Throughout my career, I have struggled with the fact that teacher preparation programs do not include a course in educational research. When I mention this to colleagues (or students), a highly predictable response is “Why should teacher candidates learn about research?” After years of trying to give a calm and rational response to that question, I have recently begun to answer with some questions of my own:• Why should medical students learn about medical research?• Why should nursing students learn about health science research?• Why should law students learn about legal research?• Why should engineering students learn about engineering research?

Hunter, William J.

English

Canadian Journal of Education (CJE) / Revue canadienne de l'éducation

Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 40:2 (2017)©2017 Canadian Society for the Study of Education/Société canadienne pour l’étude de l’éducationwww.cje-rce.caEvidence-Based Teaching in the 21st  Century:  The Missing Link William J. HunterFaculty of Education The University of Ontario Institute of TechnologyThroughout my career, I have struggled with the fact that teacher preparation programs do not include a course in educational research. When I mention this to colleagues (or students), a highly predictable response is “Why should teacher candidates learn about research?” After years of trying to give a calm and rational response to that question, I have recently begun to answer with some questions of my own:•	 Why should medical students learn about medical research? •	 Why should nursing students learn about health science research?•	 Why should law students learn about legal research?•	 Why should engineering students learn about engineering research?I think Homer Simpson may have given us the best possible answer to all of these questions (including the teacher education question): “Doh!” Still, I think we should take seriously the question regarding research-based or evidence-based practice in teaching.I am not alone in this observation. After examining teacher education docu-ments in several countries, Munthe and Rogne (2015) observed: “The terms ‘research’ Special capSule iSSue: celebrating 40 yearS of the cjeEvidence-Based Teaching in the 21st Century 2Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 40:2 (2017)www.cje-rce.caand ‘inquiry’ are either not used when describing teacher education programs or appear to be used interchangeably in the brief presentation of program goal” (p. 18). Indeed, Hargreaves (1997) laid out a variety of similarities and differences between the place of research in medical practice and in teaching.So, let me try the rational approach again. I would like to start by talking a bit about medical education. As noted, others have made comparisons between medical education and teacher education (e.g., Hargreaves, 1997). Davies (1999), identifying what counts as evidence and how to apply it, explained: “Education seems to be in a position	remarkably	similar	to	that	of	medicine	and	health	care	five	or	ten	years	ago”	(p.	117). Taking that as a point of departure, I argue that a useful comparison of the use of research-based evidence in teaching and in medicine is closer to a century old.In 1910, Abraham Flexner, who had founded a private secondary school in Ken-tucky and written a critical report on higher education, was commissioned by the Carne-gie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to conduct a study of medical education in the United States and Canada. Flexner (1910) found, in part, that there was an over-supply of medical doctors, a plethora of low-quality commercial medical schools, and a disturbing lack of standards in medical education. At the same time, he argued, medical practice was changing: “Progress in chemical, biologic, and physical sciences was in-creasing the physician’s resources, both diagnostic and remedial” (p. 8). He recommend-ed	that	medical	schools	be	housed	in	universities,	affiliated	with	teaching	hospitals,	and	have demanding admission standards. He also noted that a small number of aspiring doc-tors went to Edinburgh, London, and Paris for their schooling. There, they were exposed to the “statistical and analytical study of disease, which is the discriminating mark of modern	scientific	medicine”	(p.	9).	After	reviewing	the	emergence	of	new	tools	and	new	knowledge,	Flexner	noted	that	the	field	of	medicine	lent	itself	to	“quick,	intelligent,	and	effective	action”	(p.	20).	However,	he	immediately	qualified	that	observation:	“Provided,	of course, the physician is himself competent to use the instrumentalities that have been developed! There is just now the rub” (p. 20).The	Flexner	report	was	massively	influential,	leading	to	dramatic	changes	in	med-ical education (Cooke, Irby, Sullivan, & Ludmerer, 2006). One of the most enduring im-pacts was the way in which medical schools and medical students took up the challenge to develop research-based practices. And that is why medical students need to learn about medical research. The fact that this challenge was taken up by the physician community Special capSule iSSue: celebrating 40 yearS of the cjeEvidence-Based Teaching in the 21st Century 3Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 40:2 (2017)www.cje-rce.caalmost certainly accounts for the incredible progress that medicine has made in the last century.Should	teacher	educators	and	teacher	candidates	find	a	moral	in	this	story?	I	think	they should. Just as research in the basic sciences and the development of tools like ther-mometers, stethoscopes, and sphygmomanometers created opportunities for the growth of research-based medicine, the growing research in the social sciences and the emergence of neuroscience based on fMRI technology—in conjunction with the overwhelming growth of information and communication technologies—now creates an environment in which there is an increasing demand for evidence-based teaching. Indeed, Davies (1999) described two levels of evidence-based teaching and pointed out that at the second level (involving the production of new knowledge) the “objective of evidence-based education at	this	level	is	to	ensure	that	future	research	on	education	meets	the	criteria	of	scientific	validity, high-quality, and practical relevance” (pp. 109–110), and attributes this develop-ment	to	the	influence	of	an	Oxford	University	master’s	program	in	evidence-based	health care.Of course, we have long emphasized the importance of research in the preparation of the graduate students who will become leaders in the profession, but I am saying that all teachers should have the knowledge and skills needed to critically read the education and social science literature on teaching and learning. Further, they should also have Da-vies’s (1999) level 2 skills in that they should be able to conduct action research in their own schools and classrooms so that their practice is informed by relevant local data.In Flexner’s time, some better models for medical education existed—he spe-cifically	identified	Edinburgh	and	Paris	where	he	saw	both	more	demanding	admission	standards	and	a	stronger	alliance	on	practice	informed	by	scientific	research.	