This study uses selected data from a qualitative study by Ney, Stoltz and Maloney (2013) who explored family experiences of voice and participation in child protection family group conferences in British Columbia, Canada. A family group conference is a decision-making process founded on strengths-based philosophies that encourages collaborative and empowering relationships between child protection workers and client families. Traditionally, relationships between these workers and client families in child protection are situated within an environment founded on problem-based perspectives with child protection workers positioned as experts. This study explores the perspectives of child protection workers and their client families about their experiences with a family group conference, focusing on areas of dissonance between strengths- and problem-based perspectives that are assessed by analyzing interview transcripts. Purposeful extreme case sampling was conducted to select three cases from the primary study that represented both positive and negative family experiences. Inductive and deductive thematic analyses were conducted on interview transcripts of nine participants. Findings from the thematic analyses as well as between-case, within-case and within-participant comparisons revealed an underlying dissonance in two of the three cases in that the workers endorsed the strengths-based philosophies of family group conferencing as well as – and perhaps unknowingly - the problem-based philosophies inherent in child protection practice. The families from these cases experienced the family group conference in contradiction to its strengths-based philosophies. The results point to possible connections between dissonance in practice, worker worldview and family experience. Recommendations for further research and for child protection workers to be more reflective and aware of worldviews are discussed. / Graduate / 0452 / 0630 / wtm@uvic.ca

The following research aimed to analyze whether the technological flow at Moodle boosts the problem-dialogic practice of the tutors at UAB/UFSM. According to the principles of school action-investigation and Freire s dialogic-problem, the concepts like interaction, interactivity, collaboration, and online monitoring are priority, since they constitute essential actions for technological flow. Operating with flow in order to understand, create, modify, and share is essential to figure out limit situations, enabling the problem-dialogic practice to emancipate Distance Learning students. Data has been obtained through the following steps: bibliographical study, participant observation, Moodle assessment research, survey. The delimitation, organization, and data analysis was conducted through methodological orientation of three matrices: Problem-Dialogic Matrix (MDP), Theme-Organizational Matrix (MTO), and Theme-analytical Matrix (MTA). The results of this investigation led to the practice of tutors of UAB/UFSM to reach the appropriate indexes for dialogic and problems concerning syllabus since technological flow is not limited to technical and practical standards only. Concluding, technological flow at Moodle boosts the dialogic when tutors practice goes both to technical and practical levels to independence. / O objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar se a fluência tecnológica no Moodle potencializa a prática dialógico-problematizadora dos tutores na UAB/UFSM. Conforme os princípios da investigação-ação escolar e do diálogo-problematizador freireano, priorizamos conceitos como a interação, interatividade, colaboração e monitoramento online, pois constituem ações essenciais para a fluência tecnológica. Operar com fluência, no sentido de compreender, criar, modificar e compartilhar colaborativamente, é essencial para problematização das situações-limite, transformando a prática dialógico-problematizadora em caminho para a emancipação dos estudantes na EaD. A obtenção dos dados envolveu as seguintes etapas: estudo bibliográfico, observação participante, questionário survey do Moodle e questionário. A delimitação, organização e análise dos dados foi realizada a partir da orientação metodológica de três matrizes: Matriz Dialógico- Problematizadora (MDP), Matriz Temático-Organizadora (MTO) e Matriz Temático- Analítica (MTA). Os resultados da investigação apontam que a prática dos tutores na UAB/UFSM alcança os índices desejáveis de dialogicidade e problematização em torno dos conteúdos curriculares desde que a fluência tecnológica não se limite aos patamares técnico e prático apenas. Conclusivamente, a fluência tecnológica no Moodle potencializa diálogo-problematizador quando a prática dos tutores perpassa tanto os níveis técnico e prático quanto emancipatório.

