Sustaining teacher researchers: what support really makes a difference?

The National Teacher Research Panel was set up about 15 years ago by CUREE supported by a group of national education agencies most of which no longer exist. It had three main goals:

  • To ensure that all research in education takes account of the teacher perspective
  • To ensure a higher profile for research and evidence informed practice in government, academic and practitioner communities
  • To increase the number of teachers engaged in and with the full spectrum of research activity.

Over the several years of its existence, the Panel, supported by its expert advisers in CUREE, has helped and encouraged dozens of teachers and school leaders to do high quality but practical research. The Panel also helped them report their findings succinctly, in plain English and focused on relevance to other practitioners. This is one such example of that work.

Author: 
Westwell, John
Aim: The main aim of the project was to explore how to establish practitioner research as an effective and sustainable form of continuing professional development both for participating researchers and, through their research work, for colleagues within the schools and network. It was hoped that this would contribute to the development of the schools and the network as effective professional learning communities. The project set out to identify: What motivates teachers to both engage in practitioner research and to sustain their involvement over time; What forms of support teacher researchers need for their work to be successful; and How the learning generated by practitioner research can be effectively shared with colleagues within a school and across the network of schools.
File attachments: 
PDF icon Download (1.78 MB)