What is peer input? Simply stated, peer input refers to collegial sharing of ideas, suggestions, questions, insights, and resources. Collaboration and dialogue, essential threads running throughout this project, are valuable peer input tools. Although it is certainly possible for individuals to engage in teacher-research independently, the opportunity to share and learn with others is one of the benefits of this professional development model.

How do participants in this project benefit from peer input? Through dialogue and collaboration, colleagues can help one another select a focus for inquiry, formulate and refine research questions, identify a student learning goal(s), design interventions, use technology, create a data collection and analysis plan, and analyze and interpret data.

For example, a teacher may know that students' final projects do not reflect quality work, but he/she may not be able to identify a specific focus to investigate. dialogue with a colleague(s) around student work, teacher observations, hunches, and concerns can help the teacher clarify his/her central issues of concern and formulate research questions that will guide the inquiry project design.

Our Favorite Data Collection and Analysis Activities and Links Included are peer input activities that have been successfully used in the pilot sites to encourage and guide peer input. There are also links to additional activities and links that are potentially powerful but have not been used at the three pilot sites.