There are many ways to improve knowledge about teaching. Many teachers practice personal reflection on teaching; that is, they look back at what has worked and has not worked in the classroom and think about how they can change their teaching strategies to enhance learning. (Hole and McEntee (1999) provide useful steps for enhancing such reflection. A few teachers (most notably Education professors) conduct formal empirical studies on teaching and learning, adding to our knowledge base. CAR fits in the center of a continuum ranging from personal reflection at one end to formal educational research at the other. CAR is more systematic and data-based than personal reflection, but it is more informal and personal than formal
educational research. In CAR, a teacher focuses attention on a problem or question about his or her own classroom. For example, does role-playing help students understand course concepts more completely than lecture methods? Which concepts are most confusing to students?