The School Improvement Advisor/researcher (SIA) is an innovative figure in education, being a professional that acts both as an advisor and a researcher, helping schools and teachers in the development of innovative projects, practices and action-researches (Ostinelli, 2008; 2012, 2016; 2017). The purpose of this proposal is to illustrate a three-year practice with a primary school and its teachers, where the SIA acted on three different – but interconnected projects: a first one, involving two teachers, consisting in the pupils’ realization of a “real” map of their village, including selected itineraries, times for walking from one place to the other, cultural locations, etc.; a second, performed by a group of four teachers (the former two plus other two), on the theme of the bees and their life; and a third one, where a further teacher added herself to the group, starting to act like a little community of practice. The first two projects were planned and acted using the methodology Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), while the third has a “wider” perspective and is inspired by the works of Wenger on the theme of the communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). Beyond the description of the experience – that will happen mainly through some interviews to the teachers – the aim is to develop a reflection on the role of the SIA, that, like a bee, “pollinates” the school(s) (in fact, parallel similar processes are developed also in other schools). Bringing research (both as knowledge and practice) concretely into teaching and learning experiences is one of the main objectives of this approach, and this happened in the described situation through a process of development that leaded to the establishment of a community of practice where the work is organized starting from teachers’ needs and where moments of individualized consultancy are alternated with collective reflection on wider educative themes. The final aim is to help the school in accessing, popularizing, developing and adapting knowledge coming from educational research in a progressively more and more autonomous way to its everyday practice, a process that after all is not so much different from what a bee does with flowers.

Ostinelli G. (2008). The School Improvement Advisor/Researcher (Sia): helping the individual school in the foundation and organization of the self-managed improvement. Paper presented to EERA-ECER Conference, Göteborg Ostinelli, G. (2012) Concezione e realizzazione del Questionario per la valutazione della didattica e della relazione con l’insegnante. Revue suisse des sciences de l’éducation, 34 (3): 1–18 Ostinelli, G. (2016). The role of motivation and understanding in the change of teaching practices. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, 7 (2) : 6 Ostinelli, G. (2017) Between university and school: The School Improvement Advisor/researcher (SIA). International Journal of Leadership in Education, forthcoming. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. Wiggins, G., McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria: ASCD