Transforming Schools: How Research is Revolutionizing Education

Video Transcript

Have you ever wondered why some educational strategies work wonders while others fall flat? The secret often lies in how well educators and leaders utilize research. But with so much information out there, how do you know where to start? Today, we’re going to start with the Three Cs of Research Utilization. 

Hi friends, I’m Matthew Courtney and here we talk all about education research and data. If you’re into that, make sure you like and subscribe and come be part of our community. 

The '3 Cs'—Consumer, Curator, and Creator of research—are essential roles that every educator and leader should embrace. As a Consumer, you’re staying up-to-date with the latest research to make informed decisions. As a Curator, you’re selecting and organizing research to share with your colleagues and community.

And as a Creator, you’re contributing your own findings to the field, helping to shape the future of education. Together, these roles ensure that research isn’t just something we read—it’s something we actively engage with, apply, and contribute to. Let’s dig a little deeper and see what each of these stages actually looks like in real life. 

Let’s start with the first 'C'—Consumer of Research. Being a consumer of research is about actively seeking out and using the best available evidence to inform your decisions. Whether you’re a teacher planning a lesson or a school leader drafting an improvement plan, being a consumer of research means you’re committed to basing your practice on solid, reliable information.

Education is constantly evolving, and new research is always emerging. Staying informed with the latest studies and findings ensures that you’re not just relying on outdated methods or gut feelings. Instead, you’re making decisions that are backed by evidence, which can lead to better outcomes for your students.

So, how can you be an effective consumer of research? Here are a few tips:

1. Finding Research: Start by identifying credible sources. Academic journals, education research databases, and reputable educational organizations are great places to begin. Tools like Google Scholar can help you access a wide range of studies quickly.

2. Evaluating Research: Not all research is created equal. It’s crucial to critically evaluate the studies you find. Look at the methodology—how was the research conducted? Who were the participants? Are the results statistically significant? Understanding these aspects will help you judge the quality and relevance of the research.

3. Applying Research: Once you’ve found and evaluated the research, the next step is to apply it in your practice. Think about how the findings relate to your specific context. For example, if a study suggests a new classroom management technique, consider how it might work with your students’ unique needs and behaviors.

Now, let’s move on to the second 'C'—Curator of Research. While consuming research is about staying informed, curating research is about actively selecting, organizing, and sharing that information with others. This role is incredibly important because it helps ensure that the right research reaches the right people at the right time.

As a curator of research, you’re not just absorbing information for your own use; you’re also thinking about how to make that knowledge available and useful to your colleagues, students, and the wider school community. This could mean anything from sharing a groundbreaking study with your teaching team, to organizing a professional development session around a set of key research findings, or even creating a resource hub where others can easily access relevant research.

If you’re ready to embrace your inner curator, here are some strategies to consider: 

1. Selecting Research: Start by identifying research that is relevant to your school’s needs or your personal teaching goals. This might involve focusing on specific topics like classroom management, differentiated instruction, or student engagement. The key is to be selective—focus on high-quality, applicable research that can have a real impact on your practice.

2. Organizing Research: Once you’ve gathered relevant research, the next step is to organize it in a way that’s easy to access and understand. This might mean creating a digital library of articles, studies, and reports, or even summarizing key findings in a way that’s easy for others to digest. Tools like Google Drive, Evernote, or specialized research platforms like Mendeley can be really useful here.

3. Sharing Research: The final step in curation is sharing what you’ve found with others. This could be as simple as emailing a research article to a colleague or as involved as presenting at a staff meeting. The goal is to make sure that valuable research isn’t just sitting on your computer—it’s being used to inform and improve educational practice across your school or district.

Remember that curating research isn’t just about collecting and sharing any and all studies. It’s about filtering and contextualizing that research to make it accessible and relevant. As a curator, you need to consider the specific context of your school or classroom. Not all research will be directly applicable, so it’s your job to interpret it and help others see how it can be adapted to fit their needs.

Finally, let’s dive into the third 'C'—Creator of Research. While consuming and curating research are essential roles for educators, becoming a creator of research takes your impact to a whole new level. 

Becoming a creator of research means generating new knowledge that can help inform and improve educational practices. This could involve conducting your own studies, engaging in action research projects, or collaborating with researchers to explore specific challenges in your school or classroom.

By creating research, educators can directly contribute to the knowledge base that shapes our field. You can have a stronger voice in the broader educational conversation. When you share your own findings, whether through publication, presentations, or professional networks, you’re influencing how others think about and approach similar challenges. This can lead to improvements not just in your own practice, but across the wider education community.

Becoming a creator of researcher doesn’t require you to get a job at a university. You can research education right in your own setting. Here are a few pathways you can take:

1. Engage in Action Research: Action research is a reflective process where educators identify a problem in their own classroom or school, implement a strategy to address it, and then collect data to see how well it worked. This cycle of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting helps you generate practical insights that can immediately improve your teaching and benefit your students.

2. Participate in Research-Practice Partnerships: Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) involve collaborations between educators and researchers to address specific educational challenges. In an RPP, you might work closely with a university or research organization to co-design studies, interpret data, and implement findings in your school. This type of partnership ensures that the research is directly relevant to your context and that you have a hand in shaping the questions being asked.

3. Develop a Collaborative Inquiry Group: Collaborative inquiry involves forming a group of educators who share a common interest in a particular issue or challenge. Together, you conduct small-scale research projects, share findings, and discuss how to apply them in your practice. This approach leverages the collective expertise of the group and fosters a culture of continuous learning and improvement within your school or district.

Through the lens of the Three Cs—Consumer, Curator, and Creator—we see how research can truly come to life in our educational practices. These roles provide a clear framework for not just understanding research, but for actively using it to shape a better future for our students and schools.

I challenge you to think about how you’re currently engaging with research in your role. Are you consuming, curating, and creating? How can you deepen your practice in each of these areas? Remember, the power of research lies not just in reading it but in applying it, sharing it, and contributing to it.

If you found value in this video today, make sure you like and subscribe and check out some of the other videos on my channel. See you next time.