Keynote Speakers 

 

Flávia Vieira, University of Minho, Portugal.

 

Title: Action Research in the Practicum? A Controversial Strategy in Pre-Service Teacher Education Click the title to access the presentation

 

 

Bionote

Flávia Vieira (Ph.D. in Language Education, University of Minho, 1997) is full professor in the Institute of Education at the University of Minho (Portugal). She works as a teacher educator and has been involved in research projects and publications in the areas of pedagogy for autonomy in foreign language education, reflective teacher education, and pedagogy at university. She coordinates the practicum in Teaching Masters and has been engaged in teacher education through action research since 1995. She coordinates a community of teacher educators at the Institute of Education, seeking to build a scholarship of teacher education. She also coordinates a learning community of academic researchers/ teacher educators and schoolteachers since 1997 – the Working Group-Pedagogy for Autonomy – where a transformative view of school pedagogy is explored and investigated. 

 

Heather Waterman, University of Cardiff, UK.

 

Title: ‘A silver jubilee’:  How the passage of twenty five years has led to a personal re-evaluation of action research in health care

 

 

Bionote

Heather has been an action researcher for twenty five years. Coming with a clinical background of ophthalmic nursing, her research interests lie in promoting the care of patients with long term conditions especially those concerning loss of sight.   Her passion for action research arises from its empowering and transforming perspectives. She led the influential systematic review on action research for the NHS HTA Programme published as an HTA Monograph in 2001. She has been chief investigator or co-applicant on externally funded action research grants which have led to the publication of several action research articles in internationally renowned journals. She is also a co-author of a book on action research Koshy E. Koshy V. Waterman H. (2011) Action research for healthcare: A practical guide published by SAGE.  Heather is a member of the editorial team of the International Journal of Educational Action Research.

 

 

 

Richard Winter, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK.

 

Title: Narratives of Empowerment, Justice and Compassion: the 'Discipline' of Action    Click the title to access the presentation

 

Bionote

Richard Winter is Emeritus Professor of Education at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. He began his lifelong involvement with action research in 1974, developing research-based courses for experienced teachers. His doctoral thesis was an exploration of the principles of action research, published as 'Action research and the nature of Social Inquiry', 1987. He later moved to the Health and Social Work Faculty, where he developed 'work-based learning' and action research courses for social workers, nurses and managers. Later, an important part of his work involved encouraging the writing and sharing of short pieces of fictional narrative as a way of exploring professional practice. He currently teaches courses on meditation at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, for groups of school children and for senior citizens enrolled with 'The University of the Third Age'. His work can be accessed at his web-site: 'richardwinter.net'.