Teacher-Informed Research: Putting Teaching at the Heart of Research

As part of the Stewart Allan Robertson Lecture series, the Teacher Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy Hub brings together a group of panellists to discuss the question of teaching in relation to the core mission of education. 

In conventional academic discourse as much as policy, teaching is increasingly being viewed as an activity of usage and delivery, positioned at the end point of a knowledge-producing research process. In this view, teaching is the profession that is meant to 'take up' insights developed by experts or even to apply so called evidence-based procedures. For example, one idea is that if teachers only kept abreast of the latest research from learning science, psychology and sociology, they would become 'research-informed' professionals who conduct their work with expertise and deliver on expected outcomes and results. 

However, another idea is that teaching already had its own kind of research intrinsic to its practice. And while a long tradition of teacher research already exists, the question we are posing is not at the level of how we can get teachers to do more and better research. Instead we ask: what kind of 'educational' research is quietly happening when teachers respond to students, make judgements in the fact of complex situations, say yes or no to pressures they face, or reflect on experiences? What would happen if we recognised and gave voice to these, more subtle and situated form of responsive inquiry, instead of distrusting it in favour of imported generalities from those at a distance from the classroom? And finally, how is educational research educational in this sense? What does it serve to bring about in the students, in the teachers as well as in the settings themselves? 

In this panel, we convene with a group of teachers from across primary schools to higher education, with the aim of exploring what 'educational research' - that is, research informed by, and already part of teaching itself - might look like. The ambitions of this panel is to raise questions, articulate hidden wisdom and revitalise the humanity of teaching in an age obsessed with measurement, procedure and control.