OK, let's unpack this. Welcome to the deep dive.
You're here because you want to get well informed
quickly and deeply. And that's exactly what we
do today. We're diving into a topic that really
touches everyone who's ever been involved in
education, whether you're a student, a teacher,
anyone. It's this often unspoken divide between
the educational researchers. We'll call them
scholars for this and well. the people on the
front lines, the educators. We've got a really
insightful source today. It looks at not just
why this gap exists, but maybe more importantly
why bridging it isn't just a nice to have. It's
actually essential for where education needs
to go in the 21st century. Absolutely essential.
So our mission here is to really understand the
very different worlds these professionals live
in and what that separation or maybe the potential
for connection, what it all means for how we
learn and how we teach. It's about getting to
the heart of Well, educational progress, really.
And what's fascinating here, right from the start
of our source material, is that this isn't actually
unique to education at all. Yeah, this disconnect
between, let's say, the thinkers and the doers,
it's a characteristic of what the source calls
soft technologies. And that's a helpful way to
think about it, I think, because it shows this
isn't some weird educational quirk. It's a broader
pattern you see elsewhere. OK, like where? What
are some examples? Well, think about agriculture.
You've got your botanists, your agronomists.
They're the scholars in this analogy. And then
you have the farmers, right, the practitioners
out in the field. All right, thanks, Anne. Or
look at medicine. You have medical researchers
finding new cures, understanding diseases deep
down. And then you have your GPs, your general
practitioners, applying that science day to day
with patients. Education fits right into that
same kind of structure. You have the scholars,
and you have the educators in these distinct
but, you know, fundamentally linked roles. That
framing really does help. But it makes me wonder
then, if this structure is sort of inherent in
these fields, how much of this communication
gap can we actually fix? Or is it just something
we manage? That's a great question. Let's maybe
peel back the layers then. These two distinct
worlds, starting with the educational scholar.
Where are they working? what's driving them.
So typically you find them in universities, right?
And their funding is, well, it's varied. It comes
from grants, endowments, maybe tuition, and taxes
for public institutions. And these places, they're
usually governed by a board of trustees. And
those trustees, they have expectations. Scholars
need to do rigorous research. Publishing. Exactly.
Often getting grants to pay for it. But they
also teach, you know, training the next generation,
and they have to contribute to the whole academic
culture. Committees, developing courses, that
kind of thing. Right. So fundamentally, their
domain is educational theory. Theory, yes. And
their methods reflect that. They're systematic.
Collecting data, generating theories, testing
theories. And it's not just one way, is that
the source mentions quite a range. No, not at
all. You see a lot of qualitative work, inductive
analysis maybe more than in some other sciences,
but quantitative studies are definitely common
too. The main goal is trying to predict and explain
what they observe, whether it's in a controlled
setting or, you know, a real classroom. And how
do they know if their work is good? How's it
validated? Ah, that's key. It's peer review.
Their research gets judged by other scholars
around the world. before it gets published. So
a global academic community sets the standard.
Precisely. And this leads to a really important
point the source makes about the nature of the
problems scholars tackle. They call them tame
problems. Tame. What does that mean? Sounds a
bit dismissive. Well, it doesn't mean easy. It
means that while there can be big disagreements,
serious debates involving careers and funding,
ultimately these disputes within their field,
they get resolved. Oh. Through evidence, through
empirical observation and logic. It's about finding
answers that can be verified following that scientific
method. OK, I see. Verifiable truths, even if
they're hard to find. Exactly. Now, contrast
that sharply with the world of the educator.
Right, the front lines. Your typical educator
is in a school funded mainly by taxpayers governed
usually by an elected board, which is already
different. Yeah, elected boards, that brings
politics into it immediately. Right. And their
main job, it's very direct. delivering instruction
to students, day in, day out. And what's also
really crucial and quite different from the scholar
is that many big decisions about what they teach
and how they teach a curriculum, instruction
methods, they're often made by other people.
Not the educators themselves. They might be on
committees, sure, advisory roles, but the people
making the final call often don't have to follow
their advice. So scholars are, in theory, Educators
are squarely in the domain of instruction. They're
implementing practices, often prescribed ones,
but also dealing with all those informal interactions
that are so vital to teaching. And how is their
work judged if it's not peer -reviewed papers?
It's based on a whole range of locally defined
criteria. It can vary massively from school to
school, district to district, much less standardized
than academic validation. Wow, that sounds...
Yeah, much more complex, much more localized
than the university environment you described.
Exactly. And that leads to the other term our
source uses. If scholars deal with tame problems,
educators deal with wicked problems. Wicked problems.
