VCU news

By Brian McNeill

A Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education conference will bring university researchers together with K-12 school leaders and practitioners to consider new ways to make educational research more meaningful.

“Over the past several decades, there has been an increasing awareness within the community of educational researchers that we need to find ways to build the relevance and impact of our work,” said Jesse Senechal, Ph.D., associate director of research and evaluation for the School of Education’s Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium, which is organizing the conference. “This conference is designed to create a conversation around this idea as well as to highlight nontraditional research work happening at various levels of the system.”

The 13th annual MERC conference, “Making Research Matter: Rethinking the Form and Function of Educational Research in Our Schools,” will be held on April 14 at the Chesterfield Career Technical Center, 13900 Hull St. To register, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MERC2016.

The conference will highlight several forms of educational research that stand in contrast to the traditional forms. This includes teacher action research, university/school research partnerships, youth participatory action research and continuous improvement.

“These forms of research have gained a considerable amount of attention and support recently from the community of educational researchers, from the federal government and from private foundations,” Senechal said.

In addition to highlighting the innovative research work occurring within schools across the region, the conference is also designed to support networking and community building across educational stakeholders.

“I have found that the most successful projects begin with conversations across these groups,” Senechal said. “For example, when a teacher or a principal sits down with an educational researcher to pose the research questions and design the methods, it adds to both the relevance and the rigor of the work.”  

MERC was established in 1991 as a partnership between the School of Education and Richmond-area public school systems. Its mission is to improve teaching and learning by conducting and disseminating collaborative research on topics of interest that are identified by practitioners and school leaders. Current MERC studies include research on teacher morale, equity in disciplinary practices and school climate. The consortium also conducts program evaluations for school systems, universities and other agencies, and sponsors action research by teachers.

As part of the conference, Ronald Gallimore, Ph.D., distinguished professor emeritus of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, will deliver a keynote address, “Making Teaching Better with Better Research Utilization,” in which he will share his reflections on how research can be used for the purpose of continuous improvement within classrooms and schools.

For more information on the 13th annual MERC conference, visit http://www.merc.soe.vcu.edu/dissemination/conference/