So	I	think	it reasonable to ask if there are currently any examples of Canadian teacher education programs that include some preparation in applying educational or social science research to teaching practice. The answer is yes, they do. For example, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, which opened in 2003, included a course in applied educational research as part of the B.Ed. Despite the best efforts of the faculty to make the content both interesting and practical, student dissatisfaction with the course persisted and even-tually the course was dropped, but it has recently been at least partially replaced with a focus	on	action	research	in	field	placements.Special capSule iSSue: celebrating 40 yearS of the cjeEvidence-Based Teaching in the 21st Century 4Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 40:2 (2017)www.cje-rce.caMore recently, O’Connor, Nickel, and Sternberg (2015) reported that the four-year teacher education program at Mount Royal University includes action research in a practicum setting:In	addition,	the	final	semester	practicum	involves	an	action	research	inquiry	project where mentor teachers and teacher candidates work together to puzzle over some teaching issue in the classroom. This capstone research project aims to equip teacher candidates as future teacher researchers and build the research capacity of practicing teachers as well. (p. 29)Action research may well be the leading edge of a move toward introducing re-search to teacher education programs in Canada, as several other faculties (e.g., the Uni-versity of Toronto, Queen’s University) have made some form of action research option available	in	recent	years,	often	in	the	context	of	reflection	on	practice.It is worth noting that the connections between research and teaching practice are less compelling than the connections between science and the practice of medicine.  Moreover, the processes of moving from research to practice are less obvious and more complex. Coessens and Van Bendegem (2006) provided a thorough analysis of these complexities yet, despite an emphasis on the limitations and problems, they concluded: “The complex relations between science and society are at the core of the subject of edu-cation, which completes the circle and educates society about science” (p. 124). That is to say, there exists now a mutual interdependence between science and education. I believe that	that	interdependence	requires	that	teachers	take	science	sufficiently	seriously	that	they should consider how its methods might inform their practice.Along that line, Mandinach, Friedman, and Gummer (2015) surveyed teacher education programs in the US about their treatment of “data literacy” and also reviewed course syllabi from many of these courses to determine exactly how that treatment ap-peared in practice.   Though they found that many teacher education programs reported that they teach students about “data literacy,” the term seemed often to refer only to skills related to assessment, not to the applications of data to decision making about policy and practice.	Nonetheless,	Mandinach	et	al.	went	on	to	identify	the	specific	barriers	to	a	more	research-oriented	focus	and	provided	specific	suggestions	for	how	teacher	education	pro-grams might address those barriers. They concluded on a hopeful note about the current time being a teachable moment with respect to data literacy for teachers.Special capSule iSSue: celebrating 40 yearS of the cjeEvidence-Based Teaching in the 21st Century 5Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 40:2 (2017)www.cje-rce.caAs we look forward to the 21st century, I think teacher educators should be build-ing the basis for a new teaching profession in which classroom teachers, using the online resources available to them, begin to plan their lessons based on the existing research in education, the humanities, and the social sciences. We should also expect that they will not	only	reflect	on	their	practice,	they	will	do	so	in	the	tradition	of	disciplined	inquiry	with data they have gathered on their students’ needs, expectations, and prior learning. Like medical faculty a century ago, we have a growing body of knowledge and a bur-geoning set of new tools to support our professional work. What is the missing link? I think it is teachers who are “competent to use the instrumentalities that have been devel-oped” and ready to take up the challenge (Flexner 1910, p. 20).  Aye, there’s the rub!Special capSule iSSue: celebrating 40 yearS of the cjeEvidence-Based Teaching in the 21st Century 6Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 40:2 (2017)www.cje-rce.caReferences Coessens,	K.,	&	Van	Bendegem,	J.	P.	(2006).	Expectations	of	what	scientific	research	could (not) do. In P. Smeyers & M. Depaepe (Eds.), Educational research: Why ‘what works’ doesn’t work (pp. 109–126). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer.Cooke, M., Irby, D. M., Sullivan, W., & Ludmerer, K. M. (2006). American medical education 100 years after the Flexner report. New England Journal of Medicine, 355(13), 1339–1344.Davies, P. (1999). What is evidence‐based education? British Journal of Educational Studies, 47(2), 108–121.Flexner, A. (1910). Medical education in the United States and Canada: A report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Boston, MA: Merrymount Press. Available at the Carnegie Foundation website: http://archive.carnegiefoundation.org/pdfs/elibrary/Carnegie_Flexner_Report.pdfHargreaves, D. H. (1997). In defence of research for evidence‐based teaching: A rejoinder to Martyn Hammersley. British Educational Research Journal, 23(4), 405–419.Mandinach, E., Friedman, J. M., & Gummer, E. (2015). How can schools of education help to build educators’ capacity to use data? A systemic view of the issue. Teachers College Record, 117(4), 1–50.Munthe, E., & Rogne, M. (2015). Research based teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 46, 17–24. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X14001322 O’Connor, K., Nickel, J., & Sternberg, G. (2015). Back to the future: Revisiting the authority of experience in teacher education. In L. Thomas & M. Hirschkorn (Eds.), Change and progress in Canadian teacher education: Research on recent innovations in teacher preparation in Canada (pp. 12–39). Ottawa, ON: Canadian Association for Teacher Education.

Evidence-based teaching in the 21st Century: The missing link

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Evidence-based teaching in the 21st Century: The missing link

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Canadian Journal of Education (CJE) / Revue canadienne de l'éducation