TL;DR
Turn the school run and nap time into listening time
- Thousands of audiobooks, podcasts and originals
- Listen on your phone, tablet or Echo — also offline
- Cancel anytime
ResearchED held its first Midwest conference at a public high school near St. Louis, drawing 160 attendees for a one-day program on applying learning science in classrooms. The grassroots network began in London in 2013 and has since expanded internationally; the conference’s organizers say U.S. teachers have had fewer opportunities to encounter these ideas through training and school systems.
ResearchED held its first Midwest conference at a public high school near St. Louis, bringing 160 educators together for a Saturday program on how research about memory, attention and practice can inform teaching. The gathering marks a regional expansion for the grassroots conference network, which began in London in 2013 and now stages events internationally.
The St. Louis-area event featured about 40 sessions and a keynote by British teacher, author and consultant Tom Sherrington. Rather than focus on new technology or elaborate presentations, Sherrington used a model geography lesson to illustrate techniques involving memorization, discussion and repetition. The subject matter, the report said, was less important than the teaching methods on display.
Sherrington urged teachers to make participation a responsibility of classroom practice, not a burden placed on individual students. He recalled challenging a teacher who had told his daughter to make more effort to speak up in class, saying it was the teacher’s job to create conditions in which students participate. He also described the learning-science principles at the heart of ResearchED as “not niche ideas.”
The program focused on evidence-informed teaching and, according to The 74, avoided broader political and culture-war disputes. One session addressed artificial intelligence, with discussion centered on evaluating tools and whether they reflect learning-science principles. The conference was overseen by cognitive scientist Cindy Nebel; the source provides no full account of her remarks.
A Regional Route to Learning Science
The conference gives educators in the Midwest an in-person opportunity to discuss how findings about learning can be used in everyday classroom practice. Its scale was modest—160 attendees at one event—but its format is intended to carry research to teachers through practical sessions rather than a large national initiative.
The development also points to a gap that U.S. educators and conference organizers describe between research and routine teacher training. Bronx principal and ResearchED organizer MJ Mercanti-Anthony said there is a body of learning science he had not been taught. That is his assessment, not evidence that all U.S. teacher preparation programs omit the material. Still, the event’s arrival in the Midwest creates a forum for teachers to examine that question and compare classroom approaches.
For readers, the immediate impact is local: teachers attended a one-day conference, and the event introduced the ResearchED model to a new region. Whether the sessions lead to lasting changes in instruction, or affect student outcomes, is not established by the report.
Products Worth Considering
LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer Building Set (75394)
Graco EasyTurn 360 2-in-1 Rotating Convertible Car Seat, Cyran
Owlet Dream Sock Smart Baby Monitor
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
From London Gathering to Midwest
ResearchED grew out of online discussion among British teachers in 2012 about why teacher preparation did not include more about how learning works. In September 2013, London teacher Tom Bennett and fellow teacher Hélène Galdin-O’Shea organized the first one-day event at Dulwich College. Sherrington recalled that roughly 30 people presented and that organizers initially expected it to be a one-off.
Further events followed, with local organizers staging conferences under the ResearchED name. The report describes the network as international, with events planned in Toronto, Doha and Haninge, Sweden. The St. Louis-area gathering was its first in the Midwest, though ResearchED had already held events elsewhere in the United States.
The report notes an apparent contrast: cognitive science has deep roots in U.S. research, yet advocates say the ideas have been adopted more widely in England. It links Britain’s uptake to education-policy changes in the early 2010s and a framework for training early-career teachers. Helen Reynolds, a British physics teacher living in Tucson, said she saw no comparable U.S. “mechanisms for improvement.” That is her view; the source does not provide a comparative study of national policy or classroom practice.
““We don’t need to do new stuff. We need to do the things we know really, really well.””
— Tom Sherrington, keynote speaker
Reach and Classroom Effects
The report does not provide a date for the St. Louis-area conference, details about the specific research studies discussed in each session, or a breakdown of attendees by school, role or location. It also does not identify a formal measure of whether teachers changed their practices after attending.
Claims that the United States is behind England or Australia in applying learning science come from conference participants, not a comparative dataset included in the report. The source also does not establish that British policy changes caused improvements in international rankings. The scale of the Midwest event’s longer-term influence, and whether further regional conferences will follow, remain unclear.
ResearchED’s Next International Meetings
The report identifies the network’s next three events as planned for Toronto, Doha and Haninge. It does not give dates for those meetings or announce another Midwest conference. For the St. Louis event, the next measure of its reach will be whether organizers and attendees carry the discussions into local schools or arrange further gatherings; no such follow-up was confirmed in the source.
Key Questions
What is ResearchED?
ResearchED is a grassroots education conference network that organizes one-day events where educators discuss research-informed teaching and the science of learning.
What happened near St. Louis?
ResearchED held its first Midwest conference at a public high school near St. Louis. The event drew 160 attendees and included about 40 sessions, according to The 74.
What does learning science cover at these events?
The report describes it as research into memory, attention and practice, and how evidence about those processes can inform teaching. Sherrington’s keynote used memorization, discussion and repetition to demonstrate classroom techniques.
Will ResearchED hold another Midwest conference?
The report does not announce another Midwest date. It names planned events in Toronto, Doha and Haninge, but does not provide dates for them.
Did the conference show that learning-science methods improve student results?
No student-outcome findings were reported. The gathering presented teaching ideas and research-informed approaches, but the source does not measure their effects on students or document changes made after the conference.
Source: the74million.org
