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This article analyzes the potential for reshaping disciplinary divides by engaging with theories and movements that relate to educational change. Generating educational structures that diverge from conventional discipline-based models are a common way of attempting contemporary educational reforms. Interdisciplinary approaches are analyzed in this paper relative to theories of change in the context of secondary level education, with a focus on Québec, Canada. The purpose of this article is to understand and give meaning to the concept of interdisciplinarity within educational change and reform. This exploration proposes a conceptual map for understanding educational change efforts that aim towards rethinking disciplinarity. A model case, NEXTschool, is included to illustrate the applied relevance of the theories and ideas explored in this paper., Cet article s’intéresse au potentiel de remodeler les clivages existants entre les disciplines en s’inspirant d’articles qui explorent les théories et mouvements permettant des changements en éducation. Créer des structures éducationnelles qui se démarquent des modèles traditionnels basés sur les disciplines se révèle une pratique commune pour amorcer des réformes en éducation (Lenoir et Klein, 2010). Dans cet article, les auteurs analysent des approches pédagogiques qui combinent, traversent ou transcendent les divisions disciplinaires en lien avec des théories du changement, au niveau de l’enseignement au secondaire et particulièrement au Québec, Canada. L’objectif des auteurs est de comprendre et de donner un sens au concept d’interdisciplinarité dans un contexte de changement et de réforme en éducation. S’inspirant du modèle d’analyse de concept de Hupcey et Penrod (2005), les auteurs proposent une carte conceptuelle pour représenter les initiatives de changement mises en place dans le domaine de l’éducation dans le but de redéfinir la disciplinarité. Une étude de cas, NEXTschool, est présentée pour illustrer la pertinence de mettre en pratique les théories et idées explorées dans l’article.

In this paper, we examine the current literature on whole-school-system change processes, and the ways in which research findings may be applied to schools in Quebec, Canada. Throughout the paper we use a current school change initiative, NEXTschool, to explore the possibilities and challenges that some of this literature presents, applied to a specific context. At the conclusion we offer a conceptual framework that underpins how we conceptualize the NEXTSchool initiative. The review focuses on three fields that have emerged as relevant to current change movements: 21st century educational change/reform, power dynamics, and design thinking as a systems-change process.

As video games become a ubiquitous part of today's culture internationally, as educators and parents we need to turn our attention to how video games are being understood and used in informal and formal settings. Serious games have developed as a genre of video games marketed for educating youth about a range of world issues. At face value this seems a worthwhile enterprise; however, how is this genre viewed by youth who are immersed in video game culture? This paper explores what can be learned by inviting a group of youth to play and analyze current “serious” games. Key findings include adolescents’ comments on how serious games compare to mainstream entertainment-based games and how world issues are represented in games. Implications from this research suggest that serious game designers need to pay attention to the perceptions and experiences of gamers if video games are going to be developed as instructional tools for youth and children.

Objects are an integral part of our surroundings and, as people, we interact with them for their everyday use or aesthetic appeal.

In this paper I discuss the tension created by religion and science in one student’s understanding of knowledge and truth by exploring two questions: “How do individuals accommodate their religious beliefs with their understanding of science?” and “How does religious knowledge interact with scientific knowledge to construct meaning?” A constructivist framework sheds light on the answers to both questions in the context of process and product.

In order that teacher education programs can act as significant scaffolds in supporting new teachers to become informed, creative and innovative members of a highly complex and valuable profession, we need to re-imagine ways in which teacher education programs operate. We need to re-imagine how courses are conceptualized and connected, how learning is shared and how knowledge, not just “professional”, but embedded knowledge in authentic contexts of teaching and learning is understood, shaped and re-applied. Drawing on our study of a locally developed program in secondary teacher education called Transformative University of Victoria (TRUVIC), we offer a relational approach to knowing as an alternative to more mechanistic explanations that limit teacher growth and development. To ground our interpretation, we draw on complexity theory as a theory of change and emergence that supports learning as distributed, relational, adaptive and emerging.

Pre-service teachers face a complex educational context and Transformative Inquiry is a useful approach for negotiating this terrain. We interpret the movement of students via the adaptive cycle put forth in panarchy theory as they engage in the inquiry process through ‘winter counts’, a Plains First Nation tradition, as expressions of their understanding. These image-based expressions demonstrate the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical movement students have made within their inquiry. Panarchy theory moves beyond interpreting systems using simplistic equilibrium models and acknowledging the more complex and dynamic set of equilibria that describes transformation in ecological, social, and economic systems and considers the multiple complexities of systems thinking while providing insight into how change occurs as a constantly adaptive cycle process. Used sparingly within social sciences until recently, we argue it as particularly relevant for seeing Transformative Inquiry through Indigenist and interconnected lenses.