While the challenge of improving young North Americans’ civic engagement seems to lie in the hands of schools, studying alternative ways of teaching citizenship education could benefit the current educational system. In this context, free schools (i.e., schools run democratically by students and teachers), guided by a philosophy that aims at engaging students civically through the democratic activities that they support, offer a relatively unexplored ground for research. The present inquiry is a case study using tools of ethnography and drawing upon some principles of complexity thinking. It aims at understanding students’ citizenship education experiences during democratic activities in a Canadian free school. It describes many experiences that can arise from these activities. They occurred within a school that operated democratically based on a consensus-model. More precisely, they took place during two kinds of democratic activities: class meetings, which regulated the social life of the school, and judicial committees, whose function was to solve conflicts at the school. During these activities, students mostly experienced a combination of feelings of appreciation, concernment and empowerment. While experiencing these feelings, they predominantly engaged in decision-making and conflict resolution processes. During these processes, students modified their conflict resolutions skills, various conceptions, and their participation in democratic activities and in the school. Based on these findings, the study concludes that students can develop certain skills and attitude associated to citizenship education during these activities and become active from a citizenship perspective. Hence, these democratic activities represent alternative strategies that can assist educators in teaching about citizenship.

Developmental evaluation (Patton, 1994, 2011) is one of the latest approaches to be introduced into evaluation practice. It purports to support the development of social innovation by infusing evaluative thinking through collaboration between program clients and the developmental evaluator (Patton, 2011). In an attempt to build “practical knowledge” (Schwandt, 2008) about this emerging approach, this research seeks to investigate the capacity of developmental evaluation to support innovation. This thesis reports on a case study of the Assessment Pilot Initiative (API) where developmental evaluation was used to support the development of a novel approach to teacher education. Charged with a vision to innovate their own teaching practices and the learning of teacher candidates, the instructors of the case invited a developmental evaluator onboard in a yearlong collaboration. While the instructors, along with the developmental evaluator, were uncertain about the outcome of the initiative or how best to proceed, this engagement resulted in a novel adaptation of microblogging web technology (Twitter) that came to be piloted with a group of teacher candidates. This thesis presents an analysis of the development process and the contributions developmental evaluation made in enabling the development of the API. Such analysis is anchored in the records of the program development, and in the perspectives of the program clients and the developmental evaluator. Analyzing the program development records for developmental moments revealed certain trends and patterns that, when triangulated with interview data from program clients and with reflections from the developmental evaluator, provided intricate insights into how the development came about and of the contributions developmental evaluation made in this case. Development of API proceeded in a highly nonlinear, emergent process through six foci of development. Critical to addressing the uncertainty and complexity that might had otherwise inhibited development, developmental evaluation enabled a data-informed approach that lent a quality of responsiveness to the emergent, evolving nature of the initiative. The developmental evaluator was instrumental in identifying activities that helped make explicit values and assumptions underpinning the initiative and in structuring a learning framework to engage program clients in sense-making. The notion of design emerged from analysis as an important function of developmental evaluation. Implications of the findings are discussed. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-12-29 18:05:34.631

In this workshop we present an innovative teaching, learning and research setting that engages beginning teachers in mathematical inquiry as they investigate, represent and connect mathematical ideas through mathematical conversation, reasoning and argument. This workshop connects to the themes of teacher preparation and teaching through problem solving. Drawing on new paradigms to think about teaching and learning, we orient our work within complexity theory (Davis & Sumara, 2006; Holland, 1998; Johnson, 2001; Maturana & Varela, 1987; Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991) to understand teaching|learning as a complex iterative process through which opportunities for learning arise out of dynamic interactions. Varela, Thompson and Rosch, (1991) use the term co-emergence to understand how the individual and the environment inform each other and are “bound together in reciprocal specification and selection” (p.174). In particular we are interested in the conditions that enable the co-emergence of teaching|learning collectives that support the generation of new mathematical and pedagogical ideas and understandings. The setting is a one-week summer math program designed for prospective elementary teachers to deepen particular mathematical concepts taught in elementary school. The program is facilitated by recently graduated secondary mathematics teachers to provide them an opportunity to experience mathematics teaching|learning through rich problems. The data collected include questionnaires, interviews, and video recordings. Our analyses show that many a-ha moments of mathematical and pedagogical insight are experienced by both groups as they work together throughout the week. In this workshop we will actively engage the audience in an exploration of the mathematics problems that we pose in this unique teaching|learning environment. We will present our data on the participants’ mathematical and pedagogical responses and open a discussion of the implications of our work.

