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This article aims to report on the findings from a research project that explored a school’s changing ideological storyline with the appointment of a new Principal and the Board of Trustees’ intention to move towards a strengths-based approach to education. Following the school’s dialogue and decision-making over a three-year period enabled the identification of a range of competitive processes between the dominant and an emergent ideology within the school.

Using an ideological framework proposed by Meighan et al. (2007), the research focussed on the development and maintenance of shared understandings within each ideology. For the purpose of this article, the participants have been limited to those in school governance, the school’s senior leadership team and some teachers across a three-year period. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, online surveys and informal observations and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes.

The findings show the subtleties and nuances of two dominant and competing ideologies that represented different philosophies for education: a deficit discourse of progressive ideals and a strengths-based ideology of education. The existing and dominant ideology is challenged by the determination and moral purpose of the principal with the unanimous support from those in governance. In due process, the school emerged into a creative enterprise through the adoption of shared understandings that were underscored by a strengths-based ideology.

It is incumbent upon school principals to notice the shifting organisational storylines within their schools and communities and act in a manner that realises the moral imperative of schooling for the students (Fullan, 2011). This article opens specific ideological processes that have appreciatively moved a school towards pedagogical excellence and a repurposing of the organisation for the students’ sake.

This chapter provides “viewpoints” on the education of learners with extensive and pervasive support needs. That is, students who require the most support to learn, often categorized as having intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, or related disabilities. The lenses through which we provide these viewpoints are historical and future-oriented; we begin with historic perspectives on the education of students with extensive and pervasive support needs, and then provide 21st century viewpoints for these learners. We interpret the notion of viewpoints in two ways: first, consistent with a viewpoint as indicating an examination of objects (in this case, practices and interventions) from a distance so as to be able to compare and judge; and, second, viewpoint as indicating our perspective on said interventions and practice.

Thepurposeofthisarticle wastoexaminethe effectsofstrengths-basedapproaches in co-curricularandcurricularleadershiponfirst-yearstudents’holisticthriving,academicthriving, social thriving, and psychological thriving. We used propensity score matching and regression analyses with survey data from the Thriving Quotient, which was administered to first-year students at a large, public research university(n = 548). The results suggest students’ enrollment in a strengths-based leadership minor course was associated with higher levels of thriving in social, academic, and psychological domains. Students’ participation in strengths-based student organizationswasassociatedwithhigherthrivinginsocialdomains,whileconcurrentenrollment in the strengths-based leadership class and participation in strengths-based student organizations was associated with significantly higher holistic thriving, social thriving, and psychological thriving.

Strengths-based coaching has emerged in past decades as an asset-based approach that can help individuals identify, harness, and leverage their strengths to achieve professional and personal goals. This paper shares the design and outcomes of a year-long strengths-based coaching program to support leadership development within the context of one university’s women’s leadership initiative.

Program outcomes and changes in participants’ perceived confidence in identifying and applying their strengths in different contexts were evaluated through an online survey using a Likert-based REDCap survey tool after participation in the program. Findings strongly suggest that most participants lacked the self-confidence and/or self-awareness to recognize their own strengths in a granular way prior to the program. Themes that emerged in the survey findings point to the following program outcomes: participants gained an increased ability to identify and value one’s own leadership strengths, an increased ability to recognize and value the strengths of others, and a supportive community of women leaders to share experiences and reflect on the application of their strengths as part of their leadership journey.

Further studies are needed to understand and measure how a program such as this can impact one’s leader identity, self-awareness, and self-confidence. Given the critical need for women’s leadership opportunities, this program shows promise as a means to strengthen women’s leadership across career stages and disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for a pedagogical shift from “problems” to “possibilities”, which will help ease the transition of students into higher education (as well as the transitions between levels of study and employment), especially those coming from under-represented and under-privileged backgrounds, known in the UK as the widening-participation category.

GSM London is the first higher education provider in the UK to implement a strengths-based approach to staff and student development. This study looks at the delivery plan for strengths-based education, especially how it can inform and reshape information literacy instruction in the library and other academic skills modules.

Higher education is an important environment to help learners develop their talents into strengths, which can be defined as “the ability to provide consistent and near-perfect performance in a given activity” (Buckingham and Clifton, 2005, p. 20). There is a perception that widening-participation students have more significant gaps or weaknesses upon entering university education. This case study confirms that not remediation but a strengths-based approach has the strongest potential to enable students to better manage their weaknesses and become independent learners.

Further research is required, as not enough empirical data could be collected after only one semester of strengths-based learning implementation at GSM.

