2025 Teacher As Researcher Award Winner
Using Culturally Relevant Texts to Elicit Student Voices Through Free-Verse Poetry Writing
Kevin Cataldo, Luis Muñoz Marín School and Newark Board of Education
2017 Teacher As Researcher Award Winner
Mickey McDonald (P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School/University of Florida)
"The Role of Differentiation and Standards-Based Grading in the Science Learning of Struggling and Advanced Learners"
2015 Teacher As Researcher Award Winner
Ross J. Van Boven (P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School/University of Florida) "Understanding How to Meet the Needs of Gifted and Talented: A Practitioner Research Case Study of One Middle School Student Learners Within a Middle School Push-in Model"
2014 Teacher As Researcher Award Winner
Debora Broderick (Technical College High School—Brandywine Campus/University of Pennsylvania) "Pedagogy of Resistance: Using the Arts as Inquiry in an Early Pre-Service Teacher Education Program"
2025 Teacher as Researcher (TAR) Award
The Teacher as Researcher Special Interest Group (TAR– SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) invites presenters from the 2024 AERA Annual Conference to submit their work for the TAR Award. This award is intended to recognize research on questions about teaching and learning that arise in classroom practice and among K-12 educators. Although submitted work can be conducted in collaboration with other researchers, it should reflect equity of initiation, data collection, analysis, and presentation, with teachers sharing primary credit and responsibility. The committee chair must receive submissions by Monday, February 10, 2025. The winner will be notified by February 1 and is encouraged to make a 10-min. presentation about their study at the 2025 TAR-SIG Business Meeting at AERA’s Conference in Denver.
Submission requirements:
1. A cover letter with title, name of author(s) their school and/or graduate program affiliation, and corresponding contact information.
2. A 100 – 150 word abstract followed by a short essay in APA style of no more than 3000 words, excluding references and abstract, outlining the purpose/objective, classroom context, theoretical framework, methodology/modes of inquiry, data sources, study findings, and implications. The document should be ready for blind review without mention of the author’s name or institutional affiliation.
3. A current copy of the applicant’s curriculum vitae/resume.
Send all materials to the committee chair, Kierstin Giunco (giunco@bc.edu):
• In the email subject window, please write [YOUR LAST NAME] TAR Award 2025.
• All attached files should follow this format with the addition of a number assigned according to the list above: LAST NAME TAR Award 2025[1], LAST NAME TAR Award 2025[2]...
The TAR SIG selection committee will use the following criteria to judge submissions:
Criteria
Description of Submission Receiving Full Points
OBJECTIVES
Study’s relevance to classroom practice is well articulated and classroom context and the role of the researchers are well described
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Connections between the study, the classroom context, and larger theoretical contexts are well-articulated
MODES OF INQUIRY
Methods taken to engage in classroom inquiry are very sufficient / well-articulated
DATA SOURCES
Data from classroom inquiry are very sufficient and well articulated
STUDY FINDINGS
Conclusions drawn by the researcher are well-grounded
IMPLICATIONS
Implications for classroom practice and further questions that are raised for the educator, as a researcher and as a practitioner are described significantly
TAR-SIG MISSION
PreK-12 school-based educators are involved in the research and presentation significantly