The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning PEEL was founded in 1985 by a group of teachers and aca

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PEEL
The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning
Ian Mitchell
The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning
(PEEL) was founded in 1985 by a group of teachers
and academics who shared concerns about the
prevalence of passive, unreflective, dependent
student learning, even in apparently successful
lessons.  They set out to research classroom
approaches that would stimulate and support
student learning that was more informed,
purposeful, intellectually active and
independent. The project was unfunded and not a
result of any system or institution-level
initiative. PEEL teachers agree to meet on a
regular basis, in their own time, to share and
analyse experiences, ideas and new practices.
The original project was intended to run for two
years at one (secondary) school, however the
process of collaborative action-research, the
developments of so many new ideas for practice
and the changes in classroom environment all
proved very rewarding for the teachers.
Consequently, at the end of the initial two
years, the teachers refused to let the project
end and a year later it began to spread to other
schools in Australia and then in other countries.
This spread was driven by teachers in those
schools who had similar concerns about learning,
as well as the lack of opportunities in a normal
school day for collaborative reflection, and who
wished to set up PEEL groups of their own. While
the initial spread was in secondary schools,
there is now a growing network of teachers in
primary/elementary schools. The project has also
been adopted by a large number of schools in
Denmark and Sweden. PEEL operates as a network
of autonomous and voluntary groups of teachers
who take on a role of interdependent innovators.
The teachers agree to meet regularly to reflect
on their practice, and to provide mutual support
and stimulation for the processes of teacher and
student change. Coherence is provided by the
shared concerns about passive, dependent learning
and by structures that allow teachers to learn
from and share new wisdom with teachers in other
schools as well as a few academic friends. These
structures include books, PEEL SEEDS, (the
journal of the PEEL collective) an annual PEEL
conference, PEEL collective meetings, a range of
short courses and in-service activities, a
website and a database of over 1200 articles
written by PEEL teachers. I was co-founder of
PEEL and coordinate the activities just
listed. Outcomes so far include a huge repertoire
of teaching procedures designed to promote
effective learning findings about the nature of
student change, and teacher change and findings
about the nature of collaborative professional
development in schools and between the school and
tertiary sectors. Schools and teachers report
substantial changes to teaching practice and to
the classroom environment. Teachers consistently
report much higher levels of student interest and
engagement as well as learning that is more
informed, purposeful, intellectually active and
independent. Further information can be
obtained from www.peelweb.org.