OK, that definitely sounds more intense than
tame. What makes them wicked? Well, think about
that school environment. It's often highly politicized,
as you said. Educators face pressures, arguments
from outside the profession. Decisions about
what schools should even be doing involve so
many different groups. Parents, politicians,
community leaders, administrators, the teachers
themselves. And they probably all want different
things. Precisely. Satisfying one group might
directly contradict what another group wants
or what was decided last year. Especially somewhere
like the U .S., educators are constantly juggling
conflicting goals, political goals, teaching
goals, sometimes even personal goals or pressures.
So there's no single right answer that makes
everyone happy. Exactly. That constant negotiation,
the lack of clear -cut solutions that satisfy
everyone, that's the core of a wicked problem.
They're tangled, interconnected, messy, and they
resist simple fixes. Totally unlike the tame,
verifiable problems of scholarly research. Wow.
Okay, that distinction between tame and wicked
That really brings the difference into sharp
focus. It explains a lot about why these worlds
feel so separate. It really does. So let's dig
into that communication gap then. Beyond the
different kinds of problems they face, what are
the specific barriers that keep this gap going?
Well, some of it is quite practical, as the source
points out. Like what? Just physical separation,
for one. Universities and schools are usually
different places, different institutions. Right,
separate buildings, separate organizations. And
there are those fundamentally different job expectations
we just talked about. Their daily work is just
worlds apart. Yeah. Research versus teaching
kids, very different rhythm. But here's where
the source makes a really interesting, almost
paradoxical point. Oh. It's not just that they
are separate, there's actually a sense in which
they need to be separate, to some degree, to
do their jobs well. Wait, they need separation?
How does that work? Think about the scholar.
To make objective observations to collect unbiased
data, they often need a certain detachment from
their subjects. If a researcher gets too close,
Too involved, personally. It could skew the results.
Exactly. It threatens the objectivity that's
crucial for that tame, problem -solving approach.
Okay. But what about the educator? Well, for
an educator, that close, empathetic relationship
with students is absolutely vital, isn't it?
You need that connection for effective teaching.
Definitely. You need to understand your students,
connect with them. Right. But that very connection,
the thing that makes them a good teacher, makes
it incredibly difficult for them to then step
back and objectively gather data about their
own students' learning or behavior without that
relationship influencing what they see or collect.
Huh. So the condition for success in one role
kind of gets in the way of bridging the gap.
It's a fascinating kind of catch -22, yeah. The
detachment needed for research versus the connection
needed for teaching creates this inherent tension.
That is a really profound point. It makes me
think, beyond the functional differences, are
their whole information worlds different too?
Is there like a... A language barrier, almost?
That's another huge factor. Their information
landscapes are vastly different. How so? Think
about the scholar's world again. Information
is exploding, right? Research papers published
constantly. The professional knowledge they deal
with is incredibly dynamic. It's always being
revised, updated. So they need to constantly
read, analyze complex studies. Yes. They need
access to sophisticated literature, complex analysis.
It's a nonstop process of refining knowledge
where today's big idea might be challenged tomorrow.
OK, and educator. For educators, the source suggests
their professional knowledge often feels more
cyclical. Cyclical, like repeating. Yeah, maybe
skills or knowledge for teaching, say, fractions.
you use it intensely for that unit, then it might
lie dormant until you teach fractions again next
year. Now obviously educators learn and grow
continuously, but the perception can be that
the core work repeats, often limited by the age
of the students or the specific curriculum content.
So one group sees knowledge as this ever -expanding
rapidly changing thing, and the other sees it
more as a toolkit you revisit. In a way, yes.
And these fundamentally different ways of engaging
with knowledge make it really hard to even know
what to talk about with each other, let alone
find common ground or language. Yeah, make total
sense. If your daily information reality is so
different, communication is bound to be tough.
Absolutely. But are there any ways people try
to bridge this? Or is it just, you know, accepted
as divided? Is anyone trying to connect these
worlds? Well, yes, our source does highlight
one specific approach, something called action
research. Action research, what's that? It's
basically where educators themselves become researchers
within their own school, their classrooms. They
systematically look at things happening locally,
maybe a new teaching initiative, or just understanding
the unique challenges of their specific students.
The goal is to evaluate practices, deepen their
own understanding of teaching in their context.
So the teachers are doing the research. That
sounds like a direct bridge. It is, in a way.
It's powerful because it's directly relevant
to their daily work. But there's a big catch.