Thesis (MPhil (Sustainable Development Planning and Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This research explores spaces for enchantment and the unknown, exploring our relationship to fairy-tales and alternative ways of dreaming that break from a modern worldview, using complexity thinking as lens. I conducted extra-mural group work with two groups of adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds. I considered the world young people receive at a metaphysical level; the world they dream of, connect to and enact. My thesis is based on the premise that we must act towards a ‘sustainable unknown development’ that goes beyond modern deadly homogenisation. The research objectives were as follows: Firstly, to explore the relationship between dreams (about the future) and a sustainable future. Secondly, to reflect, based on the group’s holding-space, on our relationship to dreams. Thirdly, to reflect on possible alternative ways of approaching the unknown and enacting enchantment to create change. Fourthly, to explore the importance of imagination and creativity with regards to the above. I review literature pertaining to the affects of the modern paradigm, specifically in its fairy tale blueprinting form, on our world. I argue that this paradigm is currently dangerous to the earth as a living system; causing the oppression and abandonment of nature, the feminine, children and our imagination. Alternative ways such as states of ‘interbeing’, polycentric thinking, and the experience of thresholds and heterotopian spaces where differences meet, are considered. The importance of personal experience and imagination in building resilience and meaning in the unknown are emphasised. My research uses a practical design of ‘enchantment methodology’. Methodologically it tries to tackle some ontological questions, considering different approaches in which negotiation is possible at a metaphysical level. My findings were that although alternative approaches do exist they cannot be generalised in a modern thinking way. Beyond the modern numbness and the tantrums of breaking away from its devastating divides, is the potential of inner wisdom found in our own hearts. Recommendations are that more holding spaces are created to promote an alternative relationship to the unknown to nurture a sense of enchantment.

Studien har som syfte att tolka och förstå det som pågår i lärarens vardag med hjälp av komplexitetsteorier. Komplexitetsteorier utgör de specifika delarna i komplexitetstänkande som är en resurs för att diskutera relationen mellan skolan som komplext system, vetenskaplig grund och evidens. En förståelse bestående av att lärares vardag är mång- och tvetydig till dess innehåll är väl känt och beskrivet genom exempelvis framställningar av vad en lärares görande består av. För att tolka lärarens vardag är komplexitetsteorier inte vanligt förekommande. Komplexitetsteorier studerar mönster av självorganisering och det pågående med fokus på relationer. Komplexa system är icke-linjära och kausaliteten är cirkulär. Intentionen med komplexitetstänkande är att beskriva, tolka och förstå mönster av komplexitet. För att visa på en helhet och mönster har studien en narrativ ansats. Ett narrativt förhållningssätt ligger nära vardagens hantering av en rad paradoxer där det kända och okända samtidigt förekommer. För att samla in rika berättelser om lärarens vardag användes kvalitativa intervjuer som metod. Resultat visar på att det är det mångsidiga innehållet i relationerna som bland annat skapar komplexiteten i lärares vardag. Lärarens vardag består av många delar och ett komplexitetstänkande sätter fokus på att sätta ihop delarna till helhet och se mönster. Resultatet visar också på att en rad olika paradoxer måste hanteras. I berättelserna framträder hur lärarna hanterar en rad olika processer i relationen mellan kontroll och icke-kontroll, mellan på förhand det kända och okända där överraskningar är en del av vardagen, en del av interaktionen mellan människor. I en evidensbaserad praktik framträder att lärarens hantering av en rad paradoxer begränsas eftersom idén om evidensbaserad praktik innebär generaliserbara metoder där utfallet anses vara givet. Komplexitetstänkande innebär att det ställs andra krav på användning av vetenskaplig grund. Aktörer som rektorer, huvudmän och Skolverket bör i utformning av stöd till skolor inkludera tanken om att praktiken är ett komplext system. / The purpose is to use complexity theories to describe, interpret and understand teacher's everyday life. An everyday life where the predictable and the unpredictable exist in parallel. In relation to the teacher's everyday life and complexity theories, scientific basis and evidence are discussed. To show a cohesive complexity, the study has a narrative approach. A narrative approach is close to the structure of everyday life where the known and the unknown exist in symbiosis. To collect rich stories about the teacher's everyday life, qualitative interviews were used as a method. The result shows the circular causality that exists in non-linear systems. The teacher's everyday life contains many different processes that create a high degree of complexity. Some key processes are communication, relationships and complexity that are closely linked. Words that have in common the local interaction that includes the social as well as material things where there are possibilities of action. It is the multilateral job description that, among other things, creates the complexity of teachers' everyday lives. Structures and routines are important in order to be able to reduce the complexity of everyday life to a certain extent. Further on to deal with the paradox between control and non-control. Based on complexity theories, structures must contain the opportunity to be interpreted, adapted and translated to the practice. The school is a non-linear system and evidence-based practice is based on a linear system. In order to be able to interact with the practice, government investment in school to increase a more scientific ground. One of these projects is called, “läslyftet”. These projects need to take into account the processes and the unique in the practice. The study's contribution is to use complexity theories to show other perspectives on how change can take place in school. Specifically, how scientific basis and evidence can interact in the complex practice. Furthermore, show how complexity theories can help to make it possible to find new paths to development within school.