The author attempts to re-conceptualise information literacy instruction and propose a mapping exercise, in which library instruction is aligned to the principles of strengths-based education and the language of 34 themes in the popular strengths assessment tool from the Gallup organisation. The expectation is to build fluid transitions between levels of study and academic matters and extracurricular activities that students take part in. This approach can also assist learners far beyond the library and long after they leave university, equipping students with a skillset that enables a more meaningful participation in society.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the positive academic and professional outcomes for students who undertake degree apprenticeships which use strength-based approaches in their curriculum and assessment. The design and implementation of programmes of work-based study which focus on an individual’s inherent talents are a new lens for higher education (HE), one that enables institutions to see diverse groups of students fulfil their potential and gain academic qualifications. Strength-based degree apprenticeships offer an effective way to align the needs of industry with the ambitions of individuals who wish to gain university level qualifications whilst in the workplace.

The research adopted a mixed-methods approach. Semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in industry and HE were undertaken and thematically analysed. Student data were analysed quantitatively for students in the degree apprenticeship programmes which incorporate a strength-based approach to learning and assessment.

The findings from this study highlight that the degree apprenticeships’ strength-based curriculum and assessment have spearheaded its success. On average, degree apprentices attain 10 per cent higher grades than students undertaking the same programme through the traditional degree route. Moreover, the module design and tailored support has contributed to over 91 per cent of apprentices graduating with a 2:1 or above.

This research is exploratory in nature, focusing on one university’s experiences and outcomes regarding a strength-based approach curriculum and assessment on degree apprenticeships.

The findings describe how the knowledge exchange and culture of the HE sector has shifted, and the university’s efforts to make progressive relationships with employers. Moreover, this paper describes the challenges in designing curricula and assessing students based on the strengths and skills required for their employment, rather than university mandated learning outcomes. The findings of this paper could influence a strength-based framework for the development of degree apprenticeships in the UK.

The use of film as a teaching methodology in an undergraduate personal leadership development course helped students apply strengths-based leadership concepts. The film Temple Grandin was utilized to illustrate key concepts from Buckingham and Clifton’s (2001) text, Now, Discover Your Strengths. After completing the Gallup Clifton StrengthsFinder^® assessment, students viewed the film Temple Grandin and identified Dr. Grandin’s perceived top five strengths in relation to scenes from the film. Several lessons were devoted to the exploration and development of students’ strengths. This practice paper describes the teaching methodologies employed and provides recommendations for leadership educators seeking to implement the use of film in their courses.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how first-year students conduct everyday life research and how, if possible, their everyday research skills can inform information literacy instruction in higher education. Very few studies in information literacy emphasize existing knowledge that students bring with them to college; instead, the emphasis tends to fall on deficits in students’ academic research skills. Strengths-based approaches or asset-based approaches as found in the literature of psychology and education provide a basis for exploring this direction in information literacy education.

The research used a phenomenographic methodology, interviewing 40 first-year students from two large universities, a medium-sized university and a community college.

The qualitative study suggests that first-year students are capable of using information purposefully to learn or research interests that have sparked their curiosities. They are also capable of reflecting on the ways that their investigations fulfilled their purposes, resulted in unexpected outcomes or made them consider their issue in a new light. These existing capacities provide promising starting points for strengths-based approaches to information literacy instruction.

Dialogue with students about prior research experiences enables teaching librarians to plan engaging, authentic information literacy curriculum that acknowledges existing strengths.

This study provides a valuable contribution to empirical evidence of student research skills prior to entering higher education and suggests connections between those skills and the ACRL Information Literacy Framework. In addition, the study provides a case for strengths-based education, activating students’ prior knowledge to learn and create new knowledge. Authors have presented at Library Instruction West, July 2018.

The social change model of leadership (SCM) is a widely used leadership model in higher education. StrengthsQuest is conceptually similar to the individual values of the SCM in its aim to identify and grow individual talents. This model is based on the idea that individuals perform at higher levels when they build upon their identified talents (Clifton & Harter, 2003). Prior studies have not examined the relationship of hope or one’s belief in their identified StrengthsQuest talents to the individual values of the SCM. This study examines that relationship using the adult-trait hope and strengths self-efficacy scales. The relationship between these constructs along and other predictors of social change capacity were explored using canonical correlation analysis. Strengths self-efficacy, hope, and student engagement were statistically significant (73% of the variability among the individual values of the SCM). Gender, race, and community service were not statistically significant in this study.