Let’s Talk Teaching

What Makes Change Stick: Research, Trust and Innovation in Schools

Episode Summary

Schools are constantly introducing new ideas and initiatives - but meaningful change rarely happens through innovation alone. This conversation explores why lasting improvement is more often shaped by trust, collaboration and research-informed practice.

Episode Notes

Schools are constantly introducing new ideas and initiatives - but meaningful change rarely happens through innovation alone. This conversation explores why lasting improvement is more often shaped by trust, collaboration and research-informed practice.

In busy school environments, knowing what works, how to apply research meaningfully and how to sustain change over time can be incredibly challenging for teachers and school leaders alike. 

In this episode, Mark Rickinson and Lucas Johnson explore how research, leadership, trust and school culture shape the way improvement happens in schools, and why meaningful innovation isn’t simply about introducing something new - but creating change that genuinely improves teaching and learning over time.

Together, they discuss what it means to use research well in practice, the conditions that help innovation take hold, and why collaboration, relational trust and supportive leadership are often central to creating lasting change.

(00:00) What Real Innovation Looks Like in Schools
(02:20) What It Means to Use Research Well
(06:23) Starting With Problems of Practice
(08:26) Turning Research into School Practice
(12:58) Why Good Ideas Don’t Always Stick
(16:35) Trust, Collaboration and School Culture
(19:44) Leadership and Conditions for Change
(24:13) Student Voice as a Driver for Innovation
(26:58) Research Translation and Teacher Workload

Special Guests: 

Professor Mark Rickinson
Faculty of Education, Monash University
Focused on how research is used to improve teaching and learning in real-world education settings.

Dr Lucas Johnson
Executive Director Research and Emerging Futures, Cornish College

Researching the conditions that enable teachers to innovate within their practice.

Resources:

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Episode Transcription

[00:00] Rebecca Cooper: This podcast is recorded on the land of the Boonwurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation. We'd like to pay our respect to Elders past and present and acknowledge that this land was stolen and never ceded. Welcome to Let's Talk Teaching, the podcast created by teachers for teachers.

[00:19] Mark Rickinson: It's like a tool for thinking as opposed to a kind of a silver bullet quick fix. You use research because you want We want to improve practice to meet kids' needs.

[00:30] Lucas Johnson: It's really easy to lean towards the people that you know are going to tell you what you want to hear in these spaces.

[00:36] Rebecca Cooper: Teachers are constantly looking for ways to improve their practice, but it's not always a lack of ideas that makes it difficult. It's knowing what actually works and how to make it stick. This points to a bigger question about what real innovation looks like in schools.

[00:52] Not as something new just because it's different, but as the kind of change that actually improves practice over time.

[01:01] Lucas Johnson: We want our students to maintain a real connection with school, even if they aren't chasing a 99 for their ATAR score. So we interrogated that last year and thought, what is the opportunities that we see for our students? So we've looked at how we can work within the constraints of VCE so our students still get their VCE certificate but then also have opportunities in their day to be able to engage with something that they're really passionate about.

[01:26] Mark Rickinson: If you've got a learning culture within your school where there's a support for a culture of experimentation, which helps innovation, it helps research-informed practice.

[01:37] Rebecca Cooper: I'm Associate Professor Rebecca Cooper, Assistant Dean of Initial Teacher Education at Monash University's Faculty of Education. Each episode, we bring together education experts and alumni to unpack real challenges in the classroom with insights you can apply in your own teaching practice.

[01:54] Joining me today is Professor Mark Rickinson from Monash University, whose work focuses on how research is used to improve teaching and learning in real-world settings, and Dr. Lucas Johnson, Executive Director of Research and Emerging Futures at Cornish College, whose research explores the conditions that enable teachers to innovate within their practice.

[02:17] Thank you both so much for joining me today. Mark, when we talk about using research well, what does that mean for a really busy classroom teacher?

[02:33] Mark Rickinson: Yeah, are there any that aren't really busy, hey, Bec? Yeah. I think one of the most important things about using research well is that actually it's more about practice than it is about research. So a busy classroom teacher who's using research well, when you speak to them about how they're using research, they would talk much more about the issues of practice that they're looking to change.

[03:01] Because it's this idea that using research well actually starts with looking inward to practice rather than outward to research. So in the CUBE project, when we consulted like over 2,000 teachers and school leaders across Australia about what does using research well mean to you, one of the things that came out so strongly is the idea of using research well is purposeful.