There are persistent and pervasive issues plaguing American education, and almost seventy years of educational reform efforts have failed to adequately improve educational outcomes for many of America’s children. Networked improvement communities (or NICs) are a type of social organization created to address such problems and are proposed as an effective and efficient way to organize improvement efforts. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the sensemaking experience of a newly-formed networked improvement community as members engaged in inquiry around a chosen problem of practice. During network initiation, NIC members engage in experiences to collaboratively identify and collectively articulate a central problem of practice, and these intentional inquiry processes are a critical step for newly-formed networks. The study was designed to answer the following questions about this research case: What initial understandings emerged about the networked improvement community's chosen problem of practice? How did members of a newly-formed networked improvement community begin to make sense of their organizational problem of practice through inquiry? What cues triggered member sensemaking? What actions propelled member sensemaking forward? Data collection methods included the selection of naturally occurring network inquiry documents originating from member-generated student and teacher journey map experiences and corresponding member reflections and discussion via a network blog (or discussion forum). The data were analyzed utilizing both deductive and inductive strategies across multiple phases of analysis. Likewise, the data were reviewed against the study’s conceptual framework, which was based on current research on networked improvement communities and the sensemaking process. Measures of rigor were achieved through multiple strategies, including triangulation, disconfirming evidence, rich descriptions, theory-based sampling strategy, and peer debriefing/expert review. The data revealed not only a rich understanding of the network’s problem of practice but also provided a window into what types of cues triggered member sensemaking in this social structure and what actions propelled member sensemaking forward in this ongoing process.

In the past 30 years there has been a steady and growing appreciation in the literature of the importance and value of teachers' practical wisdom (TPW) - or phronesis as it is also known - to further an understanding of classroom practice and of the need to find ways to help teachers generate and share their perspectives with others. Nevertheless, the potential of this kind of knowledge (understood by Aristotle to be both practical and moral in its orientation) to contribute valuable insights to educational debates has still to be realised. Rather, educational decisions about policy and practice in many contexts (whether at a national or institutional level) are still largely driven by theoretical and technical knowledge perspectives and teacher practical wisdom perspectives are still often under-valued and remain under-represented in educational literature. One of the main reasons for this put forward in this thesis is the tendency in much of the literature to see this form of knowledge as classroom bound rather than to realise the ways in which it can inform broader pedagogical discussions. Bearing all of the above in mind, the aim of the study reported in this thesis into the TPW of 14 experienced expatriate English as a foreign language teachers (EEEFLTs) working in English language centres (ELCs) across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is threefold. Its first aim is to provide a platform for the EEEFLTs to demonstrate the contribution their TPW can potentially make in addressing syllabus related issues in the KSA ELCs they have worked and, in doing so, show how the use of TPW is not confined to the classroom. Its second aim is to increase the visibility of the participants' TPW and thus raise awareness of the importance of research into TPW and to provide a model for how this can be conducted. The study's final aim is to provide a deeper understanding of the nature of TPW. Located in the interpretive paradigm, this study uses a TPW-friendly methodology to investigate TPW: interpretive phronetic educational research (IPER), which approaches and conducts educational research through a moral and practical problem-driven lens. This understanding drives the study's methodology and all stages of its data collection and analysis and the methods used in both. The goal of such methods is an epistemological one to generate TPW whilst empowering it also by highlighting its validity and how it is easily articulated - and thus captured - and not confined to the classroom. To assist with its articulation and capture, the study employs a process defined as Problematisation: a four-stage process consisting of reflection, problematisation, deliberation and articulation which drives and shapes the semi-structured interviews the study employs and the secondary research questions that inform the primary research question. The study concludes that the EEEFLTs use their TPW as a lens (that has 12 qualities) through which to view KSA ELC syllabi and, in doing so, identify many problems with the syllabi and subsequent consequences and suggest solutions to address both. These problems, consequences and solutions have been organised under six prominent categories that represent six main problem areas to emerge from the data that suggest the syllabi are teacher, textbook and test-centred, top-down, teacher-proof and time-driven. These categories represent six problem areas that in turn reflect the problematic, negative and disempowering context from which the data informing such categories and themes have been drawn. In this study, TPW is considered disempowered knowledge as a result of the disempowering context within which it has been acquired and is used. Previous TPW studies have been conducted in more positive settings and have perhaps for this reason not focused on TPW's disempowerment. In contrast, this study takes on a much more political role as it explores TPW's disempowerment in the KSA ELC context as well as in the broader context of academia and the literature. TPW's lack of visibility in TESOL and education has several implications because unless TPW achieves greater visibility, it may fade into extinction and its potential may never be realised. This study has been conducted in an attempt to prevent this happening.