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The purpose of this paper is to explore the ecology of collaboration between school and university partners using an appreciative inquiry theoretical perspective and to demonstrate how it enhances the social capital in school and university partnerships.

A case study of a partnership of an inner‐city high school and university doctoral action research was explored in the frameworks of mutuality, social capital, and appreciative inquiry. The theoretical perspective of appreciative inquiry served as the basis for the mutuality between administrators and faculty in the inner‐city high school and the doctoral action research team.

Findings suggest that approaching school‐university partnerships through an appreciative inquiry theoretical perspective creates an environment for building trust, sharing knowledge, and increasing bridging capital, thus benefiting both the school and university.

The action research team formed a partnership with teachers and administrators. The action research was transformed by the partnership and reports showed substantial progress in student achievement scores in mathematics and science. Hopefully, some of that achievement can be attributed to the research and the paper on which it is based.

The purpose of this study is to identify how at‐risk high school students in an alternative school describe how they best learn and to extrapolate their preferred learning practices to improve teacher pedagogical practices.

The authors used a qualitative case study design to facilitate the first two stages of an appreciative inquiry (AI) 4‐D cycle – discovery and dream. Eight alternative high school students, four males and four females, were purposively selected as participants. Data collection methods included: group discussions, semi‐structured paired interviews, and participant generated documents and visual presentation for district administrators and teachers. Data were analyzed using content analysis, open coding, axial coding, text analysis software, and pattern matching.

The study produced four salient findings: relevant experiences were important for learning; a cooperative and respectful learning environment is a core value; learning should be enjoyable; and, the concept of family became an important metaphor for the learning environment.

The findings from this study suggest that further research with AI in educational settings may have important implications to inspire educators to think in new ways about learning.

During the 1980s, much criticism surfaced regarding the need for managers and executives to be more effectively prepared for their roles and responsibilities. Graduate business schools were identified as one source which needed to improve because a business degree often represents a significant part of managers′ and executives′ preparation. In addition to reviewing content, graduate business schools need to improve the methods used to deliver content. Specifically, they need to incorporate successful methods used in private and governmental organisations to train and develop managers. These methods include role play, case method, in‐basket technique, games, computer based training, learning contracts, assessment centres, shadowing, structured self‐assessment and mentoring.

The process of training and preparing principals is driven by a characteristics model. Underlying each of the components in the characteristics model is decision making. Decision making defines the work of principals. Those who prepare principals can improve the leadership quality of principals and thereby impact school effectiveness by focusing on decision making. Decision‐making assessment is a critical component to principal preparation and ongoing development. It can be used to assess the quality of decisions made by prospective and acting school administrations. Through decision‐making assessment principals can become aware of their cognitive decision‐making patterns thus allowing them opportunity to replace potentially dysfunctional patterns with patterns that are more effective and efficient.

The actions of school leaders have direct and profound ethical implications on their organizations and corresponding stakeholders. Each action impacts the ethical notion of mutuality and either adds to or detracts from the existing social capital in the school leader’s organization and surrounding school community. Whether or not the school leader chooses to act out of self‐interest and contribute to the growth of fragmentation in the organization or chooses to act with integrity based on sound ethical principles is determined in large extent by the school leader’s character.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of at‐risk students in a rural district in Midwestern USA.

This field‐based research study used a qualitative embedded case study of a middle and high school informed by an appreciative inquiry theoretical research perspective to identify a positive core of teacher and administrator experiences related to at‐risk students. At‐risk students are those who under‐perform in mandated academic assessments as well as school‐related academic achievement. Social capital and appreciative inquiry served as theoretical perspectives. Focus groups, semi‐structured interviews, and an online survey were the primary data‐gathering methods.

Three findings illustrated the gap between present practice and the ideal state. The research team concluded that there was a foundation of positive core experiences from which to build on the espoused theory of caring professed by teachers and administrators.

The study's results can further teachers' and administrators' understanding of their problem‐based language that emphasizes the deficits of at‐risk students and their parents.

Character is at the core of leadership. Leaders with virtuous character provide benefit to their schools and communities. Whereas, leaders with character flaws create harm for themselves as well as their community. The ethical lapses among teachers, principals, and superintendents create an even larger issue when one considers the fiduciary trust placed in educators by the public. Character development requires behavioral change as well as knowledge acquisition. Incorporating behavioral change into university administrator preparation programs requires faculty to consider recent findings in neuroscience on how the brain learns and the incorporation of these findings into program design and instruction.

The purpose of this study is to advance the preparation of prospective school administrator students by extending the Web 2.0 application of blogging to discover students' strengths and successful leadership experiences. During the blogging process, students reflected on and responded to appreciative inquiry (AI) blog posts that encouraged reflective responses highlighting and identifying their inherent leadership strengths and successful leadership experiences.

A qualitative case study model was used to explore the reflective blog contributions of prospective school administrators to discover patterns in the blogging data by grounding the study in an AI theoretical research perspective. A bounded case study delimited the scope of the study to participants who were: masters or doctoral students in a school administration preparation program at a large Midwestern United States research extensive university; and enrolled in four graduate administrative preparation classes taught using reflective blogging over three instructional quarters.

The Web 2.0 application of appreciative inquiry blogging: confirmed personal strengths and successful leadership experiences; bolstered a supportive learning environment; confirmed the students' history of successful leadership experiences; and increased social capital among students.

Future research using AI in Web 2.0 applications can influence the positive preparation of school administrators by preparing them to lead schools in an evolving digital world. Researchers may examine how an AI blogging Web 2.0 application contributes to changing personal perceptions of contemporary deficit views of schooling to what is possible in light of stakeholders' strengths.

The importance of integrating Web 2.0 applications into educational administrator preparation programs is critical in an age where elementary and secondary school students live in a Web 2.0 world and build social networks with peers throughout the globe. Moreover, the evolving global workplace demands fluency in Web 2.0 applications.

Aims to examine a model for overcoming traditional, culturally rooted resistance to change in educational administration programs. Universities that are unable to change operate as dysfunctional organizations and display symptoms that reflect addictive behavior. Healthy organizations facilitate change and adapt to evolving contexts. Conceptualizes change as having its genesis in a learning organizational model. The learning organization model aligns the three existing cultures inherent in universities and educational administration programs. By aligning the operator, engineer, and executive cultures within the university, microstructures such as educational administration programs are able to embrace the chaotic temperament inherent in the university and evolve into a generative environment that moves from linear construction toward a fuzzy adaptation to changing contexts.