School of Educational Leadership & Change

• Community College Leadership Legacy
• Grounded Theory/Grounded Action
• Mentoring Graduate Students
• Young Imaginations
  

Funding: Support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Contact: Bernard Luskin - bluskin@fielding.edu

Grounded Theory/Grounded Action [back to top]
Odis Simmons, PhD and Toni Gregory, EdD
School of Educational Leadership & Change

Summary: This work has focused on developing a methodology whose purpose is designing and implementing practical actions such as interventions, program designs, action models, social and organizational policies, and change initiatives that address the complexity and multi-dimensionality of organizational and social problems and issues.

Publications/presentations:
Simmons, O. & Gregory, T. (2003, September). Grounded action: Achieving optimal and sustainable change. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [International On-line Journal], 4(3). Available at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-03/3-03simmonsgregory-e.htm

This publication and more information about this project can be found at http://www.groundedaction.com

Contact: Toni Gregory ­ tagregory@fielding.edu or Odis Simmons - osimmons@fielding.edu

Mentoring Graduate Students [back to top]
Sue Gordon, PhD, Jenny Edwards, PhD and Lenneal Henderson, PhD
School of Educational Leadership & Change

Summary: Mentoring is one of the cornerstones of education at the Fielding Graduate University; and, in the School of Educational Leadership and Change (ELC) we are just beginning to study this relationship through the newly initiated Student - Alum - Faculty Mentoring Project, a student-alum-faculty action research project that over time will enable us to investigate different facets of mentoring. The project's research goal is to expand our understanding of mentoring to increase students' success in completing the program and their success in achieving careers as top-rated scholar-practitioners. The Student-Alum-Faculty Mentoring Project was established to enable, students, faculty and alumni jointly to design, conduct and publish the findings. Therefore it will provide a living model of action research and opportunities for all constituencies to participate in a collaborative learning community.

Funding: Support from Fielding Graduate University
Contact: Sue Gordon - sgordon@fielding.edu

Young Imaginations [back to top]
Marianne Locke, EdD (ELC'00)
Executive Director, Young Imaginations (www.youngimaginations.org)
Rodney Beaulieu, PhD, and Nicola Smith, JD
School of Educational Leadership & Change

Summary: The project seeks to involve the school community in support of improved education for all students. Specifically, the elementary and middle school program implements standards-based music and dance education, and features integration of music and dance into the mathematics core curriculum. Students in two inner city San Francisco schools (Bret Harte Elementary School and Enola Maxwell Middle School) and one rural northern California school (Tomales Elementary School) are participating in a multi-year program conducted in an action research setting to determine whether integration of the arts with core subject matter is possible and productive. Qualitative and quantitative measures conducted during 2002 and 2003 showed improved student achievement in math (as measured by standardized test scores), as well as high levels of positive student behaviors (including auditory attention, visual attention, on-task behaviors). Narrative analysis of classroom teachers' and arts specialists' focus group meetings and students' journals revealed themes related to project successes and concerns. Research and analysis on this project continues. A two-year report is being produced during summer 2004.

Publications/presentations:
Beaulieu, R. (2004). Arts Infused Math Education. Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). San Diego. April 2004

Locke, M. (2004). Creative Collaborations: Arts Specialists and Classroom Teachers. State Conference of the California Model Arts Program. Sacramento. May 2004

Locke, M. & Smith N. (2004) Encouraging Powerful Learning in Math. National Conference of the Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. New Orleans. March 2004

Funding: Support from the U.S. Department of Education, California Arts Council, Marin Community Foundation, Shoreline Unified School District, Janus Corporate Matching Program, Fielding Graduate University.

Contact: Marianne Locke - mlocke4yi@sbcglobal.net