[03:27] So it's not using research isn't like something that you want to do because you want to use research. You use research because you want to improve practice to meet kids' needs. And so what would it look like for a busy teacher is that they're trying to improve something about their practice.

[03:47] The other thing I think that's really important, Bec, is that they wouldn't be doing it on their own if they were using research well, because it takes, you know, it takes many eyes across a piece of research and research ideas to understand, is this really relevant to us?

[04:02] And if it is relevant, how can we, how can we think about what it might mean for us?

[04:09] Rebecca Cooper: So it tends not to be the lone wolf, just the one busy me teaching.

[04:14] Mark Rickinson: That's right. It's more around how can we as a subject team, or how can we as a professional learning community, or how can we as a leadership group or a middle leadership group or a wellbeing team try to think about those ideas and how they might work here.

[04:30] So those are two ideas that are really important, the collaborative nature of it and the purposeful nature of it.

[04:37] Rebecca Cooper: Lucas, you're in a school at the moment. Are these sorts of ideas resonating with you?

[04:43] Lucas Johnson: Absolutely. I think what Mark said about the busyness of teachers, and it's hard for teachers to, I guess, identify where to find the research and the exact types of research that they do. And I'm sure that there's teachers who are very good at doing that, but the collaborative nature is really important there because, you know, we need to make sure that A, it aligns with our strategic, you know, our vision of the school and what we're doing is aligned with the progress we're looking to make as a school.

[05:09] But also even deciphering research can be really tricky. So maybe starting with some shared articles that may, that create a centre for discussion amongst teachers and having that opportunity to sit with teachers and have that real professional dialogue around the research and that maybe one person has brought to the table.

[05:28] Mark Rickinson: Yeah, totally. And there's something about that, the dialogue, in the sense that I think often teachers and leaders who are using research well, they're actually thinking more about research raising questions than research providing answers in the sense that research isn't— it's like a tool for thinking as opposed to a kind of a silver bullet quick fix.

[05:53] You know, it's like it can help you to see your existing problems in new ways. It can help you to see issues that you didn't realize were there, which are actually there. And you can and it gives ideas that we need to kind of work together on to make sense of.

[06:13] So there's something about that mindset of curiosity and kind of being open to research raising questions more than providing answers.

[06:23] Rebecca Cooper: I just want to go on that curiosity. I want to go back to something you said before, Marg. You talked about it, that the teachers sort of have to start with their practice and something they want. So when they're starting with their practice, Do they go in with a question? Is it about just having an issue?

[06:39] Does it have to be problematic? Does it need to be something they just— and I suppose this is where the innovation comes in too. Does it matter?

[06:47] Mark Rickinson: When we talk about data literacy and research literacy, you know, like there's a lot of— there was and there is a lot of focus on use of data and there has been increasingly a focus on use of research. And sometimes we can think about data helping to flag up the problems.

[07:02] And research helping to work on the solutions. And so I think, you know, being open to using lots of different kinds of data and evidence to think what are the, almost like maybe the phrase, what are the unmet needs in this classroom or in this school?

[07:21] Or what are the questions that we don't have answers for? It's almost something around that, but getting, specifying what those are is actually really skilled and, you know, like using, you know, ensuring that you consult students, that you look at, you know, what performance data you have in your school, you know, that there's a sense of what are the school values, what's the— there's a lot there.

[07:47] So I think often the danger is that you jump past that really quickly, Beck, and you go, well, we know what the issues are, but often the presenting problems aren't the real underlying issue. I don't know if that resonates, Lucas, in your context.

[08:04] Lucas Johnson: It's certainly interesting when you talked about research earlier, my mind, and teachers, my mind automatically goes to the idea of action research, that kind of idea of like understanding what's the question that I'm asking and then finding those ways to collect data and evidence to see where we need to grow or opportunities to move into and then moving to that kind of external research that supports our growth in that space.

[08:26] Rebecca Cooper: So when you've done this in, in your school, Lucas, how has it played out and what have you found has really supported teachers to be able to be innovators and make use of research well in their classroom?

[08:40] Lucas Johnson: A more recent example is actually some of our teachers or leaders bringing research to our staff meetings and have already done the hard work of deciphering that research and understanding what does that mean for us and then sharing that with the staff, which then I guess gives the staff an opportunity to jump on and cling on to that kind of idea around the research.

[09:00] And often these things, or always these things, are in line with the strategic direction of where we're going. It doesn't come out of left field. It builds on what we're doing. So nothing's new in these conversations. And we're very aware as a leadership team in particular that we're not all of a sudden bringing something new to the table that just takes teachers by surprise.

