Giving Compass' Take:

• Templeton World Charity Foundation is currently funding the  Big Questions in Classrooms initiative in England to better gauge how educators and students understand the How Knowledge Works program. 

• The Big Questions in the Classroom initiative is helping produce evidence for best teaching approaches based on research. Are there opportunities for you fund education research?

• Read about the current state of education research and its importance for school systems worldwide. 

Many different subjects are taught in primary and secondary schools but how these subjects and disciplines relate to each other is rarely discussed in classrooms. While subject boundaries can allow for focused and deep engagement with individual subjects, students are rarely encouraged to be curious about how we know what we know, or how various forms of knowledge can come together to enrich our questioning, reasoning, and learning.

The Big Questions in Classrooms initiative, funded by Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) is hoping to change this by funding research that explores how to develop primary and secondary teachers’ and students’ understanding and insight about ‘How Knowledge Works’ (HKW) in science and religious education. NPC has been working alongside TWCF over the past year to support shared learning between grantees and to think about how to get the most impact out of the research they are doing.

It’s become increasingly common for research funders to ask their applicants to outline how they think the work will have a wider impact, for example the UK research funders ask for pathways to impact statements. For this it is not just about one project but a whole funding cohort. We spoke to a wide array of education researchers, researched past programmes of curriculum change, tested out ideas with sector professionals, reviewed academic and grey literature and, surveyed classroom teachers to learn from their experience working on the frontline.

Read the full article about education research by Alex Green at NPC.