Conversations in Education Research

Questions:

1. What are the ‘keys’ to a successful research partnership?

2. How do we identify research priorities?

3. How can research be connected to board and provincial policy?

4. When do we ‘know’? When is the evidence ‘good enough’?

5. What should partners be doing to mobilize the knowledge created by their work?

6. How can we expand research capacity in school boards?

7. How can teachers access research knowledge?

8. How do we engage students as researchers and knowledge builders?

Where are we now?

• Variability in capacity

• Emerging partnerships and collaboration

• A culture shift is occurring in which evidence is increasingly valued

Where do we want to be?

• Sustained focus on student learning• Evidence embedded in practice at all levels• Access to and application of research and evaluation

knowledge • Deliberate and collaborative processes to set policy• Policy and practice reflective of all voices• Sustainable links between research, policy and practice

How are we going to get there?

• Create mechanisms-models for effective collaboration

• Develop common research ethics guidelines

• Increase organizational capacity to use research

• Respect students and teachers as knowledge builders

“It doesn’t matter if you’re on the right track, if you’re standing still.”

Will Rogers

A JAZZ BAND

NOT

A SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Our collective work

Figuring out what promotes human learning

AND

Keeping the main thing the main thing!

Managing Perpetual Motion

Successful synergies among research, policy and practice require that all partners

RESHAPE

SHIFT

FLEX

The OERP’s Commitment

Building bridges to make learning irresistible for students and the adults who serve them by:

• Being a catalyst for research• Identifying research needs and shared areas of

interests• Encouraging the culture of inquiry• Fostering collaboration• Supporting knowledge exchange and

mobilization

Complex times require conspicuous optimism

New learning destroys old truths

Moral energy is a renewable resource