This research has two aims: (1) to bridge a gap in blended learning research--the lack of a systems approach to the understanding of blended learning research and practice, and (2) to promote a more comprehensive understanding of what has been achieved and what needs to be achieved in blended learning research and practice. To achieve these aims,…

A view from the dance floor of ALICSE participants showed that the integrated children's services remain under pressure to become multi-dimensional, with the rhetorical push to a joint working becoming increasingly complex and difficult to navigate. This was the view of a 360 degree questionnaire to a number of ALICSE participants and reflections…

For more than a century the social work profession has had a dual purpose: to promote individual well-being and social justice, but the micro-macro divide is fragmenting the profession. This article suggests that the profession's aim might best be realized by adopting a unifying purpose, a just sense of well-being. Research on complex adaptive…

Our study responds to calls for theory-driven approaches to studying innovation diffusion processes in health care. While most research on diffusion in health care is situated at the service delivery level, we study innovations and associated processes that have diffused to the system level, and refer to work on complex adaptive systems and whole…

Attempts to measure the quality of teaching and learning have resulted in an overreliance on quantitative performance data and the normalisation of a set of reductionist practices in England's further education sector in recent years. Focusing on lesson observation as an illustrative example and drawing on data from a national study, this article…

Complexity Theory provides unique insights into the implementation and operations of a district literacy initiative. The successful and unsuccessful structures of the literacy initiative are examined through a complexity lens in order to gain insight into the relationships between elements of a complex system and its processes operating within a…

This article demonstrates how an adaptive instructional design for a physics module can be realized in a standard learning management system. We implemented a didactic design with physics-specific online exercises that were accompanied by either detailed or non-detailed instructions, depending on the results of the previous task (or a prior…

New teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate. To retain them, school systems need comprehensive supports and collaborative school cultures that help teachers navigate the complexity of learning to teach. This action research study investigated the problem of new teacher turnover within a school-university partnership context. The…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline an empirical study of how professionals experience work and learning in complex adaptive organisations. The study uses a complex adaptive systems approach, which forms the basis of a specifically developed conceptual framework for explaining professionals' experiences of work and learning.…

This paper shares findings from case study research into how school principals respond to ethical dilemmas. Preliminary research instigated a criteriological inquiry into the nature of schools as systems and findings of that inquiry conclude that schools are complex adaptive social systems rather than the open complicated systems they are…

Social network analysis (SNA) is increasingly viewed as a contributing methodology to program evaluation to examine the complexities of social programs and interrelationships within the program networks. Despite the growing literature on the topic, more knowledge is needed to understand how, when, and under what conditions social network analysis…

Crisis communication systems (CCS) in educational settings have been challenged by mass casualty events including shootings, natural disasters, and health outbreaks in the United States. The U.S. federal government and the U.S. Department of Education have created safety and security instructions to manage these complex and diverse security…

There is an ongoing tension for scientists when deciding to engage with the public about their research as many scientists view direct participation as peripheral to their role. Pressures of time, lack of support by management and a lack of communicative skills are identified by scientists as reasons for not committing to communicative…

Reforms in education often fail due to insufficient time to implement them, too few charismatic leaders, the influence of the preceding culture, scarce resources or an incapacity to comprehend the complexity of the education system. Most studies dealing with the cognitive aspects of educational change investigate the meaning of change through the…

Many techniques have been developed to enhance learning experience with computer technology. A particularly great influence of technology on learning came with the emergence of the web and adaptive educational hypermedia systems. While the web enables users to interact and collaborate with each other to create, organize, and share knowledge via…