The Center's Activities

Connecting between Education Research and Practice

The Center has a large research team leading the research processes in the various arenas

The Center brings together senior scholars from a wide range of disciplines. The Center also has a team working to create meaningful research-practice connections to advance the relevance of the research and its products to practice. Many of the team members have teaching, administrative, and/or training experience.

The Center operates based on the eight years of research activity conducted by the Laboratory for the Study of Pedagogy (led by Dr. Danna Vedder-Weiss and Prof. Adam Lefstein), which included research and development work with partners in the field of education, including two education districts and professional development bodies. Researchers, district representatives, R&D representatives from the Ministry of Education, instructors, mentors and teachers were all involved in the research and development processes.

The Center's Fields of Activities

1. Research and development (R&D) partnerships with strategic partners in the education field. The R&D partnerships seek to tackle challenges in the field of education by combining research aimed at obtaining in-depth understanding with the development of tools and resources for teaching and learning to deal with each challenge.

2. Support to research and development (R&D) communities of education practitioners. Providing support and guidance to the communities as they carry out inquiry into their processes and practices to lead to improvements. The guidance and facilitation provided to the R&D communities support them in developing research skills, and provide the, with tools for systematic inquiry and for gathering and organizing relevant scientific knowledge.

3. Development of professional knowledge and its assimilation in practical learning tools and resources in collaboration with professional training and development bodies. We turn research-based knowledge into useful practical knowledge by developing tools and learning aids, testing their practical application, and making the necessary adjustments.

4. Advancing the understanding of processes of integration and consumption of professional pedagogical knowledge. We deal in research that is focused on obtaining and understanding knowledge and developing skills in our core practice areas. We study the interrelationship between scientific knowledge and professional knowledge and ways to strengthen them as well as forge academic-practice partnerships: opportunities, challenges, and effectiveness.

The Center's activity is premised on the connection between high-quality academic research and collaborative development processes with education practitioners, together with the infrastructure to support the research and development processes in the R&D partnerships and professional communities. We combine research knowledge with applied practical knowledge and integrate research knowledge into pedagogical and practical tools.

The Research and Development Process

1. In collaboration: The Center, the intermediary bodies and the practitioners in the field are partners from start to finish in characterizing the problem, defining the goals, as well as developing, testing, and adapting applied tools.

2. Spawns from a need that comes from the practice; not from our research agenda, e.g. an intermediary body wishing to work on a certain problem or a principal seeking to improve a certain process at the school.

3. Based on local practical knowledge and the experience of professionals coupled with scientific knowledge based on systematic research.

4. The tools and learning products are connected to the local context and practices in the field alongside the knowledge gained in applied research. They are developed from the practical challenges and opportunities that arise from the pedagogical practice.