Reflexive Analysis

This article presents a reflexive analysis of a collaborative action research project based on the “Nordic tradition” of action research. In this project I, in the role of researcher, worked with a team of four teachers in a Norwegian primary/lower secondary school to develop teaching practice focused on students’ learning. I have retrospectively analysed data from my research diary, meetings and interviews. The article describes how the collaboration and the relationship between the teacher team and the researcher developed, and how this process contributed to the teachers’ professional development. The results shed light on the complexity of teacher- researcher- relationships, and demonstrate the importance of engaging in reflexivity in collaborative action research.

scholarly journals Incorporación de contenidos de Actividades en el Medio Natural mediante la investigación-acción colaborativa (Integration of Activities in the natural environment as contents of education trhough collaborative action-research)

Retos ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 23-28
Author(s):  
Roberto Guillén Correas ◽  
Carlos Peñarrubia Lozano
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Collaborative Action ◽  
Practical Development ◽  
The City ◽  
Trabajo Colaborativo

Los diferentes valores otorgados a las Actividades en el Medio Natural las han convertido en un bloque de contenidos de obligado cumplimiento dentro del área de Educación Física. Esta investigación se fundamenta en la impulsión de su desarrollo práctico en un colegio de la ciudad de Zaragoza. El tratamiento de estas prácticas en el mismo se remite hasta el momento en experiencias puntuales, centradas especialmente en las campañas de Semana Blanca, en las cuales la participación del alumnado es reducida, al presentarse como actividades complementarias. Para llevar a cabo este cometido, se ha optado por el uso de la metodología de la investigación-acción colaborativa, destacando la importancia del trabajo cooperativo como medio para solventar las limitaciones dadas por este bloque de contenidos: desde la formación inicial del profesorado en esta materia, hasta la disposición de instalaciones y materiales específicos. De esta manera, se pueden diferenciar dos grupos de conclusiones dentro de este estudio: Por un lado, los factores necesarios para establecer una dinámica de trabajo colaborativo entre el profesorado de este centro educativo. Por otro lado, los aspectos requeridos para poder diseñar y afianzar propuestas de contenidos de Actividades en el Medio Natural en este centro, adaptándolos a sus propias características contextuales.Palabra clave: Educación Física, contenido de la educación, investigación-acción, trabajo colaborativo.Abstract: The different values †given to Activities in the Natural Environment have become a mandated content block within the area of Physical Education. This research is based on the urging of its practical development of a school in the city of Zaragoza. So far, the analysis of these practices in this school, refers to some specific experiences focused on the volunteer activities done during the «snow week», which means less participant students. Collaborative action-research is the methodology used for this purpose, therefore team-work is demanded to overcome the limitations presented by this block of contents: teacher training as well as both facilities and materials must be provided. Thus, we found two groups of conclusions: firstly, the factors necessary to establish a dynamic collaborative work among teachers of this school. Secondly, the aspects required to design and strengthen the proposed contents of environmental Activities in the school, adapting them to its own physical contextual characteristics.Key words: Physical Education, content of education, action-research, collaborative work.

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