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In this chapter, we explore our experiences of co-teaching an undergraduate elementary teacher education class titled, “Teaching Language Arts in FNMI (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) Contexts.” In our curriculum-making for the course, we drew on Narrative Inquiry as pedagogy, as well as on Indigenous storybooks, novels, and scholarship. We chose to work in these ways so that we might attempt to complicate and enrich both our experiences as teacher educators, and the possibilities of what it means to engage in Language Arts alongside Indigenous children, youth, and families in Kindergarten through Grade 12 classrooms. Thus, central to this chapter will be reflection on our efforts to co-create curriculum alongside of students – considered in their multiplicity also as pre-service teachers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, etc. – in ways that honored all of our knowing and experience. The relational practices inherent to Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous approaches to education, such as the creation and sharing of personal annals/timelines and narratives, along with small and large group conversations and talking circles are pedagogies we hoped would invite safe, reflective, and communal spaces for conversation. While certainly not a tension-free process, all of the pedagogical choices we made as teacher educators provide us the opportunity to attend to the relational and ontological commitments of Narrative Inquiry, to the students in their processes of becoming, to Indigenous worldviews, and to the responsibilities of the Alberta Language Arts curriculum.

Considers Willower’s theory of inquiry and his stance on science and epistemology which is derived from Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy. Argues that Willower’s naturalism, following Dewey’s understanding, remains incomplete because Dewey did not have at his disposal the required causal neurobiological detail of human learning and cognition. Such detail has recently become available, and Dewey’s biological metaphors are now being cashed out in relation to the causal mechanisms of inquiry, with interesting consequences for Willower’s theory of inquiry. Concludes the article by exploring the notion of reflective inquiry in relation to human cognition, research methodology and organizational cognition.

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.

The trend in education is shifting toward a greater concern with learning. In this new model, teachers are required to constantly reflect on their pedagogy to sustain student interest and engagement. This reflective inquiry is particularly important when the teacher and students are of different language and culture as in the case of Zayed University, UAE. Such cross-cultural context often complicates the learning environment resulting in confusion, stress, and frustration for faculty and students. It also results in a reduced teaching effectiveness and a need to regularly adapt tried methods of teaching in Western universities with the educational background of students. This process requires deep reflection and cultural adjustment. This study therefore investigated the challenges, critical inquiry, and adjustments of Western faculty in the delivery of an American curriculum taught in English to Emirati female students. The study also sought to derive a theoretical model explaining faculty reflective processes in cross-cultural classrooms.

One defining characteristic of service-learning as a pedagogical tool is its focus on reflection. Within service-learning programmes, students engage collaboratively with one another and community members, and are encouraged to reflect on the various aspects of their experience. The author argues that reflection is crucial for its contribution to service-learning, as a teaching methodology, and to service-learning’s cognitive, affective and social impact. Part of service-learning’s impact is its contribution to the development of inclusive attitudes and predispositions towards inclusiveness among school students and tertiary students, particularly pre-service teachers. The chapter recognises inclusivity as an element of quality teaching that helps students make connections with contexts outside the classroom, engage with different perspectives and ways of knowing and to accommodate all their peers and all those being offered service. The chapter recommends a particular approach to the expansion of thinking and practice that inclusivity requires, one based on the methodology of the Philosophy in Schools movement, which has its genesis in the work of John Dewey. That approach uses the mechanism of the Community of Inquiry to structure reflective activities in a way that facilitates the development of students’ critical and creative thinking and their capacity for substantive dialogue. Within the Community of Inquiry students are encouraged to engage with differing and perhaps novel perspectives as they respond to real-life service-learning experiences. Well-facilitated reflection gives students the opportunity to develop skills and dispositions conducive to deep understanding of concepts and issues that arise in discussion. It also helps to raise awareness of preconceptions and attitudes that can undermine inclusiveness in education. The chapter draws the conclusion that rigorous reflection serves as a stimulus to act to implement inclusive practices within service-learning projects on the basis of well-justified reasoning.

Educational research and many aspects of the educational system in Germany are facing a challenge. With Germany’s participation in large-scale assessment studies such as PISA, the German educational discourse is increasingly incorporating international developments in terms of educational standards, accountability, and students’ performance testing. At the same time, the long-standing history of German Didaktik has influenced and shaped teacher education programs in Germany for decades. Research conducted at a German university shows how these two concurrent developments can be fused – without neglecting their distinct differences. A crucial aspect revealed in this work shows that preservice teachers are prepared for their future profession in a rather output- and standard-based educational system in inquiry-based classes. In these classes, their research-based reflective thinking, didactic expertise, and their leadership skills in the sense of didactic ownership are strengthened.

This chapter features our innovative endeavors to inquire into an African-American student's potentially sensitive stories in a methodologically fluid and ethically delicate manner through two generative methods: digital narrative inquiry and musical narrative inquiry. Through a meta-level “inquiry into inquiry” approach, this work explores how we engaged in the digital and musical restorying of the participant's “Wounded Healer” narrative and uncovered its dynamism, cultural richness, and nuances. We subsequently represented the findings in humanizing ways using multimedia and music. Drawing on the insights from exploring these novel methods of digital and musical inquiry, our work illuminates noteworthy elements of narrative research: generativity, transformativity, interpersonal ethics, aesthetic ethics, and communal ethics. Additionally, the potential issue of trustworthiness in fluid narrative inquiries is addressed.

Explains a process the authors have enacted several times for facilitating organizational self‐reflection, which they call “reflective inquiry”. Shows how the process is based on the authors’ current understanding of the concept referred to as organizational learning. Finally, advocates future participatory action research whereby organizational learning theory is tested and modified through the design, enactment and observation of further processes; these processes, in turn, should be designed based on current understandings of organizational learning.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to trace the origins of narrative inquiry as an empirical research method specifically created to examine how teachers come to know in their own terms.

Approach – The chapter reviews key conceptualizations in the teaching and teacher education field chronologically.

Findings – The review begins with Clandinin and Connelly's groundbreaking work concerning teachers’ personal practical knowledge, the professional knowledge landscapes of schools, and stories to live by (teacher identity). Three other important narrative conceptualizations on the research line are then highlighted: narrative resonance, narrative authority, and knowledge communities. Special attention is also paid to how narrative inquiry has fueled studies having to do with curriculum, subject matter, and culture. Narrative inquiry's important contributions to the emergence of the self-study of teaching and teacher education practices genre of research is additionally highlighted, along with several more recent advances having to do with collaborative narrative inquiries, studies with children, and reforming school landscapes.

Research implications – Lingering issues relating to narrative inquiry's acceptance as a legitimate research approach are also discussed; latent opportunities are likewise paid attention.

Value – The value of the chapter is that it is the first work that has specifically followed developments on the Connelly–Clandinin research line. The chapter shows the major contributions that the world-class research program – and the associated research projects spawned from it – have made to teaching and teacher education internationally.