I found the Freedman article on the inadequacies of medical research really fascinating. So many times I think we guide or allow most up to date research rule how we live our lives. If we hear we should eat almonds instead of walnuts or spend at 15 minutes in sunlight, etc. all of these headlines seem to constantly contradict each other and through this article I see how that’s very true. It also brings into question for me, at what point do we as practitioners of teaching filter out research and realize that maybe we don’t have to reinvent the wheel all the time. I mean how free are we really of research’s influence on our practice even though most of the research (90%) is flawed? I think that being reflective and having a good mentor can help with the filtering of all this constant information that is thrown at us many times. I don’t really think that we are ever really free from research’s influence because it is going to affect and shape our teaching careers in some aspect. What’s more important is finding a happy medium where we see if and where research can fit into our practice.

-Elvia