Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL)

Synonyms

Action research; Metacognition; Pedagogical knowledge; Teacher knowledge; Teacher research

Background and Overview

The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) is a grassroots, Australian, collaborative action-research project involving teachers and academic colleagues researching ways of stimulating and supporting metacognitive student learning. It was co-founded in 1985 by John Baird (University of Melbourne) and Ian Mitchell (Monash University). It has continued for over 25 years, involving thousands of teachers, in hundreds of schools, in several countries because it addresses issues important to many teachers.

How and Why Did It Start?

PEEL synthesized two lines of research; Mitchell had been researching, in his science classrooms, ways of getting students to retrieve and where necessary restructure their existing and often alternative conceptions and had found that real and very positive classroom change was possible. These aspects of thinking involve one type of...