1

Looking back on the first year of the Future(s)of Education Project: Difficulties and successes in using networked participatory action research to engender change

A presentation at the Collaborative Action Research Network conference, CARN, 2009: Athens, Greece, 31 October, 2009.

By E. Alana James and April Maria

Article Highlights

Introduction of the Future(s) of Education Project and the ideas behind it that drive change

Discussion of first year outcomes regarding the continuum of design choices between student-driven and educator-driven curricula and process

Invitation to participate

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reflect upon lessons learned during the first year of the international collaborative action research endeavour to redesign education. The scope of this study centres on the experience of two women as they negotiated a collaborative environment that included participants from seven countries. Based upon the philosophy of participatory action research organized as networks, this study employs mixed methodology analyzing data from weblogs, e-mails, articles, and triangulating that information with quantitative evidence from an online survey. Findings show that:

1. Not surprisingly, beginning a collaborative process, without funds, and international space, requires diligent effort.

2. Educators may not want to discuss strengths-based potential when they are faced with oppressive practices.

3. We continue to confront whether and to what extent we believe in participatory process and its ability to change the world.

This article concludes that participatory action research is a worthwhile undertaking to give voice to the varied ideas regarding how we can better prepare our students for the future. The PAR process allows those involved to face the roadblocks that are a holding back the progress toward bettering education and find ways around those obstructions through discussion, reflection and research. While limited to the reflective voices of two of the many participants, the study contributes to the use of collaborative action research by encouraging its employment in international settings and across virtual environments.

Keywords

future of education, student-driven education, collaborative action research, networks,

2

Introduction

This story begins in July 2008 with a series of coincidences that left one woman to take some very bold moves. As an independent academic, living in Ireland, Alana James found herself employing online social networks as a means to develop collegial relationships with other people interested in the future of education. At the same time her hundred plus doctoral students in education flooded her desktop with stories of how difficult it is to work in schools. Three things were troubling:

1) Education is a hard job, with little pay, and difficult work place environments - and this appeared to be as true in the developing world as it was in complex Western societies.

2) Authors and publishers focus on efforts to improve schools while others point out that achieving consistent outcomes is a complex problem, yet no one was using an integrated means to develop new designs.

3) While it has become natural in the world of open source technology for new voices from far distant environments to work together on designing new software, the only international consortiums in education discussing the future of education were attended by those best educated or highly employed in the status quo.

The three coincidences that converged to start the futures of education project were first, Alana was just finishing a six-year longitudinal project where network of participatory team had employed Internet conversations as they designed local solution to the problems associated with homeless students. Second, she was nominated for a fellowship for which the application requires a description of her project. Third, because she was isolated and therefore able to investigate the most intriguing conversation about education she saw the threads of new ideas and wanted to be part of a conversation that wove them together, perhaps into entirely new cloth.

Thus the Future(s) of Education Project was born in July, 2008. The project encourages individual and group participatory work and ideas centered on the question, “What do our children need to thrive in the world they will inherit? A world we cannot imagine.”

Theoretical background

Granovetter (1973, 1982), tells us that the power of “weak ties” is that they have the potential for news to travel between networks, thus improving the work on both sides of the link because of the messages communicated. The potential of this power is seen in the development of open source technology and it relies on a free and uninhibited communication pattern. A key component of networked communication is that anyone can contribute to the conversation, uninhibited by hierarchical roles or the dictates of power. This freedom is obviously not one enjoyed in the halls of educational institutions, but is a guiding light for the emancipatory work of participatory action research teams around the world.

The participatory action research (PAR) methodology (or philosophy as John Elliott (2009) would have it) that I employ is articulated in any three step cycle: 1) discover, 2) act/measure, and 3) reflect. It is frequently true that groups working

3

on complex problems spend the first act/measure step surveying their population or gathering more information (James, Milenkiewicz, & Bucknam, 2008). Thus, measurable actions to create change are not always identified in the first stages of the process.

Short history of what happened 2008 – 2009

Figure 1, below, is a diagram of what would have been true July 2008. It shows Alana James surrounded by a cloud of diverse information on the Internet and interested in talking to others about new possibilities for the design of education.

Figure 1: The Beginning of the Future(s) of Education Project

The website at www.futureofeducationproject.net was launched in mid-September, after Alana attended a self-study conference in the UK. One year later, figure 2 displays the relationships that evolved with the project.

Figure 2: Relationship map, year one Future(s) of Education Project

The following eight milestones contributed to the configuration above:

1. Colleagues at a conference express interest in the project, most fell away but Lindsey Conner in New Zealand has given the project enormous help through sharing futures research from her part of the world and the idea of system wide competencies vs. curriculum.

2. Through a participant from India the overarching challenges of literacy and numeracy in much of the developing world were brought into the conversation. Other colleagues add a few ideas/videos etc to the site.

4

3. Our Isle of Wight team starts and adds a firm direction not to forget the importance of assessment – others agree that in many ways assessment drives the ship.

4. We make our first growth producing connection, April Maria. She: runs a complete group (5), starts a facebook group (6), and most recently facilitates groups of young people who are producing a video for the CARN conference in Athens.

5. Stray volunteers happen (8) leading us towards more individualized input and “take away” strategies for the site.

6. One doctoral student, loosely connected to the project, nevertheless runs with the ideas, developing the concept of student “VOICE” and is beginning to transform the ways in which the US Army provide ongoing training to officers.