Ah, OK. What's the limitation? Because it's done
by individuals or small groups focused on their
specific situation in the school, these kids,
the findings usually cannot be generalized. Meaning
what works in one classroom might not work in
another. Exactly. It's context -specific knowledge,
which is valuable locally, but you can't necessarily
take an action research finding from one school
and apply it everywhere else. Right. So this
doesn't build that broader systemic knowledge
that academic research aims for. Precisely. And
because of that... Action research often gets
published in different places, like specialized
journals, reaching a different audience than
the big academic journals. It's a vital tool
for local improvement, but it doesn't fully solve
that large -scale communication gap between the
two main groups. OK, so it helps, but it's not
the whole answer. Not the whole answer, no. Which
brings us back to why the source argues so strongly
for more communication and collaboration despite
all these understandable, maybe even necessary,
separations. It says it's essential. right for
the 21st century? Essential, yes. The source
is very clear. Greater communication, greater
collaboration is, quote, essential to the development
of the 21st century education paradigm. We need
these groups talking more effectively. Why is
it so critical now? What happens if they don't
connect more? Well, the source points to some
pretty serious consequences, drawing on work
by Buchanan back in 1991. What did Buchanan find?
He looked at the breakdown between scholars and
designers, people trying to solve those wicked
problems we talked about. He noticed their discussions
often didn't leave room for thinking about the
bigger picture, how design relates to the underlying
science. Okay. And the result? The result Buchanan
said was often confusion and a breakdown in communication
and critically a failure of intelligent practice
to carry innovative ideas into objective and
concrete embodiments. Wow. So Translating that
to education, brilliant research ideas might
just fizzle out. They don't actually make it
into classrooms in a way that works. That's the
risk. Groundbreaking insights into learning could
just wither on the vine, basically, because the
connection isn't there to translate them effectively
into practice. The great ideas don't reach the
front line in a usable form. That is. Yeah, that's
a bit sobering, isn't it? That we could be missing
out on real improvements because of this disconnect.
It is. But the source doesn't just leave us there,
right? It offers some hope, a path forward. It
mentions frameworks. Yes, it suggests that through
carefully designed frameworks, ways of structuring
the conversation and collaboration, these gaps
can be bridged more effectively. And what would
that look like? What's the goal? The goal is
really a two way street, a much stronger feedback
loop. Scholars would conduct research, yes, but
also communicate it in ways that more clearly
illuminate how humans learn and how classrooms
can be designed to really support that learning.
Making the research more accessible, more applicable.
Exactly. And crucially, the other way. Educators
would get better at communicating back to researchers,
highlighting those aspects of practice that are
still uncertain, those real -world wicked problems
that theory hasn't quite cracked yet. So practice
informs theory, and theory informs practice more
directly. That's the vision. This reciprocal
flow, grounded in practical needs and informed
by solid research. That's seen as the key. And
the source suggests this becomes even more important
soon. Because of a paradigm shift. Yeah, it argues
that as a major paradigm shift in education,
presumably towards more personalized, deeper
learning, maybe tech -integrated approaches as
that shift completes, this communication becomes
absolutely vital. Why vital then? Because that
shift will create whole new research questions,
demand new methods, and identify new best practices.
Sharing those effectively across the entire profession,
scholars and educators together will be critical
for the shift to actually succeed and benefit
students. So for you listening right now, what
does this all mean? really points towards a future
where the whole system is stronger, more informed,
better connections benefit everyone, from policymakers
right down to the individual student. That's
the potential, yes. Okay, so as we wrap with
this deep dive. Yeah. Wow, we've really journeyed
through these two. quite separate worlds, haven't
we? The scholars in their universities, the educators
in their schools. Definitely distinct worlds.
We've dug into the reasons for that gap, the
physical distance, the different jobs, those
tame versus wicked problems, and that really
interesting paradox about researcher detachment
versus educator connection. And most importantly,
I think, we've seen why breaking this divide
isn't just a nice idea. It's actually crucial
if we want education to evolve and meet the needs
of the 21st century. That path from theory to
practice is complex, for sure, but it's just
so vital. It really is. Which leads us, I think,
to a final thought, a challenge for you to take
away. OK. Think about your own life, maybe your
learning, maybe your work. Do you see similar
divides, places where the theoretical research
feels disconnected from the practical application?
What specific wicked problems are there in your
world that could really benefit from bridging
that kind of gap? That's a great question. And
maybe more pointedly. How could you personally
contribute to making that connection happen?
How could you help bring the thinkers and the
doers closer together in whatever field you're
in? That's powerful. A challenge and definitely
an opportunity for all of us to reflect on. How
can we be bridge builders in our own domains?
Worth thinking about. Absolutely. Well, thank
you so much for joining us on this deep dive
today. It's been fascinating. Until next time,
keep learning, keep questioning, and yeah, keep
connecting those dots.