Goal: improve teaching and learning in the nation’s schools

Between 1997 and 2003, the National Research Council hosted three committees that considered different aspects of whether, and how, a focused program of research and development could improve teaching and learning in the nation’s schools. The first report, released in 1999 and authored by the Committee on a Feasibility Study for a Strategic Education Research Program, was titled Improving Student Learning: A Strategic Plan for Education Research and Its Utilization. It identified a set of topics the committee judged to be of crucial importance for improving student learning – questions that, if answered, could be expected to provide substantial guidance in improving teaching and learning. The second report, Strategic Education Research Partnership, proposes a design and governance structure for an enterprise capable of developing and carrying out a coordinated plan for a large scale, sustained program of research and development focused on educational practice. And the third report, Learning and Instruction: A SERP Research Agenda, provides an illustrative blueprint for a program of work on learning and instruction that a SERP enterprise might undertake.