The free and open-access Toolkit is a collaborative effort between a growing cohort of international Partner schools and researchers to investigate the impact of the preparatory learner behaviours, habits and strategies program. The core principle of reciprocity, which holds that knowledge is not created or owned by any individual or group but is shared and co-created through collaboration, underpins the design and function of all aspects of the program. A Learner’s Toolkit aims to connect, provide, and share critical advancements in current behaviour and Science of Learning research with all teachers and students (extending beyond the Partner Schools), no matter their context, geography, or school type/system. It intends to overcome the existing barriers in the current educational landscape by working through its intention to support and uplift any teacher/student at any school, anywhere.
The project brings together stakeholders with different knowledge and expertise to achieve a common goal: to train and equip students to become lifelong learners. The researchers provide scientific knowledge about the science of learning, and the school leadership teams and teachers from the Partner Schools offer practical knowledge about the needs of students and teachers and what is working (and not) in their context.
Through this collaborative process, all stakeholders learn from each other and contribute to developing a more effective program to help students improve their learner behaviours, habits and study strategies. The project exemplifies how knowledge brokering can facilitate knowledge exchange between stakeholders and promote reciprocity in the research process.
The A Learner’s Toolkit project embodies the principle of reciprocity through its design and function to freely share knowledge, professional learning opportunities and resources.
• The project is designed to be open-access and at no cost so that the research findings will be freely available to all stakeholders. Importantly, this removes the financial barriers teachers and institutions face when engaging in and using translatable resources and access to high-quality, impactful professional learning. This ensures that everyone, from students and parents to teachers, can benefit from the project, regardless of their financial resources, geography or schooling system.
• The project involves diverse stakeholders, including schools and international researchers. This diversity of perspectives ensures that the project is well-informed and that the research findings are relevant to the needs of all stakeholders.
• The project is designed to be collaborative and iterative. As the number of Partner School grow and the cohort of teachers working together increase, the research process will adapt and evolve to ensure the research responds to the context, strategic goals, priorities and needs of their teachers and students.
• The A Learner’s Toolkit project exemplifies how knowledge brokering can promote reciprocity in the research process. By bringing together different stakeholders with different knowledge and expertise, the project can help to create a more effective and equitable research process that benefits everyone involved.
The A Learner’s Toolkit program aims to extend its free and open-access approach through how it manages its Intellectual Property. All material produced will have the CC BY-NC-SA Creative Commons licence attached. This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
