1. Introduction to "Pedagogical innovations for university teaching” with Jack Whitehead
The purpose is to develop professional competences to promote educational innovations in teaching practice. The program is for colleagues from the School of Humanities and Educational Sciences at the Universidad Mayor de San Simon (Cochabamba, Bolivia).

2. Teaching practice and action research
The goal is to develop reflective skills on higher education teaching practice to promote professional development. 
Some topics to be addressed in the course are: 1) action research: theory and practice, 2) types and features of action research, and 3) the action research process.

3. What can I offer you? Jack Whitehead, University of Cumbria
I can offer you responses to your questions based on the authority of my experience of professional learning in education since 1966.
I have documented my educational influences in learning in numerous publications most of which are freely available from the website and the Jack Whitehead’s
writing section of:
. These include

4. International Handbooks/Encyclopedia of Action Research
Whitehead, J. (2016) Practice and Theory in Action Research: Living-Theories as Frameworks for Action in Rowell, L. L., Bruce, C., Shosh, J. M. & Riel, M. M. (2016) Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research, US; Palgrave Macmillan.
Whitehead, J. (2015) The Practice of Helping Students to Find Their First Person Voice in Creating Living-Theories for Education, pp in Bradbury, H. (Ed) (2015) The SAGE Handbook of Action Research, Third Edition, London; Sage. For the copy before final corrections because of copyright restrictions see
Whitehead, J. (2014) Living Theories, in the Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research, edited by David Coghlan and Mary Brydon-Miller, pp You can access the draft paper I submitted in 2012 at

5. A 2016 COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF THE GLOBAL ACTION RESEARCH COMMUNITY
The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research offers a vivid portrait of both theoretical perspectives and practical action research activity and related benefits around the globe, while attending to the cultural, political, social, historical and ecological contexts that localize, shape and characterize action research. Consisting of teachers, youth workers, counsellors, nurses, community developers, artists, ecologists, farmers, settlement-dwellers, students, professors and intellectual-activists on every continent and at every edge of the globe, the movement sustained and inspired by this community was born of the efforts of intellectual-activists in the mid-twentieth century specifically: Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, Myles Horton, Kurt Lewin. Cross-national issues of networking, as well as the challenges, tensions, and issues associated with the transformative power of action research are explored from multiple perspectives providing unique contributions to our understanding of what it means to do action research and to be an action researcher. This handbook sets a global action research agenda and map for readers to consider as they embark on new projects.
See

6. Day One – 26th September What is action research?
i) For a working definition of Action Research see:
ii) Types of action research see:
iii) Paired conversations on exploring your contexts, questions, opportunities and constraints for improving practice and researching your own practice.
iv) The design of short action enquiries into improving practice into areas of your own choosing using an action-reflection planner:
v) See the action-reflection planner in Appendix 1 of

7. Headings for the Action-Reflection Planner – Points One-Three
1) What do I want to improve?
2) Why do I feel that something could be improved in what I am doing? This is concerned with what really matters to me in terms of the values that give meaning and purpose in my life. These are the explanatory principles that explain why I do what I do and the living standards of judgment I use to judge by practice and to evaluate the validity of my contribution to knowledge.   
3) What could I do that might improve what I am doing? (Imagining possibilities and choosing one of them to act on in an action plan)

8. Headings for the Action-Reflection Planner – Points Four-Five
4) As I am acting what data will I collect to enable me to judge my educational influence in my professional context as I answer my question?
5) As I evaluate the educational influences of my actions in my own learning and the learning of other, who might be willing to help me to strengthen the validity of my explanation of my learning about my influence with responses to questions such as:
i)               Is my explanation as comprehensible as it could be?
ii)             Could I improve the evidential basis of my claims to know what I am doing?
iii)            Does my explanation include an awareness of historical and cultural influences in what I am doing and draw on the most advanced theories of the day, including the living-theories of others?
iv)            Am I showing that I am committed to the values that I claim to be living by?

9. Day Two 27th September Part One
i) What constitutes an educational enquiry with action research into your educational influence in your own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations that influence your practice and understandings? Distinguishing Educational Research from Education Research.

10. Day Two 27th September Part Two
ii) Introduction to how to access the freely available web-based resources on action research and validated explanations of educational influences in learning.
See – Margaret Riel’s ‘Open Action Research Online Course’ at:
and – Bob Dick’s ‘Action Research and Action Learning for Community and Organisational change’ at:

11. Day Two 27th September Part Three
iii) Sharing your anecdotal stories of improving practice and transforming them into evidence-based explanations of your educational influences.

12. Day Three 28th September Part One
i) Carrying out your enquiry, gathering data from your past practice to use as evidence in an explanation of your educational influences in your own learning and in the learning of your students. Distinguishing data from evidence.

13. Day Three 28th September Part Two
ii) Sharing drafts of your enquiry report with participants acting as a validation group (usually between 3-8 peers) to help to strengthen:
the comprehensibility;
the evidence to support the claims you are making;
sociohistorical and sociocultural understandings;
the authenticity of your explanation of educational influence in living your values as fully as possible.

14. Day Four 29th September Parts One
The use of living-posters 
See -
Publishing in multi-media Journals such as the Educational Journal of Living Theories.
See

15. Day Four 29th September Parts Two
Making public masters degrees from the Universidad Mayor de San Simon.
See
Making public doctoral degrees from the Universidad Mayor de San Simon.
See

16. Day Four 29th September Parts Three
1) Cultural and global influences for your enquiries:
The Action Research Network of the Americas.
See
Action Learning, Action Research Association.
See
Collaborative Action Research Network.
See
2) Using a Living Theory action research approach in evolving school-university partnerships with values that carry hope for the flourishing of humanity.
See

17. Day Four 29th September Part Four - Creating the Future
Group responses to your questions and issues in developing enquiries that include both individual and collective responses to question of the kind, ‘How do I improve my practice?/How do we improve our practice?
Working with educational relationships of the kind, ‘I am because we are ~ we are because I am?’