This article presents findings from a comparative case study of the learning experiences of two graduate students in an online action research course. The key roles played by reflection and co-reflection, an emerging concept, are identified through the use of narrative analysis. Co-reflection is a collaborative critical thinking process mediated by language, broadly construed to include all meaningful signs. Two types of co-reflection are proposed: tacit and active. Regardless of type, the evidence shows that co-reflection involves cognitive and affective interactions in synergy with relationship building. To the study of group cognition, this study contributes evidence of the potential of co-reflection as a core process. The simple, flexible software tools used in the course (wiki-style collaborative software and simple email and chat programs) effectively supported inquiry learning and co-reflection by allowing learners to freely and easily create their own web pages and to adapt the tools for their different communication and learning styles.

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As the information environment becomes increasingly complex and challenging, Library and Information Studies (LIS) education is called upon to nurture innovative leaders capable of managing complex situations and "wicked problems." While disciplinary expertise remains essential, higher levels of mental complexity and adaptive capabilities are also needed to manage complexity. This article reviews three transformational learning approaches with the potential to effectively guide student growth toward these higher levels: (1) overcoming immunity to change, (2) threshold concepts and variation theories, and (3) transformative learning theory. All three approaches aim at transforming high-level meanings that are limiting into understandings that empower in order to achieve pragmatic goals, comprehend foundational disciplinary concepts, and generate new frames of reference for social justice.

This paper presents a differential usage study of a web-based resource database that provides both search and associative browsing functionality. The associative browsing is based on emergent meta-data: meta-data that is derived from the terms that users associate with resources they have contributed to the system. We argue that this approach provides a low cognitive load information seeking mechanism, and can also reduce the effort required by the user to enter meta-data when contributing resources. In this paper we concentrate on a three-month study of student librarians using the system, with analysis of their activities and other data collected by questionnaire. The results suggest that associative browsing was at least as popular as search, and that providing perspectives on emerging meta-data during the contribution process may have helped the community self-organize a vocabulary. .

School improvement often involves partnerships between multiple stakeholder groups. In order to understand the strengths and challenges of a partnership, it is necessary to examine the objectives and practices of the constituent groups and the forces that shape these practices. This paper presents an activity theory analysis of relationships between three professional communities of practice in a school reform effort, Hawai`i Networked Learning Communities. Essential tensions between the activity systems of the communities are analyzed to understand key issues encountered in the implementation, particularly with respect to the role of technology in mediating a program of professional development.