Rigorous education research has increased considerably in recent decades. There is, however, only limited evidence on topics such as adaptive teaching, personalized learning and effective use of EdTech. Teachers’ use of existing evidence is often limited as their time and capacity to identify, access and adopt relevant research findings is usually scarce. Against this backdrop, we have identified the need for targeted evidence creation, translation and dissemination for school educators.
With SEAL (School Evidence for Adaptive Learning) we want to strengthen the creation and use of rigorous scientific evidence on what works specific to adaptive teaching, adaptive learning, and the effective use of EdTech. We intend to maximize our impact by partnering with leading school aggregators, institutions that group large numbers of schools within and across national education systems according to school characteristics and a common objective, establishing knowledge and practice communities among member schools.
A research agenda co-created by researchers and educators from across school aggregators will guide the development of research projects designed to test and replicate proven effective approaches at scale. We are particularly interested in understanding school-level learning approaches, environments and experiences that are effective in improving learning outcomes in heterogeneous student groups. Through our partnerships with school aggregators, we will ensure that the evidence needs of schools and teachers are addressed and that research findings are promoted for broad uptake. The generation and dissemination of targeted research syntheses and evidence-informed tools as well as longitudinal school datasets comprise complementary SEAL outputs.
