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Practitioner research is now widely used in different programs of teacher preparation. It is expected that teachers conducting research on their own work will become more reflective and develop the skills required to become life-long learners. Even though many programs for teacher preparation include some form of teacher research it is not common to find tools to assess teachers and to allow for peer- and self-assessment. In this chapter, we present a pedagogy that uses heuristic diagrams as a mean to assess teachers’ research. We have used such heuristics with teachers participating in a Research Methods Course in a Master Degree and have found that it allows teachers to engage in a constant interplay between the theoretical and the practical and encourages the development of better research questions. Teachers have systematically found this tool very useful in advancing their research projects in the different scenarios where teachers are trying to improve their practice through research.

Organizational development and change may be initiated from two different starting points. A diagnostic approach begins with an examination of problems to assess and correct dysfunction. In contrast, the Appreciative Inquiry approach begins by identifying an organization’s strengths as resources for change. An experimental study was conducted to compare the processes and outcomes that arise during the first phase of each approach. Results show that both approaches lead to different but favorable and complementary outcomes. Both participant gender and the gender construction of the dyads in which individuals participated moderate these effects in unexpected ways. The implications for understanding the processes by which both methods work, and the potential for combining them, are discussed

In Hawaiʻi, two public library systems exist – a traditional municipal branch system and a Native Hawaiian rural community-based library network. The Hawaii State Public Library System (HSPLS) is the traditional municipal library system that services the state’s diverse communities with 51 branch locations, plus its federal repository, the Hawaii State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. The HSPLS primarily serves the local urban communities of Hawaiʻi, diverse in its citizenry. The Native Hawaiian Library, a unit of ALU LIKE, Inc. (a Hawaiian non-profit social services organization), boasts multiple locations across six inhabited Hawaiian Islands, primarily serving rural Hawaiian communities. The HSPLS focuses on traditional public library services offered by MLS-degreed librarians. In contrast, the Native Hawaiian Library (ALU LIKE) focuses on culturally oriented literacy services offered by Hawaiian cultural practitioners. As the state’s only library and information sciences (LISs) educational venue, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s LIS program (UHM LIS) is a nexus point between these two library systems where LIS students learn the value of community-based library services while gaining the traditional technical skills of librarianship concerning Hawaiʻi as a place of learning and praxis.

This book chapter focuses on outcomes from the IMLS-funded research project called “Hui ʻEkolu,” which means “three groups” in the Hawaiian language. From 2018 to 2021, the HSPLS, the Native Hawaiian Library (ALU LIKE), and the UHM LIS Program gathered as “Hui ʻEkolu” to create a community of praxis to share and exchange knowledge to learn from one another to improve professional practice and heighten cultural competency within a Hawaiian context. Native Hawaiian values were leveraged as a nexus point for the three groups to connect and build relationships for sustainable mentorship and culturally competent connections as a model for librarian professional development. The result is a model for collective praxis that leverages local and endemic cultural values for sustainable collaborative professional development for public librarianship.

This chapter explores how four culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse colleagues use self-study methodologies and online journaling to systematically examine inquiry-based teaching and learning in international contexts. Respectively from the USA, Canada, Taiwan, and China, the main research question is, “How can we develop an inquiry stance in our similarly diverse teacher candidates?” For five months, they explore the question with one another in an interactive online journal. The analysis of their written journal reflections result in four main themes: (1) naming and framing inquiry and context, (2) perspectives on translating theory to practice, (3) common practices for developing inquiry stance, and (4) policy work. The chapter concludes with a list of recommendations for fostering inquiry-based teaching and learning with culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse teacher candidates. Self-study research methodologies, Philosophy for Children, and online journaling are also suggested as professional development models for diverse globalized teacher educators.

An approach to informing the public is described together with an analysis of contacts by the public with a Community Health Council. It is suggested that perhaps District Health Authorities and Family Practitioner Services Authorities should collaborate to provide a joint service to enhance public awareness of health care services through a single source of information.

The underpinnings of knowledge management theories is that finding, keeping and leveraging an organization’s information assets are critical to productivity, efficiency of operation and successful competition. Following a brief introduction of the knowledge management systems, this essay examines the corollary relationship between knowledge management and appreciative inquiry, and subsequently points to critical areas in which knowledge management practices can benefit from adopting the appreciative inquiry perspective. More particularly, we submit that appreciative inquiry can motivate organizational-wide adoption and it can provide language-based mechanisms that facilitate effective knowledge exchange. The development of an appreciative inquiry based mode of knowledge management as an alternative to the prevailing approaches opens new horizons and uncovers previously overlooked possibilities, which eventually can contribute to the overall organizational well-being.

The first part of this chapter addresses the history and development of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) and its engagement with the global educational community. We provide an account of the context and background against which ISATT developed as well as information about the founders’ orientations and the actions that led to ISATT’s birth. The second part of the chapter uses patterns of topic focus as graphic indicators of the evolution of ISATT’s research interests expressed through publication titles.

This research explores the various ways in which performative inquiry was implemented in a graduate organizational theories course within an educational leadership cohort at a medium- sized urban Canadian research university. Drawing on Fink’s framework for significant learning experiences, the researchers used performative inquiry to enact the “Practice” and “Reflection” domains of his pedagogical model. The data show that as the course unfolded, the class experienced a shift from instructor-centered transmission of information to a curriculum co- constructed by students and instructors. We conclude with ways in which educational leadership professors can incorporate performative inquiry as a teaching strategy to enhance the learning process for aspiring educational leaders.

Project Teacher Leadership is a PDS initiative, which has formed university–school teams to foster collaboration, inquiry, and leadership. University professors, intern teachers, and veteran K-12 teachers engaged in collaborative conversations about authentic experiences in their work to uncover troubling problems of practice and develop strategies for addressing them. In doing so, participants began to develop increased professional agency and leadership. The project drew strength from examining problems through varied perspectives and systematic inquiry, and the inquiry process motivated participants to advocate for changed practices better suited to ensure all students’ learning.