Brian J (Ghana)
Living Educational Theory research in Ghana
I am the President of the Action Learning and Action Research Association of Ghana, an academic and professional association seeking to promote the practice of action learning and action research in Ghana (ALARAG), principally in education. We have a relationship with the Action Learning, Action Research Association international (ALARA) through their International Vice-President Emmanuel Tetteh. Since the middle of 2019 we have been in discussion with ALARA about the possibility of holding their next World Convention in Ghana. By the turn of the year negotiations with a major Ghanaian public university were at an advanced. We in ALARAG were very keen to see good local representation at the Convention with some outstanding presentations. With this in mind I began to deliver two-day workshops on Living Theory Action Learning in the Colleges of Education at the invitation of the College Principals.
ACCE ACTION RESEARCH WORKSHOP LEARNING JOURNAL 18th– 19th FEBRUARY 2020
ACTION RESEARCH WORKSHOP FOSO COLLEGE OF EDUCATION 3rd -4th MARCH 2020
During the workshops I introduced my ‘6 E’ cycle of, Explore, Engage, Enact, Evaluate, Enhance, and Explain. In these workshops I covered the first four ‘Es’ Explore, Engage, Enact, and Evaluate. In the ‘Explore Stage’ I gave an introduction to living theory, connected colleagues with their own living theories and invited them to frame interventions would express those theories in practical ways in their work as teacher educators and disciplinary researchers. In the second ‘Engage stage we looked at ways that these interventions might be designed through engagement with participants and scholarly literature. Next, at the ‘Enact Stage’ We considered the (collaborative) enactment of the intervention with participants. Lastly, in the ‘Evaluate State’ we looked at ways to gauge the quality and progress of the intervention alongside enactment. It was my intention to hold a second series of workshops on the Enhance and Explain Stages once colleagues were well advanced with their interventions at which we could consider how to improve interventions that had been enacted and then how to explain them to a wider audience through presentation at the World Congress and through publications.
It was also our aim to build the membership of ALARAG by establishing local chapters as colleagues worked together on their interventions. Dr Samuel Atintono, the Principal of Accra College of Education was the first to invite me to facilitate a workshop with his staff on the 18th to 19th of February 2020. He then introduced me to his friend and colleague, Dr. Anthony Baabereyir, Principal of Fosu College of Education at Assin Fosu in the north of Ghana’s Central Region of Ghana where I facilitated a second workshop on the 3rd to 4th of March. Dr Anthony was in the process of recommending me to his colleague at Komenda College of Education, Rev. Dr. Kwesi Nkum Wilson, in the south of the Central Region on the coast. Sadly, the Corona Virus pandemic erupted and all face to face teaching in Ghana’s educational institutions, public and private, at all levels was suspended indefinitely. I’ve had favourable feedback from the events themselves and from Colleagues during the workshops. I post here my reflective journals from the events that include reflection on feedback gathered during and after the events.
Sadly, the outbreak of the pandemic (there are now over 5,000 cases in Ghana at the time of writing) has also interrupted the negotiations for the ALARA World Convention which has currently been post-posted until international travel is possible once more.