[09:21] It's something that teachers know is coming and they can see how it aligns with with our direction as a school.

[09:28] Rebecca Cooper: With what they're doing in their classroom as well?

[09:31] Lucas Johnson: Absolutely. Yeah. So we know that in recent years we've seen the rise of things around direct instruction and neuroscience being a really key driver to what we're doing in the classroom. So neuroscience is a big area of research that we've been exploring as a school, particularly in our primary school, to think about our young emerg— you know, our emerging learners, what's going on in their brain?

[09:52] How do we know the best or the ideal practices for learning to read and learning to write and do maths. So we have some people who are really great at engaging with the research in that area and then bringing it to our staff and saying, you know, when your student is learning, this is what's going on in their brain.

[10:11] And it helps to create that kind of conversation around there without our teachers being expected to go and find their own research or go find their own data around this. So it's really, you useful strategy in that space.

[10:24] Rebecca Cooper: So that deciphering piece you were saying before, Mark, about the actually finding what it is you want to explore, that deciphering piece, you've both talked about this notion of collaboration and dialogue. So how does that work? How does that work for teachers?

[10:40] What have you seen that's been really effective?

[10:43] Mark Rickinson: So an example of a school that we worked with in the Q Project, they realized there are a high school that's a specialist school for creative arts. And they said, like, we really realized that we've got an issue with writing within the school, an almost broader literacy, you know, and it's kind of seen as to be the domain of the English department, but actually it needs to be everybody's.

[11:12] And so they said, we really want to take a research-informed approach to this, tackling this whole school issue. And so they set up a working group with the head of English who led it, and they very deliberately went with volunteers.

[11:28] So it was about who wants to be involved in this? And it wasn't, it wasn't kind of framed in relation to using research. It was framed in terms of improving kids' writing, which is what matters. It's like, this is about a purpose and it's about meeting a need of our kids.

[11:45] And they tried really carefully, they actually got quite a few early career teachers coming into that particular working group. And they really tried to kind of, you know, create some time in their schedules to allow them to take part in this and work, I guess, collaboratively in the sense of we've identified some potentially relevant research and sure, it was like middle leaders or senior leaders taking, shouldering the work of finding that,

[12:15] but there was a process of working with it together. They likened it to, actually, because a lot of them were English teachers, and they talked about almost like when you read a novel, it takes you a while to get to know who the characters in the novel are. And they said, well, it's the same with understanding the field of writing research.

[12:33] It takes, it took us a while to understand who are the characters, what are the main ideas, and we have to allow ourselves time as a group to come to that. But then later you see you can go quicker because you've kind of built that trust and connectivity around how the— what the research might look like in practice when we focused on particular ideas.

[12:58] Lucas Johnson: Can I add to that one? I think one of the important things in that space, and we talk about this in our school, is not to look for those people who, I guess, confirm our biases. So it's that idea that we're open to feeling challenged and we have an idea of where we want head here, but if something pops up that challenges that idea, being open to thinking about why does that challenge us, what— why doesn't it sit well with us?

[13:21] And we don't have to always take it on board, but at least it kind of broadens your perspective when it comes to these things.

[13:27] Rebecca Cooper: Yeah, so really fighting that sense of we've always done it this way, so we'll just keep doing it this way, even if something challenges that thinking. But I like this idea that you're, you're open to and exploring it, but then it becomes a conscious decision to continue with what you're doing or to change.

[13:44] Rather than just, we'll keep doing it because we've always done it this way.

[13:48] Lucas Johnson: It's really easy to lean towards the people that you know are going to tell you what you want to hear in these spaces. So we can definitely go, oh, this person, they're right, they're aligned with our values and they do these things. But it is equally important, I think, to go to those people who go, well, that really is challenging for me, and then interrogate that idea.

[14:06] Why is it challenging?

[14:08] Rebecca Cooper: And what does that interrogation look like?

[14:11] Lucas Johnson: It could just be something as simple as just sitting with it and asking the questions and saying, you know, we think that this is the way to do things, or this is why we value these things, and ask the questions of yourself or with the team. You know, why is this challenging our values? What is it about this? And for us at our school, it's been in that kind of explicit or direct instruction space because, you know, we are a concept-based inquiry school who also value the direct instruction, but it's about finding the balance.

