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ResearchED held its first Midwest conference at a public high school near St. Louis, drawing about 160 attendees for a one-day program on learning science. The event reflects the group’s effort to bring research on memory, attention and practice to teachers, though the report does not establish how widely those ideas are used in U.S. schools or what effect the conference will have.
ResearchED held its first Midwest conference at a public high school near St. Louis, bringing about 160 educators together for a one-day program on research about how students learn. The event extends an international series that aims to translate findings on memory, attention and practice into classroom teaching, at a time when U.S. organizers say those ideas have not become as established in schools as they have in England.
The program included about 40 sessions, according to The 74’s report, and focused on teaching techniques rather than flashy presentations or broad political debates. British educator Tom Sherrington, the keynote speaker, modeled a geography lesson to demonstrate how memorization, discussion and repetition can work together. He then asked teachers to consider whether their own classrooms draw every student into learning.
Sherrington told attendees, “We don’t need to do new stuff. We need to do the things we know really, really well.” In a separate interview cited by The 74, he said that the conference’s repeated gatherings showed that principles from cognitive science “are not niche ideas.” The report says Sherrington had attended 53 ResearchED events.
ResearchED began in 2013, when London teachers Tom Bennett and Hélène Galdin-O’Shea organized a one-day conference at Dulwich College. Sherrington recalled that roughly 30 people presented and that organizers initially expected it to be a one-off. Local events later spread across the United Kingdom and internationally. The report identifies Toronto, Doha and Haninge, Sweden, as destinations for the next three events at the time it was published.
A U.S. Audience for Learning Science
The St. Louis gathering gives educators in the Midwest a local forum to discuss research-informed classroom practice, rather than relying on distant conferences or online debate. Its relatively small attendance also shows the scale of this particular event: 160 participants is a focused professional gathering, not evidence by itself of broad adoption across U.S. schools.
The topic matters because decisions about how lessons are taught affect students’ opportunities to remember and use what they learn. The conference presented approaches linked to memory, attention and practice as practical tools for teachers. Whether the event changes instruction, however, was not measured in the report, and its claims about the state of U.S. education are attributed to organizers and speakers rather than offered as a national assessment.
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From London Gathering to Midwest
ResearchED grew out of online conversations among British teachers in 2012 about why teacher preparation did not give more attention to how learning works. Bennett, who opposed what he viewed as unsupported teaching fads, joined Galdin-O’Shea to organize the first event the following year. The original meeting’s small scale contrasts with the network’s later spread, but each conference remains organized locally under the ResearchED name.
The report describes a contrast between the United Kingdom and the United States. It says cognitive science research has deep roots in the U.S., but that British policy changes in the early 2010s and a teacher-training framework helped bring these ideas into wider use in England. Helen Reynolds, a British physics teacher based in Tucson, argued that the United States lacks similar “mechanisms for improvement.” That is her assessment, not a finding established by the conference or the report.
““We don’t need to do new stuff. We need to do the things we know really, really well.””
— Tom Sherrington, ResearchED keynote speaker
The Reach Beyond One Saturday
The report does not state the conference’s exact date, whether organizers have scheduled another Midwest event, or how many U.S. teachers have attended ResearchED gatherings overall. It also provides no follow-up evidence on whether attendees changed their classroom practices or whether students’ learning outcomes improved.
Some speakers described U.S. schools as lagging England and Australia in applying learning science. Those comments are attributed opinions; the report does not present comparative national data to verify the scale of that gap. The effects of the approaches discussed, and the extent to which they are already used by local schools, remain unclear.
ResearchED’s Upcoming Meetings
The 74 report listed Toronto, Doha and Haninge as the locations for the next three ResearchED events. Those meetings are part of the network’s continuing international schedule, but the report gives no dates or further details about their programs.
For the St. Louis-area conference, the next measure of its local impact would be whether organizers hold additional events and whether participants report using the practices discussed. The source does not announce a follow-up meeting or describe a plan to track classroom or student outcomes.
Key Questions
What was the St. Louis ResearchED event?
It was a one-day conference at a public high school near St. Louis, featuring about 40 sessions on learning science and teaching. The report says about 160 people attended.
What does learning science mean in this report?
The report uses the term for research into memory, attention and practice, and how evidence about those processes can inform teaching.
Who started ResearchED?
Tom Bennett and Hélène Galdin-O’Shea organized the first ResearchED event at Dulwich College in south London in 2013. Sherrington recalled that about 30 people presented.
Did the conference show that student outcomes improved?
No. The report describes the conference and its teaching ideas, but gives no outcome data showing that the event changed instruction or improved student learning.
Source: the74million.org
