Volumen 2 (2015): Edición 1 (August 2015)

In this article, I discuss the contribution of theoretical resources to the transformation in my thinking about professional development and accountability, within an action research self-study of practice as a civil servant, in the context of participation on the Doctor in Education (Leadership) programme at Dublin City University (DCU) in the period 2008-2012. It is at the intersection of these subject positions, between theory and practice, that professional development was explored through the ‘leadership problem’ of encouraging trainer colleagues to investigate the educational potential of information and communications technologies (ICT) for the development of their practice. Ultimately, this constituted a critical space for sustained dialogue between the self and the social in exploring professional subjectivity. The resources discussed supported the interrogation of social, cultural and historical conditions influencing self-understanding and narrative reasoning (Tamboukou, 2008) and movement from strategic to communicative reasoning (Habermas, 1984). It is claimed that this has significance for the development of a more educational training practice, which expresses a concern for subjectivity and agency in the face of a growing ‘performativity’ in professional life (Ball, 2003).

The author, a school principal with significant classroom responsibilities recounts his journey towards authenticity as an independent teacher-researcher. His career as a researcher began in the scientific-knowledge tradition and then moved into the practical-knowledge tradition. He describes how Donald Schön, the father of reflective practice, has transformed his professional life, leading him to develop a deeply thoughtful practice, one that makes use of the literature to augment, challenge, and legitimise the work he does in his school. The author delves into the messy world of the professional experiment, and the idea that professionals can, and do, act and think differently to third-person researchers. Finally, the author shares his story about how the members of a virtual community of scholars have facilitated his move from the periphery of the researching community into an authentic and valued practitioner-colleague with a personal theory of practice

In Germany, all-day care and all-day schooling are currently increasing on a large-scale. The extended time children spend in educational institutions could potentially result in limited access to nature experience for children. On the other hand, it could equally create opportunities for informal nature experience if school playgrounds have a specific nature-oriented design. This article is written from the perspective of a primary school teacher and presents the findings of a meta-analysis which looks at the impact nature experience has on the development of children. Furthermore, the first results of a research study on green playgrounds in primary schools is discussed. The results so far seem to indicate that green school playgrounds have the potential of providing nature experience particularly for primary students

In this article, I describe my experience of preparing and delivering a brand new computing undergraduate course in a new university and in doing so, share how the special institutional push of the active learning pedagogy of the university changed the way I prepared and delivered the course, and ended up transforming my own view of teaching. I was faced with an unusual cohort of students who were already familiar with active learning styles in classes, were proactive, vocal, and argumentative, were not afraid of making mistakes and of challenging the authorities, were extremely articulate expressing themselves and who had worked in a project- and team-based setting throughout the programme. As such, a very different method of teaching needed to be in place, not for the purpose of improving the in-class engagement, but out of necessity. In the process of creating and running this course, I witnessed a major shift in the allocation of my time, efforts and other resources: from general to specific, from teaching to advising to observing, from elaborate preclass preparations to impromptu, in-class discussions, thus bringing all my design skills and experiences to the table.

This paper demonstrates the value of embracing digital technology in order to effect positive change in a non-governmental (NGO) charity organisation, in this case the Irish Charity Crosscause. The outcome of the research was the creation of a charity video, Crosscause: Making a Difference, to showcase humanitarian work in Ireland and Romania with a view to inspiring others to contribute in some capacity to this cause. Video is an important medium to provide connections with a wider audience, as it gives humanitarian workers and marginalised communities an opportunity to tell their story by making a compelling and evocative case to others. Visual media not only makes connections with an audience, but can also positively challenge people to consider what is happening in the world around them.

The research process incorporated an entrepreneurial methodology - an Educational Entrepreneurial approach to action research-with four steps: Exploring, Understanding, Creating and Transforming, which is designed to guide practitioner-researchers as they embrace digital technology to resolve an identified need in a workplace context, including people in disadvantaged settings. In this research, there was an identified need for a charity video to link the giving in Ireland to the receiving in Romania, so that viewers could see the tangible effects of their contributions. A further aim of the research was to illustrate how volunteering can inspire solidarity among Irish and Romanian communities.