Winter 2012
students with visual impairments, we offer you a few insights on translating research findings into pragmatic strategies for the classroom.
Everyone's Responsibility As we discussed in the last issue, the generation
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of high-quality educational research is the responsibility of all those involved (e.g., parents, teachers, administrators). This same notion can be applied to the application of the findings of this research. Teachers are consistently asked to rethink both the method and content of their instruction in response to data on student performance (Gerstein & Brengelman, 1996). Educational policy emphasizes that these changes to practice be evidence-based (Odom, Brantlinger, Gersten, Horner, Thompson, & Harris, 2005). Therefore, as teachers, we need to be active consumers of the research literature – searching for empirical work that is relevant to the students we serve. Many school districts and/or professional organizations for educators purchase licenses to online journals for teachers' use. For research in visual impairment and blindness, individual online subscriptions to peer-reviewed journals are less than $50. The resources are at our disposal – what is needed are educators of students with visual impairments that will mine the extant
