Research projects: Exploratory studies

Funding for Type II projects is for smaller scale projects of up to two years.  

These studies are to be more innovative, with both practice and research valued together. Drawing on the idea that imagining new possibilities requires a team with diverse expertise and interests—so expanding the thinking and solution space—the projects are to focus on questions where both researchers and teachers are exploring new ideas together, possibly examining uncharted territory. Projects are to be constructed in a way that explicitly draws on the questions of the whole project team and be focused not on teachers themselves (as this makes them the subject), but on emerging issues in curriculum, on student learning and/or student voice, or any other important area that researchers and teachers can examine together. It is expected that these projects will mostly be in areas where there is much less research known, perhaps where innovative research designs or topics might be central. In this model it is important that the teachers and the researchers are thought partners together, where the learning of each is augmented by the partnership.