This work is designed as a working resource for academicians and practitioners involved with community health work at the higher educational level. Faculty, students and community participants are the focus of this collection whose purpose is community health-based service learning - where and when coming out to the community as caring catalysts is central to a higher education mission. All these catalysts must see themselves as partners in a service learning community of practice; They must embrace the analysis of self-reflection toward cultural competence, and thy must engage in data and diagnostic decision-making through action research or service learning in community health intervention. Service learning literacy" is defined as skill, behaviour, attitude, knowledge or awareness that is manifested, within the community health worker or researcher, as a result of or outcome from a faculty led, community service learning activity or experience as part of a student's academic program of study in higher learning. Higher education, through civic engagement and community service learning, must combine efforts with local and regional communities to help eradicate health disparity, eliminate health vulnerability, optimize healthy life style, promote inter-generational and cyclical health and wellness and maximize health care access to the under-served and uninsured. All these aspects of community health work are dealt with by contributions from scholars and practitioners involved in the community health movement. Contributing Editors include Dr.s Tracy Mims, Jerry Watson and Karen C. Wilson. Contributors include Professors Richard Schmuck, Joseph Martin Stevenson, Ricky Boggan, Chris Ann Arthur, John J. Green and Dr D. Melissa Phillips. The first volume of the book conceptualized specific frameworks in the context of action research, faculty reflections about action research, general rubrics for action research, overlapping action-research methods, scope of both proactive and responsive action research, and collaborative processes involving action research. The second volume deals with broader frameworks relative to service learning as social work, global perspectives, cultural competence, community health, environmental justice, hypothetical case scenarios and presented examples by two of the authors who trained and active social workers.

Practical Action Research, Second Edition is a compilation of critical commentaries that offer practical steps for understanding and implementing action research. The contributors demonstrate how educators can reflect, collect data, and create alternative ways to improve their practice in the classroom and schoolwide. Through the voices of experts from the field, the book provides concrete examples of how action research can transform educational challenges into solutions. This updated edition includes seven new articles, along with a series of inspiring case studies that demonstrate how action research can be used to improve a variety of school situations.

CATALYSTICS: Classroom Analytics for Teaching about Social Justice in Higher Learning can serve as the genesis for moving the usual mission statements promulgated by so many universities and colleges from the maintained pontification to the movement of proof. We use the word, CATALYSTICS to create a confluence between the terms catalytical and analytics, resulting in our subtitle about classroom instruction with action research for catalytical change. Action research literacy empowers us to do this and it should be used for teaching about social justice. As our new global society continues to struggle with finding answers to complex questions concerning economic decline, racial and religious conflict, health disparities, corporate ethics, global warming, national and global security, technological reliance, educational failure and many other compelling challenges impacting the human condition, the demand to conduct actionable research to resolve real life problems becomes more amplified and the revelations of the research findings become more pronounced to society and the social justice within society. Time is of the essence, the greater good is at stake, the bigger picture is losing focus, the larger context is losing meaning, and change must come sooner than later as the world continues to terribly troubled, broadly broken and widely wounded. Integrating action research for social justice in reflective teaching can empower those to lead.

Practical Action Research, Second Edition is a compilation of critical commentaries that offer practical steps for understanding and implementing action research. The contributors demonstrate how educators can reflect, collect data, and create alternative ways to improve their practice in the classroom and schoolwide. Through the voices of experts from the field, the book provides concrete examples of how action research can transform educational challenges into solutions. This updated edition includes seven new articles, along with a series of inspiring case studies that demonstrate how action research can be used to improve a variety of school situations.

'This book is a modern catalyst for change in higher education. I have made it required reading for doctoral students, administrators, and faculty who must update their pedagogy to raise student learning' - Joseph Martin Stevenson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Jackson State University Action research provides a process for educators to individually and collectively study their own situations, try new practices, evaluate those innovations, adjust, and try again. In this second, revised edition, Richard Schmuck demonstrates how educators at all levels can use action research to improve their professional practice and change the culture of their schools, districts, or communities. He shows how educators, by reflecting on their past, present, and future professional practice, can convert frustrations into solvable problems, and offers guidance about the potential pitfalls and challenges experienced when engaging in action research. This updated workbook covers both proactive and responsive models of action research and also includes o Easy-to-understand explanations of methods, steps, and phases o A chapter devoted to questionnaires, interviews, observations, and public documents o Guidelines for both solo and cooperative projects o "How-to" worksheets that guide readers through the process o Journal-writing activities at the end of every chapter o Case studies of real action research projects Practical Action Research for Change is the essential tool for educators to tailor action research to their specific situation and improve professional practice.

