Understanding Teacher Change and Teachers as Learners in K-12 Classrooms

Overview

<p><span>In 2017, the James S McDonnell Foundation (JSMF) inaugurated a program supporting use oriented research expanding our understanding of teachers as learners and as agents of change in education. The focus of the program’s call for pre-proposals in 2017 and 2019 is on facilitating high quality communication in classrooms.</span></p> <p><span> To help advance a science of the understanding of teachers as learners, JSMF is supporting research at the interface of cognitive science and educational practice that, over the next decade, will elucidate actionable knowledge from the study of teacher change and teachers as learners across the trajectory of teaching careers. Although widely acknowledged that teachers are critical agents in the national efforts to improve students’ educational success, educational innovations aimed at improving student learning and performance rarely consider how teachers will learn to implement these new practices or determine whether or not new approaches should (or can) be incorporated into existing practices.</span></p> <p><span> The JSMF program will focus on supporting research that builds from a cognitive science perspective on teachers as learners – including a focus on the aspects of cognition (e.g., memory, effort, prior knowledge, motivations, goals, expertise, collaboration and others) that guide teacher thinking and change in attitudes, knowledge, skills and the adoption of evidence-based practices in classroom contexts. In particular JSMF is interested in research that can be characterized as useable, needs-driven education research that identifies malleable factors that influence the developmental changes occurring as teachers introduce evidence-based knowledge into their professional practice.</span></p>