Dr Margaret Farren
Dublin City University, Ireland
margaret.farren@dcu.ie
Ms Yvonne Crotty
Dublin City University, Ireland
yvonne.crotty@dcu.ie
Ms Catherine Dean
Strathmore University, Kenya
cathedean@gmail.com
Ms Sabrina Fitzsimons
Mater Dei Institute, Dublin, Ireland
sabrina.fitzsimons@materdei.dcu.ie
The Spirit and Vision of Learning: At the still point of the turning world
In the Symposium we will address the Conference theme ‘Articulating our Values and
Virtues’. The contributors include three PhD candidates and their supervisor. As higher
education educators, we all work with a commitment to lifelong learning and to values that
we hold ourselves accountable to as we contribute to educational knowledge and work
toward ‘the use of research to improve education and serve the public good’ (Ball and Tyson
2012). We recognise that each of us has a unique constellation of values and in the course
of our practice-based research these values are expressed as explanatory principles in
explanations of educational influences in learning (Whitehead, 1989) as we work toward the
solution of real issues in the workplace.
We are guided by Dadds and Hart’s (2001) idea of methodological inventiveness, with an
emphasis on innovative and creative modes and methods of research. In our presentation
we will make use of multi-media narratives of learning to show the dynamics of interrelationships; and in this way we hope to show our willingness and courage as practitioners
to create enquiry approaches that enable new, valid understandings to develop.
The contributions to this symposium are influenced by Schön’s (1995) call for a new
epistemology for the new scholarship, by the Irish theologian John O Donohue’s (2003)
Celtic spirituality of a ‘web of betweenness’, by Whitehead and McNiff’s (2006) ‘Action
Research: Living Theory’ and Eisner’s (1997, 2005) ideas on different forms of
representation, in the new relationally dynamic standards of judgment we use to evaluate
the validity of our contributions to knowledge.
References
Ball, A. & Tyson (2012) American Educational Research Association 2012 Annual Meeting
Call for Submissions Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Retrieved 23rd March 2012 from
http://www.aera.net/Publications/AERAHighlights/AnnualMeetingThemeHighlights/tabid/1
2577/Default.aspx
Dadds, M. and Hart, S. (2001). Doing Practitioner Research Differently. London,
RoutledgeFalmer.
Eisner, E. (1997). The Promise and Perils of Alternative Forms of Data Representation,
Educational Researcher, Vol. 26, No. 6: 4–10.
Eisner, E. (2005) Reimagining Schools: The selected works of Elliott W. Eisner. London and
New York, Routledge.
O Donohue, J. (2003) Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. London, Transworld Publishers.
Schön. D. (1995) ‘Knowing-in-Action: The New Scholarship Requires a New Epistemology’,
Change, 27(6): 27–34, November-December.
Whitehead, J. (1989) Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, ‘How
do I improve my practice?', Cambridge Journal of Education, 19(1): 141–53.
Whitehead, J. and McNiff, J. (2006) Action Research: Living Theory. London, Sage.