Teachers--Are you investigating questions about practice in your classroom? Does a study of your own instruction, assessment, classroom management, student response patterns, use of time, or other factors interest you?

Teacher educators--Are you helping teachers investigate questions about their practice? Are your graduate students engaged in studies of their instruction, assessment, classroom management? Do your research courses help teachers explore their classroom behaviors?

One difficulty classroom teachers often encounter is finding time to share successes, questions, ideas, and problems with others. Another is having on hand the information needed to reflect about their own practices. AEL can't solve the problem of time, but we can help in other ways. First, we bring teachers together to study a particular education issue and exchange ideas--face to face or on-line. Second, we provide state-of-the-art education information. Using computerized databases and resources on hand in our facility, AEL's Resource Center helps teachers locate the information they need.

For more than a decade, AEL has worked with teachers across the Region to investigate various education issues. Each brings a particular expertise to the task: Teachers contribute their practical wisdom from the classroom; staff share their knowledge of research and R&D methods. Teachers review literature, develop research methods for gathering information, conduct research, design and conduct classroom interventions, and analyze and summarize findings. It's a good model for professional development: Teacher expertise is recognized and valued; teachers are given a forum for exchanging ideas and examining new knowledge; the work relates to real problems in real schools; and teachers engage in hands-on, active learning.