Becoming an Evidence Informed Teacher: from System Design to Classroom Reality

Educational change and innovation are a clear priority in educational systems in recent years across Europe. In this talk, Professor Georgeta reflects on the role played by the educational evidence in shaping the school innovative practices and we illustrate the discussion with examples from the Catalan educational context. Situated at crossroads between social cohesion and strong regulations, Catalan schools are navigating a hybrid system marked by increasing autonomy and the educational tradition with an amplified interest in accountability and quality assessment through rigid standards and designs.

Despite the Catalan administration recent promotion of several initiatives to engage schools and teachers with the use of scientific evidence, this process is still irregular and depending basically on the school decisions or teachers’ commitment. In this talk, she will explore the factors shaping the teachers’ engagement with evidence. Professor Ion covers a wide spectrum: from teachers’ and educational leaders’ conception of the nature of evidence, to given teachers' willingness to use evidence and whether school environments favourable (or not) to the use of evidence. Acknowledging these factors allow us to discuss different scenarios of action at the system, organizational and classroom level. At the system level, promoting a vision of practice informed on evidence requires coherent and responsible actions among all actors and a strong commitment with the “evidence culture”. At the organizational level, the development of the capacity to use evidence requires leadership that is sensitive to research and stimulate a positive teachers’ attitudes towards the research evidence. At the classroom level, teachers’ motivation, an individual mindset that values the scientific inquiry and reflexion, doubled by collaboration and peer support appeared as key elements.

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