Practice and performance: changing perspectives of teachers through collaborative enquiry

Open innovation networks: a driver for knowledge mobilisation in schools?

“…Likewise, PLNs can be geared towards supporting network members to engage in the development of educational improvement-related innovation. For instance, PLNs might centre on addressing challenging circumstances and/or persistent issues of inequity and underperformance (in other words, ensuring all students, irrespective of background, gain the minimum skills required to function in today's society) (Arkhipenka et al, 2018;Armstrong et al, 2021;Muijs et al, 2010).…”

Supporting Muslim students through Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy

“…(Ham-mond & Jackson, 2015). Through Collaborative Inquiry (CI), educators recreate knowledge within communities of practice that support them in leveraging their students' unique backgrounds and competencies (Ainscow, 2012;Arkhipenka et al, 2018;DeLuca et al, 2015;Wenger, 1998). Consequently, an engagement in CI help promotes CRRP by building upon students' lived experiences, family/ community engagement, and cultural/religious knowledge, which may eventually assist teachers in restructuring practices that enhance students' authentic engagement.…”

Conquering the professional learning network labyrinth: what is required from the networked school leader?

“…The emergence of networks within education has, on one hand, been driven by the interconnected and pervasive nature of issues facing education (Dı´az-Gibson et al, 2017). Examples of such issues include: providing effective schooling in an age of austerity, which puts pressures on the staff, resource and infrastructure that can be afforded ([removed for peer review]); ensuring all children realise their potential and are effectively supported to enter society as competent, responsible citizens, irrespective of background and situation (Arkhipenka et al, 2018); preparing the students of today to be the workforce of tomorrow, when the nature of the work they will be doing and the skills required to do it are uncertain (ibid); likewise is the need to ensure teachers have the skills and knowledge to adapt to fast changing social and economic related educational imperatives (de Vries and Prenger, 2018). The focus of this paper is networks as centred around schools.…”

“…Conversely, the danger of including PLN activity in performance targets is that it might encourage participants to seek 'quick wins' rather than pursue inquiry led processes that, although are likely to result in more considered and beneficial outcomes, typically take longer and can sometimes lead to a range of approaches to teaching and learning being explored and discarded before concrete changes are fixed upon (Arkhipenka et al, 2018). As such, if PLN activity is included within performance targets it needs to be accompanied by an expectation that networked learning represents a long term reflective endeavour that is being undertaken in order to meaningfully tackle pressing problems of teaching and learning.…”

“…In particular, we suggest that perhaps one way to address the social fragmentation evident from the shift to top down governance to networks (e.g. Arkhipenka et al, 2018;Bauman, 2012;Castells, 2010;Dı´az-Gibson et al, 2017;Giddens, 1990) is to find ways to use the triad of formalisation, prioritisation and mobilisation to help institutional leaders and their staff, across a range of settings and sectors, to reach out, to engage with and to support those around them.…”