[14:39] And, you know, we're seeing at times that balance gets thrown and we're saying, why does that challenge us? And then we've seen, you know, when it can go the other way and we're saying, why is it important to stay in this space? So using research and wherever we can to inform our decisions around that.

[14:54] Mark Rickinson: There were a lot of teachers and leaders in the Q Project, Bec, that really, they talked about, it really connected with what Lucas said about sitting with it, was this sort of sense of not jumping to agree or disagree with the research too quickly.

[15:13] There was like a sense of, um, almost just withholding, withholding judgment or withholding evaluation long enough to be able, you know, just kind of staying open a bit longer than you probably would naturally.

[15:29] And sometimes making it collaborative can help that because like you say, Lucas, if you can bring into whatever group is tasked with doing this deciphering that's so important. You know, like the school I was describing, they deliberately got people from different subject backgrounds and different career stages, you know, not a huge group, like 5, maybe 5 or 6, but they were

[15:59] definitely from different backgrounds and different disciplines and that that sort of helped with that. Lots of eyes across it and perspectives.

[16:08] Lucas Johnson: Even extending that collaboration beyond your immediate school context, like looking at your networks and asking them what they've done in those spaces before and the challenges that they've faced. And often you find that you hear these ideas that you can use from these people that you can borrow and apply in your context and obviously change it to shape it to fit your context, I guess.

[16:30] But going to those broad networks are often very useful in this space as well.

[16:35] Rebecca Cooper: You've both talked— well, you are a school leader, Lucas, and you've talked about leaders as well as teachers. What's the role of leadership in all of this? What can they do that either makes this work more effectively, or what could they also do that might throw up a barrier?

[16:51] Mark Rickinson: Like anything that happens in schools or organizations, leaders and leadership is critical. In relation to using research well, Leaders are really important in terms of support. And that would be the— so that's kind of, you know, time and resources, that sort of support, but also permission and culture and that sort of support.

[17:14] But the thing that often gets forgotten that we found was so important is not just supporting, but also modeling. You know, is that not expecting others to do what you're not doing yourself. So, let's start actually with our leadership team and think about how are we using research well, or how are we being deliberative or discerning or collaborative or, you know, any of the things that we're wanting others to do.

[17:41] How are we making really clear to staff the why behind school improvement interventions, or how are we kind of making transparent our decision-making processes? Leaders can be critical, not just modeling in terms of demonstrating the practices that you want to see in terms of around research use, but also actually modeling the research-informed practices.

[18:09] So the example I was talking about, the creative education high school, the middle leader, the head of the English faculty, spent a lot of time modeling the particular writing approach that they decided to implement with staff in classrooms, you know, and saying, well, and then, you know, co-teaching and then debriefing, all of those sorts of processes.

[18:36] Lucas Johnson: I think my response builds on Mark's there. It's just around culture. It's around setting this culture of being willing to, first of all, admit you don't know something and go and do the research yourself. It's building a culture of relational trust, which was a big of my PhD research where, you know, that you have built these relationships with your teachers, with the people around you to know that it's okay to demonstrate that, I guess, vulnerability around

[19:06] that, but also to say, I don't know this, but I am actually now going to go and try and find out about this, you know. So it's not just saying, I don't know it, I'm leaving it now. It's actually saying, I need to find more out about it. And actually doing that modeling, like you said, Mark, around, you know, going and finding out things and bringing research to your teachers and saying, hey, I came across this article recently, you might be interested in hearing about this, or I read this really great book, I think this is a good one for you, look at this chapter.

[19:32] And I think those sorts of things shows teachers and also helps them out because they're busy. That shows that we are— we take research seriously and we want to be informed by that in our practice.

[19:44] Rebecca Cooper: Lucas, have you got an example of something that's worked really effectively in your school with your staff?

[19:49] Lucas Johnson: Probably one of the bigger innovations that's taken place in our school, even since before my time, is our introduction of Design Futures. So we call ourselves the Design Futures School, and, and these are a set of principles that guide pretty much everything we do around learning and teaching. So we want to make sure that we're looking at things like sustainability, we want to make sure that we're future-minded, we want to make sure that our practice is informed by research, but also that we, we gives students opportunities to be agentic,

[20:19] to be enquirers, to develop systems thinking, a whole range of different things that come under this. And what started as, I guess, a subject in Year 10 to begin with, I think during COVID times, has actually now expanded right across from ELC to Year 12 in our school.

