For the Monday group and an invitation to colleagues.

5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8 13/11/06

After we've caught up with each others' news from the week I'm hoping that we can continue our conversation with Eden, Annie, Alon and Je Kan on their doctoral submissions as well as video-taping Alan's explanation of how a negative is a dynamic inclusion of a positive and his understanding of zero in terms of a dynamic balance. I'm also hoping that we can continue to explore the ontological, epistemological and methodological implications of Alan's paper on 'Inclusionality and the role of place, space and dynamic boundaries in evolutionary processes' (accessed at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/rayner/arphilosophica.htm ) for all our research programmes.

We promised Eden and Annie that we would focus part of our conversation this Monday on their doctoral writings. (Eden, I'd also like to video you as you explain your thesis to see if the video can help with the inclusion of your living presence in your thesis as part of a visual-narrative)

You can access Eden's and Annie's Abstracts at:

Annie - Interpreting Folkways of Teaching: A Life-history Narrative Inquiry into Characteristics of Chinese Secondary School EFL Teachers'Knowledge http://www.jackwhitehead.com/PhD/anniephdabs.htm

Eden - STRATEGIES THAT WORK FOR US. HOW DO I IMPROVE MY PRACTICE?  CREATING A DECOLONISING LIVING EDUCATIONAL THEORY. How have I moved from being a black outsider to a passionate insider/outsider carrying hope for humanity through a personally and socially decolonising practice infused by African Cosmology http://www.jackwhitehead.com/PhD/edenabs.htm

What I'd also like to bring into the conversation is Chapter 7 of Karen Tesson's Ph.D. on Dynamic Networks. An interdisciplinary study of network organization in biological and human social systems. Karen graduated in July 2006 and her research programme was supervised by Alan and Helen Haste. It seems to me that Karen's ideas have profound epistemological implications for the generation and evaluation of our explanations from our practice-based research. I'm thinking in particular of the implications of Karen's ideas on flow-form networks for extending Marian's ideas, on an emergent living theory of inclusional and responsive practice with a passion for compassion, to other relationally dynamic standards of practice and judgment. You can access Chapter 7 of Karen's thesis on, The study of flow-form networks: an introduction to the methodological issues and challenges, from: http://www.jackwhitehead.com/teesonphd/008c7.pdf . You can access the whole thesis from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/tesson.shtml

Margarida is continuing to spread ideas on the educational significance of proprioception in international contexts with visits to Portugal and Brazil:

Portugal, 25 November 06, event co-organised by the Portuguese Association for the Development of Learning Strategies and the Proprioception Trust.

1 lecture: Proprioception dysfunctions: Impact on life and learning strategies

1 workshop: Learning to learn

 Fortaleza, Brazil 15 & 16 December (peak of the Summer!!!)

Co-organised by a medical and a psychological organisation of Fortaleza, Brazil

Two lectures:

"Sit down...[Study]...Switch off. Biomechanics, Proprioception, Attention and Learning".  

 "Dyslexia in Adolescents and Adults: Learning and Life Strategies"

The call for proposals for the International Conference of Teacher Research 13-14 April, Chicago, Illinois, is now out

And you can access it at:

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/ictr05/ictr07.htm I'm hoping that a group of us will be going to AERA 07 if our papers are accepted and that we can present at ICTR at the end of the AERA week. The Theme, Purpose and Goals of ICTR 07 are:

Theme

From Theory to Advocacy: Using Practitioner Research as a Catalyst for Change

Purpose

To enable and encourage practitioner researchers to assume leadership roles in influencing education policies.

Goals

1.  To provide a forum for practitioner researchers to share the results of their research and engage in dialogue about education issues;

2.  To explore effective strategies for practitioner researchers to use their research findings to influence policies;

3.  To determine appropriate and effective ways for teacher educators and teacher researchers to collaborate in influencing policies;

4.  To educate and persuade policy-makers to invite practitioner researchers to participate in policy-making decisions; and

5.  To identify currently available opportunities for practitioner researchers to influence policies at the local, state, and/or national levels.

Marie is working with the Tuesday evening master's group to produce their accounts on Understanding Learners and Learning. Jackie has arranged for 5 teachers from the Grand Erie District School Board to join the group attending Jack's workshop on 'Living The Standards and Living Your Own Standards' at the Ontario College of Teachers 20-21 November.

The British Educational Research Association, Practitioner-Researcher 2006-7 e-seminar continues with lively discussions in the threads on 'Relational Accountability' and 'What are living standards of judgment'. Join and Leave the e-seminar at:

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=bera-practitioner-researcher&A=1

Do encourage research and masters students to contribute.

The Journal of Living Theories is being established as a multi-media journal and you can access the initial details at:

http://www.e-lar.net/education/moodle/

Looking forward to Monday evening's conversation. Any more news just e-mail it in to share on Monday evening.

Love Jack.