Teacher Research Literacy (TREL): Comparative Trajectories in the Nordic-Baltic Region

TREL aims to identify good practices in the Nordic-Baltic educational context. It also envisions workshops, classroom observations, research, and a handbook of good practice for building research literacy.

Calls from international organizations (i.e., Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD) and mandates from ministries of education in the Nordic-Baltic region highlight the importance of building research skills in teacher education (TE) and encouraging them to concretize these skills via active research to support their continued professional development.

Research-based TE requires parallel processes and careful consideration of different perspectives of stakeholders in different sectors of education to enmesh research engagement into teachers’ professional identity.

Teacher Research Literacy (TREL): Comparative Trajectories in the Nordic-Baltic Region aims to develop a strategically established collaborative network which explores research engagement in teacher education programs and provides insights for how in-service teachers can integrate research into their teaching.

TREL will be a professional learning network in which its participants engage in collaborative and reflective dialogue concerning using know-how about research learned/taught at the university to school-based situations to generate critical inquiry, reflection, and continuous professional learning.

TREL brings together the partners of this Nordic-Baltic initiative from 8 HEIs and practitioners from 3 upper-secondary schools. Partners are committed to the use of a variety of research driven activities and methods to promote professional development and support teachers’ ‘research literacy’, that is the knowledge and skills pre- and in-service teachers need in undertaking research.

TREL project provides ways to enhance the efficiency of research-oriented TE in the Nordic-Baltic region and support pre- and in-service teachers in the teaching/learning process through systematic analysis and exchange of knowledge, processes, experience, and good practice in teaching research through project activities, workshops, and the handbook of good practice.

This developmental project aims to identify good practices in the Nordic-Baltic educational context. Project partners from higher education institutes (HEIs) and upper-secondary schools from Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Norway will collaborate in this developmental project to create a network to develop a knowledge base. It also envisions workshops, classroom observations, research, and a handbook of good practice for building research literacy.

Building research literacy facilitates active learning, critical reflection, and problem solving and promotes the idea of research-rich classrooms and schools.

Thus, TREL benefits teachers, schools, and organizations by contributing to development of research skills/literacy in teacher education and guiding teachers to turn this professional knowledge into research and development competence.

More about the project:

• About the project on the website of the University of Southeast Norway (usn.no).
• About the project on the official website (teacher-research-lit.com).