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The purpose of this paper is to focus on a partnership-based mentoring model and the learning experiences of participant mentees and mentors. As part of the project, newly qualified teachers (NQTs) were supported to develop and implement a practitioner enquiry (teacher/action research) in a learning community involving two local authorities and an initial teacher education institution.

Qualitative data were collected from five semi-structured focus group interviews with key participant groupings to uncover perceptions and experiences of the partnership and professional learning therein. Analysis using an inductive and iterative approach pinpointed a number of emerging themes used to frame key elements of the findings.

Findings suggested that the partnership-based model promoted the professional learning and development of NQTs and their mentors in various ways. The nature and shape of the partnership had an influence on the quality of mentoring and support experienced. The community effectively supported the implementation of meaningful enquiry projects, which had clear connections to the enhancement of professional practice and pupil learning. However, specific tensions and conflicts emerged as hindrances to successful partnership-based mentoring in the specific context.

New insights into the role of a partnership-based mentoring scheme supporting practitioner enquiry-based learning of NQTs emerged. The local, layered community defining the partnership, and operating within the frame of a national induction scheme, was analysed. Benefits for partners were identified and specific challenges and tensions highlighted, both providing new evidence with potential to impact policy and practice. Policy developments supporting teachers to be mentors and enquiring professionals need to recognise the structural and support tensions that exist in contextual practice.

The research described in this article seeks to address the question of the extent to which a role‐based perspective can provide insight into the distributed and networked form of leadership.

A model provides insight into the distributed and networked form of leadership, and the roles that executives can adopt in formal, informal or temporary groups within the organisation's overall senior management team. The methodology adopted is qualitative, focusing on inquiry‐based learning which enabled the authors to gather data on those aspects of the social structure within which they were embedded that related specifically to the leadership roles available to executives and the networks they formed.

Generically applicable links between leadership roles are identified that provides structure to the task accomplishment networks within groups executives form when discharging their leadership responsibilities. Characterising leadership in terms of role, and the task networks that executives form, is found to facilitate improvement in the speed with which groups gain productive contributions from their members.

A case study of three demographically similar multinational engineering companies engaged in the design, development and manufacture of rotating turbo‐machinery provides the platform for the research. The concepts advanced will require validating in other organisations of different demographic profiles.

The concepts advanced, and implications discussed, provide an insight into the distributed and networked form of leadership. The practical steps individual executives can take to contribute to the speed with which groups gain productive contributions from their members are highlighted.

This article attempts to assist executives within a senior management team to better adapt and coordinate their behaviour with other executives. In so doing, it is suggested that executives contribute more positively to the development of groups and the speed with which the groups of which they are a part gain productive contributions from their members.

One of the most widely accepted goals of social studies education is to produce knowledgeable and caring citizens. It is, therefore, imperative that students have the opportunity to participate in public issues and have a meaningful voice within their community. Students must learn how to gather information, solve problems and make civic decisions (Saxe, D. W. (1997). The distinctive mission of social studies education. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems and possibilities (pp. 39–55). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Thus, educators and staff in higher education institutions should encourage their students to create their own questions, cultivate investigative strategies, formulate theories and apply new concepts to their own lives in a variety of methods (Fitzsimmons, P. F., & Goldhaber, J. (1997). Siphons, pumps, and missile launchers: Inquiry at the further and higher education [online]. Edinburgh: Scottish Funding Council). Inquiry-based instruction is a pedagogical strategy that places the educator in the role of a facilitator where students are pushed to think critically and construct meaningful knowledge. Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a crucial practice for students to grasp and the earlier they are exposed to this style of learning, the better the educational results will be in regard to cognitive development. For instance, (Frederiksen, White, & Shimoda, 1999) found that students who take part in inquiry-based learning outperform those students in traditional classrooms on standardised assessments. This chapter explores a theoretical discussion of IBL and a subsequent theory of change focusing on the potential desired impact on the student learning experience in Irish higher education.

The core themes include the following:

1. How educators in the social sciences conceptualise, design and facilitate IBL?

2. The location and commencement of the development of an IBL ‘mind-set’.

3. Informal theories of change in the social sciences, and a discussion on disciplinary patterns and the discernation of differences.

4. What have educators learned about designing and facilitating IBL? The challenges of designing and facilitating IBL, in the social sciences.

5. Plans for further developing IBL practice in an international context.

How educators in the social sciences conceptualise, design and facilitate IBL?

The location and commencement of the development of an IBL ‘mind-set’.

Informal theories of change in the social sciences, and a discussion on disciplinary patterns and the discernation of differences.

What have educators learned about designing and facilitating IBL? The challenges of designing and facilitating IBL, in the social sciences.

Plans for further developing IBL practice in an international context.

Within the developing exploration of the role of the scholar-practitioner, the situation in which scholar-practitioners engage in the scholarship of practice in their own organizational systems has not received much attention. This chapter adopts the position that scholar-practitioners are not merely practitioners who do research but rather that they integrate scholarship in their practice and generate actionable knowledge, that is, knowledge that is robust for scholars and actionable for practitioners. This chapter explores the phenomenon of scholar-practitioners engaging in the scholarship of practice in their own organizational systems as inside change agents. It discusses how scholar-practitioners engage in inquiry-in-action in first-, second-, and third-person modes of inquiry and practice in the present tense and provides a methodology and methods for such engagement that it be rigorous, reflective, and relevant.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of governing in integrated care networks. Asking how and why the governance of these networks emerges and evolves over time, it responds to calls for more innovative thinking in this field.

Data result from a rare longitudinal qualitative case study conducted with the Healthcare Centre Lower Engadin, the lead organisation of pioneering health and social care network in a rural Swiss region.