[20:35] So we have our sub-schools within Design Futures, and within those, each of them has a bit of a different focus. So in our primary levels, we have our Year 3-4 Future Makers. So being a concept-based teaching and learning school, all of their concepts that they work around in Year 3 and 4 are based around the kind of idea that I can be a future maker right now.

[21:00] So this informs our practice. So we have things around custodianship, around sustainability, and all our students are really clued into the things that they, the little actions that they can take as an 8 or 9-year-old student child. And it can actually have an impact on their future and the future of others around them.

[21:19] And we do this in a pretty localized context. We're very fortunate to be on 100 acres at our school, and we have wetlands and we have a whole range of things that our students can be out engaging in as part of this. So getting to this point we're at now, it didn't just happen.

[21:34] So there was a lot of work in terms of thinking, you know, what do we value as a school? How do we make sure that all of our things that we're doing around concept-based teaching and learning, around direct instruction, getting out on our land and having experiential learning opportunities.

[21:49] How do we bring those together and characterise these and frame these up as ours, as Cornish's own sort of thing? So that's one example in Year 3-4, and we have examples like that all the way through the college. You know, now we've introduced probably one of our newer innovations within this space is looking at our VCE pathways.

[22:11] So we acknowledge that VCE can be quite rigid in terms of, of pathways for our students, but we want our students to maintain a real connection with school even if they aren't chasing a 99 for their ATAR score. So we interrogated that last year and thought, what is the opportunities that we see for our students?

[22:30] So we've looked at how we can work within the constraints of VCE so our students still get their VCE certificate, but then also have opportunities in their day to be able to engage with something that they're really passionate about. So I'm actually, I teach that group of students and we spend time talking about their passions.

[22:48] And it's really great to see these students who maybe if they didn't have this option might have thought about other pathways outside of school because there are a lot of those kind of pathways around now. So they've been able to still maintain that connection with our school, with our college, and maintain that connection with their friends and still get their VCE, but have a bit of fun while doing it as well, and maintain real community connection, which we think is, is probably a high priority for our school.

[23:18] Rebecca Cooper: Yeah, so that sort of research-informed development the whole way through. You talked a little bit about working with the students and hearing what, what they want and all that. So I think, what is the role of student voice in all of this? What role does it play?

[23:32] Lucas Johnson: Well, interestingly with this, I mean, we are very fortunate with our principal— has an incredible connection with our students. So when we we started floating this idea, the first thing she did was she brought in groups of 2 or 3 students into her office and said, we're thinking about this, what do you think? And straight away we're getting that student voice into there.

[23:49] And pretty much like it was a consensus across the student body that this is a great idea, even if it's not for me, it's great for my friends. So, you know, bringing that student voice in at that level was great for us to feel like, yes, when we make this decision around this we're making this with the best interests of our students in mind.

[24:07] We're not saying we're the experts here, you know, we know what they need. We're actually asking them what they need.

[24:13] Mark Rickinson: Yeah, it's such a good question, Bec, because I mean, traditionally, it's sad actually, is that, you know, a lot of writing and research and practice related to research-informed education has very much been around Yes, focused on teachers and leaders, but not so much on students as evidence users.

[24:39] And, you know, it's changing now, you know, and I think actually that's probably come about because researchers and policymakers are taking more, taking the kind of experiences and expertise of practitioners more seriously.

[25:00] And they, exactly like your principal, you know, the ones who are using research well are also often using student voice well. You know, like if you've got a learning culture within your school where there's a support for a culture of experimentation, which helps innovation, it helps research-informed practice, often a really strong dimension there is student voice.

[25:27] As well.

[25:28] Rebecca Cooper: For me, it sort of connects with something you both said before about being able to sit with a little bit of discomfort if, you know, in particular if you're not hearing exactly what you want to hear. So if principals and teachers are going to go and look for that notion of student voice, they might come back with a, no, it's not what we want.

[25:48] But there is sort of a disposition there that you need to be open to hearing that and to connecting with it and to using it in particular ways and to deciphering it as well. But for me, I wonder about it as a source of data.

[26:03] You were talking before—

[26:04] Mark Rickinson: 100%.

[26:05] Rebecca Cooper: Yeah, about sort of sources of data. I'd say that's probably a pretty important one.

[26:11] Mark Rickinson: I'd definitely bet. And the key project partner schools that were good at this, absolutely. Student voice, student experience, student perspective was absolutely central to that kind of, how are we understanding the problem? Have we got the right problem and are we understanding it right?

[26:28] And then are the proposed ways forward going to stick here?