7. Spanish speaking colleagues help add non-English content to the site (7).8. A connection in Uganda grows to the point where he will also present at the

CARN conference in Athens, 2009.

In tandem with various input from diverse partners the conversation about what the required by students in the future evolved. Figure 3 outlines the general conversation.

Figure 3: Map of discussion topics, year one Future(s) of Education Project

A central point for discussion and debate had to do with whether and to what extent young people require guidance. Two continuums became clear, from student-driven to educator-driven choices on what topics needed to be learned and the best processes for learning it. Our partner in New Zealand was instrumental in helping others open up to new possibilities. Her country has recently adopted competencies and teachers are beginning to build their instructional design to encourage skills rather than specific points of data retrieval.

In another end of the year set of research findings, the following continuum was developed as we concluded that even with a small group of participants new and provocative ideas emerge. Figure 4 outlines what appears to be a core discussion, foundational to any new design process for education.

5

  Educator-driven process. Students driven process.Educator-driven curricula.

Educator-driven curricular choices with professionals the guiding, and assessing the entire process.

Educator-driven curricular choices delivered in online or other modular context, so that students decide upon and employ skill sets and outcomes of their own choosing.

Student-driven curricula.

Student-driven curricular choices with adults facilitating process and skill sets that aid mastery.

Student-driven curricular choices with little or no adult facilitation (LIE).

Figure 3:  Educator/student-driven curricular/educational choices

Findings

When reflecting on the challenges and successes of the last year, one has to ask what are the qualities that made things work, and what were the forces that inhibit continued participation? Some facts are consistent. People who are leaving or explaining lack of participation always mentioned competing responsibilities. In reverse, during the time that people are most active, they display enthusiasm and a belief that they are participation has meaning and usefulness to help combat the complex adaptive problem that is education today. This is consistent with findings from the web-based professional development project that Alana previously facilitated. It leads us to see participatory action research as a holding environment through which people can address complex issues (Heifetz, 2000; James et al., 2008).

Given that background what are the new lessons to be learned here?

1. Did the next international voices on the web enhance the project? Yes absolutely, although maybe when someone drops off the loss is felt on more complex levels, because we are losing access to an entire international context until we recruit someone else from that area of the world.

2. What attributes cluster with participant involvement in the project?

The amount of international participation keeps others involved. One key participant was an educator at the end of her career who looking back at a high level of frustration with how education in the UK evolved. Her team selected a focus (assessment) that was not universally interesting and they did not receive the international feedback that they wanted. Attendance quickly dropped off.

Local teams will question their involvement. Some teams never started as a result, even though the host was originally quite keen. We saw one team disappear as mentioned above when they did not receive feedback and another suffered through a very unpleasant meeting as they discussed, “What in the world are we doing here? Are not other people with more money doing this exact work?”

6

3. What can be learned from analyzing the Web log data?

Almost 2000 people in over 80 countries visited the site and stayed long enough to look around (didn’t bounce). Consistently the United States brings the most visitors with India second. Most looked into three or four pages during a visit. We now believe that one of the volunteers who came to us in the last months was correct when she said that we needed to design a website or more “takeaways” by the individual. New designs for the site allows visitors to give us information, as they take away:

knowledge about how their ideas stack up with others (findings from the survey they take)

knowledge about how the rest of the world sees educational issues (we are trying to develop a map that links stories to the locations)

a range of quick understanding of different international voices (our video debate section with videos in multiple languages)

information from a variety of papers, videos, and short essays by people on the tension within the education around the world

We also have to address the almost 50% bounce rate through better search engine optimization.

4. What remains to be done?

The answer to this question could easily make those of us involved in the project become quickly overwhelmed. Mostly we need a lot more voices from a lot more places actively involved. The most efficient way for that to happen would be for the project to interact with other educational groups, hopefully finding someone interested enough to act as a liaison, as well as, an active participant in the Futures project.

Part of bridging this project out to wider and more diverse communities requires crossing language and potentially religious boundaries. The site is easily translated into 27 languages, but we do not know how accurate the translations may be. We welcome diverse opinions yet our survey data show that our readership are primarily liberal in their ideology.

Young people are one population likely to both have ideas and be invested in the immediate outcomes of the project. April has started youth participatory groups, the videos from which will soon be on the site, and we would love to see international responses from other teenagers. Youth declarations are not heard often, and we hope that giving them an opportunity to express their thoughts will be a small flame that can be fanned into a wildfire of powerful new ideas shared around the world.

We are sure there are many other answers to this question and hope that the potential of the international participatory discussion designing new ways and means to educate young people is of interest to people who want to carve out their own portion of this project and champion new voices for new designs in education.

7

References

Elliott, J. (2009). Comment made that PAR is philosophy rather than methodology (Private discussion ed.): BERA Mentoring e-seminars listserve.Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties: A network theory The American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.Granovetter, M. (1982). The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited, Social Structure and Network Analysis (pp. 105-130). Beverley Hills: Sage.Heifetz, R. A. (2000). Leadership without easy answers (Second edition ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belnap Press, Harvard University.James, E. A., Milenkiewicz, M., & Bucknam, A. (2008). Participatory action research: Data driven decision making for educational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.