Teacher-Researcher Alliance for Investigating Learning (TRAIL)

Leading team

• Dr. Jason Cooper
• Dr. Mirela Widder
• Dr. Alon Pinto
• Prof. Boris Koichu

Project members

• Dr. Ronit Ben-Bassat Levy
• Chaya Menucha Farber
• Galia Gonen
• Rachel Zaks

Summary

TRAIL (Teacher-Researcher Alliance for Investigating Learning) aims to enhance collaboration and cooperation between mathematics education researchers and mathematics teachers. The programs under the TRAIL banner are organized as teacher-researcher communities of inquiry for professional development, or as larger-scope Citizen Science programs. In the community-based programs, groups of practicing teachers join forces with education researchers in partnerships to co-design and conduct research directly related to the teaching and learning that takes place in the teachers’ classrooms. The TRAIL Citizen Science programs are extensions of the community-based programs where the developed tools – both pedagogical interventions and research tools – can be implemented at scale. Much of the research that takes place around TRAIL programs can be considered Participatory Action Research or Design Based Implementation Research. Five TRAIL communities of inquiry and one citizen-science project have been active in 2017-2020. In 2021, elements of TRIAL are present in the Heads of Mathematics Department and Raising the Bar in Mathematics Classroom projects.

Administration

• Shani Motsa

Links for further reading

• TRAIL website

links to other projects: PD-HMD, RBMC

• Koichu, B., & Pinto, A. (2018). Developing education research competencies in mathematics teachers through TRAIL: Teacher-Research Alliance for Investigating Learning. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 18, 68-85.
• Koichu, B., & Pinto, A. (2019). Implementation through participation: Theoretical considerations and an illustrative case. Proceedings of the 11^th Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Utrecht, the Netherlands.
• Koichu, B., Zaks, R., & Farber, M. (2020). Teachers’ voices from two communities of inquiry engaged in practices of mathematics education research. In Borko, H., & Potari, D. (Eds.), Proceedings of ICMI Study 25 Conference “Teachers of mathematics working and learning in collaborative groups”, pp. 364-371. Lisbon, Portugal. http://icmistudy25.ie.ulisboa.pt/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/201114-ICMI25Proceedings6.13.2020.pdf#page=377
• Pinto, A., & Koichu, B. (2021 – accepted pending minor revisions). Implementation of mathematics education research as crossing the boundary between disciplined inquiry and teacher inquiry. ZDM – Mathematics Education.
• Cooper, J., & Koichu, B. (submitted for publication). In the pursuit of impact: Design and practice of three innovative professional development programs for mathematics teachers. In A. Hofstein, A. Arcavi, & A. Yarden (Eds.), Fifty Years of Curriculum Development, Implementation and Research in the Department of Science Teaching, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Dordrecht, NL: Sense-Brill.

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