Actors governed the network through repetitive sequences of collaborative inquiry, a practice through which they defined and addressed recurrent problems of network governance and joint network action in creative and experimental ways.

Explaining how and why the governance of integrated care networks emerges and evolves, this study adds a dynamic theory to previous research, which has studied the determinants of effective network governance without considering their temporal evolution. It also contributes to the wider network literature, drawing attention to the pivotal role of meaning making, creativity and experimentation for understanding network governance dynamics.

The study invites practitioners to reflect on how they want to design collaborative inquiry in their own contexts. Important design levers include the creation of communication forums, trust and information transparency.

The study adds a rare longitudinal perspective on the governance of integrated care networks.

Many universities run Writing Centers to provide support for students wishing to improve their academic literacy. These centers are ideal venues for peer tutoring, which may benefit both student-tutors (through tutoring skills development), and those tutored (through opportunities to discuss writing with a supportive peer). In the context of a university in the GCC region, peer tutors, prior to working, must complete required Communication courses. The syllabuses reflect student-centered and collaborative post-process writing approaches, where scaffolding is emphasized over direction, and word-by-word instructor correction of student writing is de-emphasized. Peer tutors also undergo preparation aimed at equipping them with an understanding of the rationale for these approaches and the skills needed to adapt them to tutoring. Given these experiences, the researchers set out to determine whether tutors are able to articulate such understandings and apply them to tutoring. Interconnected interpretative methods were deployed, including tutoring observation, consultation-conversation analysis and semi-structured interviews with tutors. Results indicate that tutors have significant recent experience of non-directive writing classes and may be aware of the rationale and benefits of such approaches. However, in their tutoring, content appears to be transferred from their most recent experiences but their style relies on instruction predominated by telling, explaining, demonstrating and directing, reflecting formative experience at school. The relationship between tutors’ experience, preparation, articulation and practice is explored, and recommendations are made to enhance Writing Center practices, in line with the concept of a constructively-aligned instruction system where all components address the same agenda and support each other.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This research paper explores the value of collaborative inquiry networks of headteachers and curriculum coordinators to cope with 2020's coronavirus pandemic in Chile. Specifically, the authors describe the main challenges that networks identify in their contexts, the collaborative practices performed by different schools to address these challenges, and the influence of the networks on the innovative responses of teachers in their own schools.

This is a mixed-method study from a complementary stance using different methods and data of a project implemented with a total of 54 headteachers and curriculum coordinators. The data sources were participants' individual reports, the network teams' reports of their collaborative inquiry projects, and a short open-ended questionnaire responded by teachers that did not participate directly in the networks but benefited from their work. The data were analyzed using content analysis, categories were created to organize and describe the main findings.

Participants of the networks reported that their active participation in the collaborative inquiry allows them to share knowledge among different schools and has helped them to support innovative practices in their own schools. Specifically, they have reported that collaborating has permitted them to maintain a pedagogical focus, foster distributed leadership within the school communities, provide them with greater autonomy, and develop skills to favor the emotional containment of their teams. Inquiry teams perform diverse collective practices; they designed and applied virtual surveys, planned and implemented virtual workshops with teachers, and generated meaningful reflection about formative assessment and pedagogical practices.

This work offers insights into how the Chilean school system has responded to COVID-19 challenges and shows how despite the negative aspects of the pandemic, it has become an opportunity to recognize and enhance teachers' professional development through the collaboration among different schools. Most headteachers and curriculum coordinators reported that an active collaborative inquiry changed how they used to think about their leadership and strengthened the value of professional relationships to address extremely difficult challenges as a result of the pandemic. These lessons can be taken for the future, to rethink and rebuild educational systems.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the way in which principals in different countries are securing successful organisational change through systematically building social capital. It argues that how a school works as a cohesive unit and how people collaborates will ultimately define organisational performance.

The paper draws upon the international literature to explore how principals are building the social capital for organisational improvement but is not a review of the literature. It adopts a cross-cultural perspective and explores collective capacity building for organisational improvement.

This paper concludes that “disciplined” professional collaboration is an important way in which principals can create and sustain the social capital for organisational change.

The paper is a conceptual piece that proposes that creating social capital, rather than individual or professional capital, is now an essential task for principals seeking successful organisational change and improved outcomes. It explores the idea of “disciplined collaboration” as a methodology for building social capital in a rigorous, effective and sustainable way.

This paper aims to present a model of collaborative inquiry play: rule-based imaginary situations that provide challenging problems and support agentic multiplayer interactions (c.f., Vygotsky, 1967; Salen and Zimmerman, 2003). Drawing on problem-based learning (PBL, Hmelo-Silver, 2004), this paper provides a design case to articulate the relationship between the design goals and the game-based learning environment.

Drawing on conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014), this paper presents an iterative development of the conjecture map for crystal island: ecojourneys and highlights the development of the story and tools in crystal island: ecojourneys, an immersive game based on PBL pedagogy. By articulating this development, the authors highlight the affordances and constraints of designing for collaborative inquiry play and address challenges in supporting learner agency.

The PBL inquiry process served as the foundation of collaborative inquiry play. Attending to the rules of inquiry fostered student agency, and in turn, playful engagement in the game-based learning environment. Agency however meant holding students accountable to actions undertaken, especially as it pertained to generating group-based explanations and reflecting on productive collaboration. Moreover, socially shared regulation of learning and systems thinking concepts (i.e. phenomenon, mechanisms, and components) must also be externalized in representations and interactions in the game such that students have the agency to decide on their learning paths.

This paper presents the model of collaborative inquiry play and highlights how to support player agency and design content-rich play environments which are not always completely open.