BRIST – Building a Research Infrastructure for School Teachers

The key objective of BRIST is to develop teachers into teacher researchers and evidence informed practitioners through a supported infrastructure and resources which themselves are evidenced based, thereby giving back agency to the very people who will need to make use of and should be driving forward research in schools.

This project responds to a central question: ‘how do we support teachers to become teacher researchers and evidence-informed practitioners?’ The project is therefore primarily aimed at teachers in the school sector. The project deliverables will enable teachers to access research, academic researchers and teacher researchers; learn how to carry out small scale research; collaborate on and publish research, support teachers as they take part in robust small-scale classroom research.

To achieve this, we will develop and build an online research infrastructure for teachers, which supports teachers’ lifelong learning through evidence-informed research throughout their professional careers. The primary target audience are school teachers, however for this project to realize its objectives, it will necessarily have secondary target audiences which include strategic leaders in schools, educational researchers, teacher educators and policymakers.

The activities and expected results can be summarized thus:

1. Scoping Study and Reports
2. Development of a Mobile App
3. Training Program for In-Service Teachers
4. Influencing Strategic Leaders in Schools
5. Multimedia Scenarios and Case Studies
6. Academic Outputs
7. Establishment of a transnational Teacher Researcher Network