This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 177 of the Cult of Pedagogy podcast.

In this episode, we are going to talk about how classroom teachers can find, read, and use academic research.

When I put things out into the world about teaching, I do my best to support those things with research.

But honestly, I have never felt really secure about it because I don't have any formal training in academic research.

I have a bachelor's degree in secondary education and an MA in writing and publishing.

So my direct experience with academic research has been mostly self-directed.

Although plenty of people in the education world do have this training, I'm guessing quite a few others,

especially K-12 classroom teachers are in a similar boat to mine.

You have a vague understanding of how a peer-reviewed, published piece of research works,

but a lot of it is still pretty confusing.

It's like the university folks who study best teaching practices are standing at the edge of a canyon,

and all the way on the other side are the actual practicing teachers.

There should be study, clear communication between these two groups, lots of good bridges that are

easy to access, but so far we only have a few, and far too many of us on the teaching side don't

even know about them. That's what this episode is for. To teach teachers how to get a hold of

research that can inform what you do in your classroom, hopefully in ways that won't require

crazy amounts of time. This is not going to be the most exciting episode I've ever put out.

I mean we're looking at academic research and talking about the finer points of interpreting it,

and it's a lot longer than most of my other episodes, but I think it's incredibly valuable because

it will empower teachers with the tools they need to back up their instructional decisions with

solid research. So think of this episode as a mini-course. My guest, Kripa Sunder, is an educational

psychologist who agreed to help me get better at understanding how to read research.

...