This is the professional blog of Steven Caldwell - an Australian Middle School teacher with an interest in utilising virtual world learning to develop positive values. Presently he works at MLC School in Burwood - a day school for girls from Pre-K to 12 (and IB)
Key to his teaching is the concept of play - learning through narrative play in interdisciplinary domains.
"Jack Whitehead's Living Theory and Jean McNiff's Action Research approaches
In generating a living educational theory [http://www.actionresearch.net Living Theories; Whitehead, 1989), most recently explained in Whitehead and McNiff (2006), individuals generate explanations of their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations. They generate the explanations from experiencing themselves as living contradictions in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' They use action reflection cycles of expressing concerns, (saying why you are concerned in relation to values), imagining possibilities in developing action plans, acting and gathering data, evaluating the influences of action, modifying concerns, ideas and action in the light of the evaluations. The explanations include life-affirming, energy-flowing values as explanatory principles."