Browsing by Author "Brown, B."

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    High School Redesign: Carnegie Unit as a Catalyst for Change.
    (Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 2020) Brown, B.; Alonso-Yanez, G.; Friesen, S.; Jacobsen, Michele
    Researchers examined seven schools in Alberta undergoing high school redesign and removing the Carnegie Unit, a time-based metric for awarding course credits. A mixed methods convergent parallel design was used to gather data from leadership teams in the schools and to examine evidence of impact on student learning. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed concurrently and then merged for the analysis. Findings illustrate that removing the Carnegie Unit was a catalyst for redesign and learning improvements. Five constitutive factors enable high school redesign, including a collective disposition as a learning community, a focus on relationship building, obtaining student input, collaboration, and making changes to learning tasks and assessment practices. The findings provide insight into the ways in which leadership teams formed complex adaptive systems to enable change and may serve to inform practitioners and school leaders, schools and systems, and those who study policy changes in schools.
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    Reflection as pedagogy in action research
    (Informa UK Limited, 2021-02-15) Simmons, M.; McDermott, M.; Eaton, S.E.; Brown, B.; Jacobsen, Michele
    In this paper, we attend to the pedagogical role of reflection within action research practices. We discuss educational considerations of the complex process of improving curriculum, while undertaking collaborative research in which reflection within the iterative process of action research became pedagogical. We draw upon our reflections from an action research project on research-based learning in course-based, professional graduate programs. In particular, our purpose was to think about our reflections from diverse roles and viewpoints, from associate dean, academic coordinator, instructor, and co-researchers, to explore the various ways in which our collaborative understandings informed graduate program design. Our narrative reflections allowed us to learn about our individual and collective beliefs about action research, and the ways in which our beliefs and practices shaped graduate students’ experiences learning about and conducting action research. In drawing on our critical reflective processes, we show both the tensions and possibilities of collaboration in action research. We conclude, after reflecting on our collective processes engaged in this paper, that documenting researchers’ experiences can be vital in action research for addressing complex educational challenges in the improvement of curriculum and programs, and in creating the conditions for enhanced student learning experiences. © 2021 Educational Action Research.