Appreciative inquiry has become increasingly popular as a method for facilitating organisational or systemic change through focusing on the positive aspects and 'life giving properties of a system' as opposed to traditional 'deficit-based' approaches. However, there has been criticism that this process could invalidate negative experiences of…

Foundations and other public and nonprofit organizations increasingly express interest in cultivating systems-level change and maximizing their impact through more complex approaches. As organizations look beyond individual interventions and programs, they must think differently and define problems and questions in fundamentally new ways. The…

Contemporary US and European approaches to ecosystems and mental health have left many feeling disempowered in the face of the climate crisis. This article advocates for holistic approaches to supporting natural complex systems with contemplation and care. It explores how environmental metaphors and nature-based art therapy can foster human-nature…

Proposal writing is an essential requirement for making progress in academics. Learning this skill necessitates support from a mentor to cultivate effective habits. It entails effective strategies from graduate students, such as literature reading and using online tools. Additionally, they must develop an understanding of resource accountability,…

The challenges state education agencies (SEAs) must address are exceedingly complex, requiring sophisticated levels of thinking and problem-solving as well as the ability to leverage disparate points of view in finding impactful solutions. These challenges are technical, requiring specific and known solutions to achieve desired results. To provide…

The impact of global systemic changes over 40 years in higher education (HE) have typically focussed on efficiency, cost-reduction and the needs of the economy. This has usually involved 'command and control' change processes and corporate accountability practices aimed at reducing university autonomy and bringing academics under greater…

The science of reading consists of a large, evolving, and impressive body of evidence about how humans learn to read and how reading should be taught. This body of evidence has accumulated via diverse epistemological perspectives and methods, yet points to undeniable consensus on many issues (e.g., the importance of explicit phonics instruction,…

The climate crisis raises questions such as: Why are corporations continuing to produce plastic for their products when more sustainable solutions are available? Does recycling make a difference? Can oil companies be "green" and "sustainable," as their ads claim? Why are factories, landfills, and extraction sites located where…

The authors use the skilled trades shortage as a unique context to pilot transformative approaches to changing culture and practice around equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in recruitment, progression, and retention of previously-excluded student groups, focusing on gender. To demonstrate how this approach can help achieve the necessary rapid…

National curriculum reform is a complex negotiation point of how basic education should be practiced and what role it should take in society. The question of participation in this process is central to creating a coherent, responsible, and implementable curriculum--but still left for little investigation in the national level reforms. Our goal was…

As biological science rapidly generates new knowledge and novel approaches to address increasingly complex and integrative questions, biology educators face the challenge of teaching the next generation of biologists and citizens the skills and knowledge to enable them to keep pace with a dynamic field. Fundamentally, biology is the science of…

Public college and university systems are a major component of the nation's higher education ecosystem. They are the predominant form of organization used by the states (44 out of 50) to govern, manage, coordinate, and resource the provision of higher education in the states. Of the nation's public 4-year college and university students, 75…

The 2014 "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" describe universal design as an approach that offers promise for improving the fairness of educational assessments. As the field reconsiders questions of fairness in assessments, we propose a new framework that addresses the entire assessment lifecycle: universal design of…

This paper, delivered as a provocative keynote address to the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) conference in Manchester on 28th October 2023, explores the question if action research might have a sweet spot. A sweet spot is defined as an ideal location, area or combination of factors for a particular activity or purpose. It draws on…

Student development theory has been an important guide in practice; however, few theories focus on both the individual and the influence of the environment. Spencer's (1997) Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) examines the individual, the environment, and the role of environmental feedback on self-perceptions, with a…