When worlds combine: Teacher - researcher collaboration for practice based research in primary schools: NRO invited EAPRIL symposium

In the autumn of 2016, in the Netherlands, three university-school partnerships started where researchers, teachers educators and primary school teachers collaborate in practice-based research. The aim of these partnerships is to perform practice-based research in a sustainable way. In this manner, knowledge generation and school development can be assured to be permanent processes.

Collaborative research in the partnerships aims to answer questions that arise in school, since answering these questions will contribute to the adaptation of research findings in practice.

In a NRO (Netherlands initiative for education research) invited symposium we will shortly present our findings of a literature study and model on successful teacher-researcher collaboration. Subsequently, from each partnership a researcher and a teacher will present the research project they are currently working on. These research presentations illustrate central aspects of teacher-researcher collaboration.

The first is an example of how teachers and researches collaborate in research: ‘Promoting critical thinking in active learning processes: how competent do teachers feel when using an instructional guidance?’ The second ‘Bridging the gap between research and practice’ and the third ‘Crossing the border. Creating boundary objects and boundary activities in Professional Learning Communities’ present on the collaboration in a more general way.