Embracing the ‘messiness’ of action research in enhancing your educational influences in learning with the Network Educational Action Research Ireland (NEARI)

This presentation is focused on the importance of making public and sharing your embodied knowledge as educators in improving learning and professionalism in the Republic of Ireland’s schools, colleges and universities. It includes a focus on your unique creativity and the constellation of values you use in asking, researching and answering questions of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing in my professional practice?’ I shall show where the ideas have evolved since my presentations in Dublin on Research-­based professionalism through living educational theories to Annual Conference of Educational Studies Association of Ireland http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/jack/ESAI.pdf (Whitehead, 1998) and Creativity: Enhancing our Vision of the Future with Multimedia Representations of Learning a keynote to the 2011 DIVERSE conference https://vimeo.com/35292978 (Whitehead, 2011). I shall also emphasize the importance of embracing the ‘messiness’ of action research in the creative phases of generating your living-­educational-­theory and offer evidence to show the potential educational influences in the process of making public your embodied knowledge as a professional educator. This includes your explanations of your educational influences in your own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations that influence your practice and understandings. The importance of communities, such as NEARI, will be shown in sustaining motivations and in enhancing the validity of contributions to educational knowledge. I shall demonstrate the use of multi­‐screen SKYPE Conversations and the use of ‘living-posters’ for sharing and spreading the national and global influences of the living‐educational-theories of Irish practitioner-researchers in enhancing professionalism in education