[26:33] Lucas Johnson: I think we're seeing a generation of young people coming through who expect to have their voice heard. I think, and it's a really good thing if you can lean into that. So if you can give them the platform for them to actually feel heard and know that that the actions are being taken based on what they've been talking about, I think it really empowers our young people.

[26:52] And I think that's a really important part of their education journey, feeling empowered in, in their process or their journey. Yeah.

[26:58] Rebecca Cooper: I feel like we sort of talked about classrooms and then groups of teachers and schools, and you started to, to move in towards networks there, Lucas. But I'm wondering what this looks like at more of a system level. Is this playing out in, in a systemic way? In through the systems?

[27:14] Mark Rickinson: I think jurisdiction, you know, state education departments, Catholic dioceses, you know, independent schools associations are taking this much more seriously. There's no question about that. There's a huge focus on evidence-based practice, evidence-informed, you know, research-informed improvement, etc., etc.

[27:33] There would be very few education systems around the world that didn't have that as part of their school improvement frameworks or their system reform. Kind of approaches. But there's a lot of things that education systems are doing that are also getting in the way of teachers and school leaders being able to use research well in the sense of, if there's— there are things that cut across a culture of trust, a culture of experimentation,

[28:03] a culture of learning and openness, time, workload, pace of change, you know, those sorts of things can really just erode the capacity for, you know, many different people within the system to be able to take a research-informed approach.

[28:23] But, you know, it's as important in the same way that we talked about leaders being important in terms of supporting and modeling. It's absolutely the same at the system level. You know, we need systems that are also modeling as well as supporting, that are, you know, demonstrating what they're expecting their schools and educators to do.

[28:45] Lucas Johnson: Yeah, I think in my research, my PhD research, I sort of lightly touched on this idea that we're part of a greater system, and often that system might throw things that are really great, but also throw things that challenge us in schools. So as a school, we need to look at that and say, okay, What is it that we can't negotiate?

[29:05] This is a must that we can't work around. And then what is it that we can do within those spaces in our school context that we can innovate within or that we can use research-informed practice within? Because I think every school is such a unique context that you have to be able to understand and shape your own context within the constraints or— I won't say only constraints, but enablers of our systems.

[29:30] Rebecca Cooper: So if there's a teacher or a group of teachers out there listening to this terrific conversation and they're starting to think, oh, hang on a minute, this sounds really good, where do they start?

[29:41] Mark Rickinson: You start with your practice in terms of thinking, what are the questions that really matter to me that I don't have answers to? And then I'd pick up what Lucas was saying around, well, where within my school and within my networks are there people or publications or networks that might be able to help me to make progress with that.

[30:03] So I think it's really about starting with where you're at and what matters to you and the kids that you work with. And then, I mean, in the one hand you go, well, gee, it's really hard to access and know what research to get, you know, but I think there's, There are lots of sources.

[30:25] It's much more about trying to not get overwhelmed is probably, I think, is one of the most important things.

[30:34] Lucas Johnson: Yeah, I think absolutely that, like, I think working with other people is really important in this space. So maybe it's not as easy to be overwhelmed, but also to really interrogate your why. Why do I want to do this? And often that will be because I want to see my students flourish and I, or I want to improve my own practice.

[30:53] So starting with that why, and then starting to pick down, you know, go a bit further and say, well, if I want to improve my practice, how can I start to do that? What do I specifically want to improve? And then helps to find the types of research. It narrows it right down into, into the what then.

[31:09] Yeah.

[31:10] Rebecca Cooper: Thank you both so much for a really, really interesting conversation. Very thoughtful responses from both of you. And what the conversation has really highlighted is that improving practice in schools isn't just about having good ideas. It's about how those ideas are used and the conditions that allow them to take hold.

[31:31] For teachers, that often starts with the challenges they're already facing and how they can draw on research to make sense of those in their own context. And what we've heard is that when the right conditions are in place, particularly trust, collaboration, and supportive leadership, those those ideas are far more likely to stick and actually lead to meaningful change over time.

[31:54] Thanks so much.

[31:56] Lucas Johnson: Thank you, Bec.

[31:58] Rebecca Cooper: We've included a wealth of practical resources in our show notes that support your teaching journey. Be sure to check them out. If you're enjoying the show, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review, and follow us on social media. We are grateful for the support of Monash University's Faculty of Education in producing this podcast.

[32:16] For more information on short courses and undergraduate and postgraduate study options, head to monash.edu.au/education/learnmore. Thanks again for listening to Let's Talk Teaching.