Notes from the BERA Practitioner-Research SIG day at Bath on the 19th June 2004.

Whilst the life-affirming and creative energy from Saturday’s gathering in Bath is still flowing through me  I thought I’d send round the e-list and some thoughts that emerged at the end of the day which seemed to carry some of our hopes for the future. I’ve put the contents of the paper Brian circulated as Convenor of the Practitioner- Research SIG at http://www.actionresearch.net/practitionerresearch.htm

and we might like to give more thought to points 4,5 &6 that Joan drew attention to at the end of the day:

4.              To play a role in the development of national policies for practitioner research through active engagement with policy makers and agencies leading this work in teaching and other professions. (For example in the UK. the General Teaching Councils of England and Scotland and the National College for School Leadership.)

5.              To establish links with the Collaborative Action Research Network, the National Teacher Research Panel, the Royal College of Nursing Research Society and other regional, national and international bodies that have a leadership role in practitioner research.

6.              To give prominence to practitioner research within BERA's activities, through contributing articles etc to Research Intelligence and BERJ, and leading symposia at the annual conference.

I’ll leave open the practitioner-researcher e-forum which you can join at:

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=bera-practitioner-researcher&A=1

just to see if this conversational space helps us to share our ideas and sustain our interest in each others’ enquiries. So, when you have thoughts to share, questions to ask, information you think will be helpful do send it round the practitioner-researcher list.  Rather them me offering a summary of the day that could act as a form of closure I’d just like to express my hope that we will continue to share our ideas in a creative and living space where we are bearing each other in mind.

The e-list I said that I would circulate is below. Foursymbols the only person I couldn’t identify! Where an address hasn’t got a full name I’ve put the name separated by a hypen – so just be careful to copy and paste the name/address after the hyphen.  

Having said that I won’t offer a summary of the day I’ll now confirm my existence as a living contradiction by connecting with three of the themes we talked about at the end of the day! Do please add your own in the practitioner-researcher forum.

I certainly felt a strong desire to learn more about postcolonial theory and how our growing insights into this theory could influence our educational enquiries. With Paulus’ help Sarah, Je Kan and Jack are developing their contributions to a BERA Symposium on the 16th September in Manchester (details of the full conference are at http://www.bera.ac.uk ) on:

How Are We Contributing To A New Scholarship Of Educational Enquiry Through Our Pedagogisation Of Postcolonial Living Educational Theories In The Academy?  - see http://www.actionresearch.net//monday/bera04b.htm

The theme of creativity/generativity.

I’ve added Mairin Glenn, Bernie Sullivan and Caitriona McDonagh to our list because they are contributing with Marian, Jean, Joan and me to the BERA Practitioner-Research SIG Symposium in Manchester on the 16th September on

Have We Created A New Epistemology For The New Scholarship Of Educational Enquiry Through Practitioner Research? Developing Sustainable Global Educational Networks Of Communication – see http://www.actionresearch.net//monday/bera04a.htm

 I’ve also added Jane Spiro to our list because of Jane’s research into creativity.  If you go into http://www.actionresearch.net/arsup.shtml

you can scroll down the list of action research supervision for details of Jane’s research – Jane is Head of Applied Linguistics at Oxford Brookes University and a Google search on Jane Spiro will give you more information on Jane’s activities and writings.

The theme of representation

Sarah has redesigned her teacherresearch.net website and we could continue to develop our understandings of appropriate forms of representation for our practitioner-researcher by helping to extend the range of different forms of representation on our web-sites.  Do have a browse  through.

http://www.teacherresearch.net/

I’ve kept open the access to the details of each others’ writings from our programme for the day

at http://www.actionresearch.net/berasig190604.htm . If you want to add any more of your writings to this list, just send on the urls and I’ll include them.

Je Kan Adler-Collins    jekan@fukuoka-pu.ac.jp

pat d'arcy <patdarcy@waitrose.com>

Andrew Bayliss  -     abayliss@soilassociation.org

Cheryl Black   charlee@sympatico.ca

steve.bridges@delphi.com

pip.bruce-ferguson@TWOA.AC.NZ

Eden Charles <edencharles@btconnect.com>

Madeline Church <madchurch@tiscali.co.uk>

Jackie Delong <delonjac@gedsb.net>

Margarida Dolan <edmmd@bath.ac.uk>

Kevineames@blueyonder.co.uk

James Edgerton  -    James@compedge.freeserve.co.uk

maggie farren <mfarren@compapp.dcu.ie>

bernadette.fitzgerald@uwe.ac.uk

Sarah Fletcher -       s.j.fletcher@bath.ac.uk

mairin glenn <inverns@iol.ie>

Mary Hartog  -    M.Hartog@mdx.ac.uk

jim kusch <hawley@chorus.net>

Caitriona McDonagh -     Caitrionamd@hotmail.com

moira laidlaw <moiralaidlaw@hotmail.com>

mariannaidoo <naidoo@waitrose.com>

Jason.Nickels@nglam-tr.wales.nhs.uk

ericaholley <ericaholley@btinternet.com>        

andy larter <andy.larter@virgin.net>

Sveta Mayer - svmayer@lampton.hounslow.sch.uk

jean mcniff <jeanmcniff@mac.com>

peter mellett <pandjm@globalnet.co.uk>

Paul Murray <paulus.murray@btopenworld.com>

nceku nyathi <nnyathi49@hotmail.com>

polis pantilides <polykarpos@hotmail.com>

Rosie Penny <pennyr@smuc.ac.uk>

robyn_pound@yahoo.com

Mark Potts   -       mpot@waitrose.com

ram punia <edprp@bath.ac.uk>

alanrayner <A.D.M.Rayner@bath.ac.uk>

SimonRiding simon@ariding1.freeserve.co.uk

"Charly.Ryan" <Charly.Ryan@wkac.ac.uk>

Jacqui Scholes-Rhodes  -     J.Scholesrhodes@btinternet.com

Alon Serper  -    pspas@bath.ac.uk

jane spiro <jspiro@brookes.ac.uk>

Brian wakeman <brianwakeman@yahoo.co.uk>

Jack Whitehead – edsajw@bath.ac.uk

joan.whitehead@uwe.ac.uk

foursymbols@blueyonder.co.uk

 Love Jack