Welcome

You are viewing a "trial" version of the IRE Knowledge Commons. We invite you to explore this version and give us feedback by responding to our Feedback Survey or writing us directly at CoRE.Project@umich.edu.

The Improvement Research in Education (IRE) Knowledge Commons is an open access platform that supports teaching, learning, and sharing resources about the complex and growing field of IRE. This site is a living resource: It is intended to grow and change to match the needs and interests of the IRE community. This introductory page describes some of the ways you can both use the IRE Knowledge Commons and help it to improve.

Whether you are entirely new to improvement scholarship, an experienced improvement scholar eager to engage with emerging perspectives, or an educator seeking new tools for teaching and learning, you've come to the right place. The IRE Knowledge Commons not only connects you with IRE-focused research, pedagogical materials, multimedia, and other resources--it also provides you with opportunities to contribute and collaborate around those resources.

What is Improvement Research in Education?

Improvement Research in Education aims to produce, use, and refine practical knowledge that addresses specific opportunities, problems, and needs of particular learning contexts. It entails iterative cycles of inquiry, design, implementation, and evaluation by collaborating researchers, professional educators, and other stakeholders. IRE encompasses a constellation of approaches and traditions that serve these goals, making IRE an intellectually rich yet complex field to navigate. These approaches and traditions can be informed by different assumptions, and can endorse different perspectives, practices, and priorities. This site is intended to help you not only in exploring the complexities of IRE, but also in finding common ground with scholars and educators who may conceptualize matters of improvement in different ways.

How to Get Started

New to the Site? Join us by registering and logging in

Once you've joined the site, you'll have access to its full range of features.

Not Sure How to Begin Learning (or Teaching) about Improvement Research in Education? Click here

Check out our page of curated resources to help you "Learn (and Teach) About IRE," which will provide you with several conceptual and practical starting places for deeper engagements with IRE.

Looking for Resources? Visit our IRE Resource Repository

This site's resource repository is designed to connect you with the materials you need. You'll find links to published scholarship, pedagogical materials, videos, podcasts, and more. The repository will even point you to materials you're unlikely to come across elsewhere -- including unpublished documents, shared directly by the IRE community members who created them.

Want to Contribute to the IRE Knowledge Commons? Click here to find out how

As a living resource, the IRE Knowledge Commons depends on your contributions to continuously improve. The site has been designed with ways for you to share your resources, news, experiences, questions, and perspectives, all of which will help to keep the IRE Knowledge Commons current and useful to the community.

Curious about What's New on the Site? Visit this page

Check out the latest developments on the site, including a list of additions to our repository (updated montly).

Interested in Providing Feedback? Click here.

One special kind of contribution you can make is to share your recommendations, perspectives, and experiences regarding the IRE Knowledge Commons site itself. We've designed a brief survey that you can complete, which will help us in our ongoing efforts to revise, expand, and (re)design the site. You can also email us directly at CoRE.Project@umich.edu.

What to Know More about this Site and its Developers? Click here

The IRE Knowledge Commons was initially conceptualized by the Community Research Ecology (CoRE) Project at the University of Michigan, with funding from the Spencer Foundation. Our "About" page includes information about this initial development team and about its research. It also offers an FAQ section about the development of the IRE Knowledge Commons site.