{"id":1502,"date":"2018-04-16T15:02:46","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/sioe\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2018-04-16T15:08:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:08:08","slug":"research-engaged-practice-in-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/sioe\/2018\/04\/16\/research-engaged-practice-in-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Research-Engaged Practice in Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month the Research-Engaged Practice Network <\/a>(REPN) are back after a brief period of rest, with research being presented from a range of practitioner-led perspectives, including the Primary Science for All project, the Research Schools Network and South Yorkshire Futures. For those that aren’t aware of the REPN, it provides a way in which all those engaged in research can learn about each other\u2019s research, develop their research skills and share findings from their own research. The environment is informal, friendly and supportive: we are all researchers together, no matter what your level of engagement and we all learn from each other.<\/p>\n

Practitioner engagement with research why is it important?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In education, over the last few years, emphasis on practitioners\u2019 engagement with research has grown. The Welsh government commissioned us<\/a> to help to strengthen the capacity for an evidence-based, research-informed initial teacher education system in Wales. Meanwhile, organisations such as the Research Schools Network and ResearchEd are also gaining strength.\u00a0 Colleagues in schools who are leading or working on bids to the Strategic School Improvement Fund or to the Education Endowment Foundation will have responded to the requirement to provide evidence of \u201cwhat works\u201d.<\/p>\n

At school level, it\u2019s great that increasing numbers of teachers are engaged in research through activities such as lesson study, action research or teacher research groups.\u00a0 However, it can be a challenge for teachers to turn evidence from research into improved practice.\u00a0 As my colleague Mike Coldwell has pointed<\/a> out, evidence for some strategies can gather unwarranted traction in the system, while evidence for others may be largely ignored.<\/p>\n

Colleagues in the SIOE, working with the University of Durham and the UCL Institute of Education, recently published a report for the DfE on the ways in which schools engage (or not) with research.\u00a0 They suggest that there are three ways in which schools and teachers engage with research:<\/p>\n