Travelling across America, the authors visited 25 small school districts in 21 states to meet, observe, and interview students, teachers, principals and administrators. Here the authors present research that connects with reality. Through their fascinating description of the physical and educational landscape, the authors capture life in nonurban schools `as it is', and present information that's brutally honest. In this useful book, the authors provide the beginnings of a road map to help small, nonurban districts and communities begin their own journey on the road to better schools.

The authors of this volume visited 25 small school districts in the US to meet, observe and interview students, teachers, principals and administrators. Here they present research that connects with reality. Through their fascinating description of the physical and educational landscape, the authors capture life in nonurban schools as it is', and present information that is brutally honest. They provide the beginnings of a road map to help small, nonurban districts and communities begin their own journey on the road to better schools.

Higher education is undergoing profound change at an unprecedented pace in today's academic marketplace. These authors have captured the essence expediting of the critical analysis processes needed to confront the challenges of academic administration, finance, student life, technology and other areas in the academic enterprise. Administrators and academicians nowadays must be able to make balanced decisions based on a methodology that is comprehensive, unambiguous, and credible. These authors have provided this methodology based on their collective experiences in perhaps the toughest sector of the marketplace - the HBCU sector. And while HBCU sectors will find this work especially rewarding in fact all institutions of higher learning can benefit from this desktop book. Given the recent media coverage about questionable decision making at institutions of higher learning in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and many others around the world, this work and its research findings can serve as an alternative resource for meeting institutional challenges, approaching them with sequential structure, getting key stakeholders involved in the process, and formulating recommendations for future arbitration. The action research process, for making these tough decisions HEAR and NOW, provide a collaborative synergy to expeditiously move the process from a collegial examination of tacit as well as explicit knowledge. This process certainly supports the wide spread advocacy--in higher education and other business and governmental venues--for fostering organizational learning, leveraging of human capital, institutionalizing human empowerment, and growing learning communities of practice for success. Finally, this book is driven by intellectual prisms that often are overshadowed by political expediency, personal agenda, power positioning and other human inhibitors that cloud decision making centered from data authentication, internal consistency, and verifiable collaboration -- in brief, ""truth"".

This work is designed as a working resource for academicians and practioners involved with community health work at the higher educational level. Faculty, students and community participants are the focus of this collection whose purpose is community health-based service learning--- where and when coming out to the community as caring catalysts is central to a higher education mission. All these catalysts must see themselves as partners in a service learning community of practice; They must embrace the analysis of self reflection toward cultural competence, and thy must engage in data and diagnostic decision-making through action research or service learning in community health intervention. Service learning literacy" is defined as skill, behavior, attitude, knowledge or awareness that is manifested, within the community health worker or researcher, as a result of or outcome from a faculty led, community service learning activity or experience as part of a student's academic program of study in higher learning. Higher education, through civic engagement and community service learning, must combine efforts with local and regional communities to help eradicate health disparity, eliminate health vulnerability, optimize healthy life style, promote intergenerational and cyclical health and wellness and maximize health care access to the undeserved and uninsured. All these aspects of community health work are dealt with by contributions from scholars and practioners involved in the community health movement. Contributors include Professors Richard Schmuck, Joseph Martin Stevenson, Ricky Boggan, Chris Ann Arthur, John J. Green and Dr D.Melissa Phillip

This work is a scholarly monograph for practical use for higher education faculties. Specifically the monograph is aimed at faculties in historically Black and minority colleges and universities but its scope also includes the hundreds of state and private institutions that are trying to raise the level of research engagement among their core faculty. The lessons learned and the techniques observed worldwide by the authors are also included in this work and the study covers general application of action research for responsive proactive intervention in classroom instruction and improvement of higher education outcomes for students, graduate students and returning seekers of higher education as well as faculty needing mentoring and focus in their career development. There are few books that explore these areas of interest and this one is deigned to be intellectually solid as well as imminently practical and usable.