The question I’d like to explore when I host Twitter’s #UKEdResChat this week is: ‘How do we translate inspiring research into effective and sustained good practice?’
@DrGaryJones has usefully suggested the following starting point:
The 6 As that Gary refers to are as follows:
Accurate (research findings with the probability of benefit)
Accessible (in terms of getting hold of the evidence and understanding it)
Applicable (to the specific context a teacher is working in)
Acceptable (to a teacher’s understanding and beliefs about what will bring about improvement)
Appropriate (to the context a teacher is working in)
Achievable (practical and realistic)
These 6As are like a kind of entry exam – a preliminary test of whether any particular body of research is likely to work for busy practitioners. If we apply them to a popular body of research such as that generated by Carol Dweck and her team, we can see that they make a lot of sense:
Accurate: The evidence generated by Dweck’s team over more than 30 years, and summarised in Dweck’s book ‘Self Theories’ is pretty persuasive.
Accessible: A number of publications (perhaps most famously ‘Mindset’) have made the research exceptionally accessible.
Applicable: The shear number of schools wanting to know more about Mindset Theory is testament to its applicability.
Acceptable: In my experience, you only need to start the conversation before teachers become excited about knowing more.
Appropriate: The central idea of exploring what we believe about intelligence couldn’t be more pertinent to the job of any educator.
Achievable: There are many schools that claim to ‘be’ Growth Mindset schools.
And it’s this last A that leaves me thinking about the need for an equally stringent set of requirements for ensuring that the translation of research into practice doesn’t reduce the original work into something superficial or faddish.
I’ve seen a lot of inspirational posters with simplistic messages about the need to sustain effort no matter what. Of course in some cases these are backed up by a more thoughtful engagement with the deeper questions of how we engage and challenge students. But very often the posters betray a tendency to avoid the necessary rigour for turning ground breaking research into ground-breaking practice.
So I would suggest that in addition to the 6 As we need a guide for rigorous classroom enquiry – something that helps us with the process of translating great research into great practice. Here’s my first (and rather clunky, I know) stab at what this might include:
R (research lead): Nominate a strong research leader or mentor to identify research that meets the 6 As
I (inspire): Inspire busy teachers with a summary of the research in question with suggestions of where to go for more (should any teachers have the head space and time to do that)
G (focus on groups): Identify groups of students whose performance you’d like to impact
OU (focus on outcomes): Identify measurable outcomes so that you can track whether new interventions are working
R (review and refine): Work in partnership with a mentor or colleague over several months so that you can constantly review and refine what you’re doing in the light of what you find
S (share): Share findings with the wider school community so that others have the opportunity of taking up ideas from where you left off
Please join me on Thursday evening at 8.30 using the @UKEdResChat handle to shape this up into something really useful and to share your experiences of how you’ve moved beyond the inspirational posters. And in the meantime have a look at @DrGaryJones’ blog for a broader discussion of Steve Higgins’ 6 As.
