In the Russell et al. (2017) article on Networked Improvement Communities (NICs), they describe a framework to address a problem of practice. While you may or may not be interested in forming a NIC to address the problem that you have identified, the ideas behind the framework can be translated into continuous improvement work within an organization. One of those ideas is who to bring to the table. In order to drive improvement within an organization, you cannot do it alone. Consider and describe who is essential to include in the discussion of the issue you have identified. Why include them? How will you ensure that you have a shared vision to move forward?
- Your initial post (approximately 200-250 words) should address each question in the discussion
What Is Improvement Science? Do We Need It in Education? What Is Improvement Science? Do We Need It in Education? Author(s): Catherine Lewis Source: Educational Researcher, Vol. 44, No. 1 (JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015), pp. 54-61 Published by: American Educational Research Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24571315 Accessed: 12-07-2019 14:08 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Educational Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Educational Researcher This content downloaded from 132.174.254.23 on Fri, 12 Jul 2019 14:08:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ßf REVIEWS/ESSAYS What Is Improvement Science? Do We Need It in Education? Catherine Lewis1 The theory arid tools of "improvement science" have produced performance improvements in many organizational sectors. This essay describes improvement science and explores its potential and challenges within education. Potential contributions include attention to the knowledge-building and motivational systems within schools, strategies for learning from variations in practice, and focus on improvement (rather than on program adoption). Two examples of improvement science in education are examined: the Community College Pathways Networked Improvement Community and lesson study in Japan. To support improvement science use, we need to recognize the different affordances of experimental and improvement science, the varied types of knowledge that can be generalized, the value of practical measurement, and the feasibility of learning across boundaries. Keywords: organization theory/change; professional development; teacher education/development; mathematics education The failure of research-based knowledge to "scale up" organizations (Deming, cited in Langley et al., 2009, p. 75). The broadly is a central challenge in education (Coburn & "system of profound knowledge" is drawn from sociology, psy Stein, 2010). As one U.S. education school dean wrote, chology, and statistics and includes "knowledge of systems, "why is so much that is known about how to help U.S. students knowledge of variation, knowledge of psychology, and knowl reach high levels of achievement not applied in most school set- edge of how knowledge grows" (Berwick, cited in Langley et al., tings?" (Stipek, cited in Coburn & Stein, 2010, p. xi). New 2009, p. xii). The profound knowledge needed to improve stu approaches to the connection between knowledge and improve- dents' mathematical sense-making might include, for example, ment are emerging from improvement science (Langley et al., knowledge about the variability in mathematics instruction in a 2009), an applied science that has dramatically improved prac- district and what causes it, knowledge about how to sustain edu tice in industries ranging from automobile manufacturing cators' motivation to improve instruction, and knowledge of (Rother, 2009) to health care (Gawande, 2007).1 As projects organizational routines that allow educators to build and share rooted in improvement science begin to show success within knowledge about instruction. The system of profound knowl education (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015), the edge includes both generalizable knowledge (e.g., the impact of moment is right to consider its underlying tenets. intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards) and organization-specific knowledge (e.g., the incentives within a particular organization What Is Improvement Science? to build students' mathematical sense-making). The Improvement Guide (Langley et al., 2009), at nearly 500 Imagine that a district wants to improve students capacity to pages, provides one major compendium of improvement science "make sense of problems and persevere in solving them" tools ancj processes, and identifies as the core framework of (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010, p. 6). improvement science the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle, a Improvement science theorizes that two different types of knowl- process for rapid cycles of learning from practice, coupled with edge are needed: basic knowledge from the discipline of educa- three fundamental questions that drive improvement work: tion (for example, knowledge about effective mathematical tasks and instructional strategies) and "a system of profound knowl edge" needed to enact basic disciplinary knowledge within 'Mills College School of Education, Oakland, CA Educational Researcher, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 54-61 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X15570388 © 2015 AERA, http://er.aera.net 54 I EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER The theory arid tools of "improvement science" have produced performance improvements in many organizational sectors. This essay describes improvement science and explores its potential and challenges within education. Potential contributions include attention to the knowledge-building and motivational systems within schools, strategies for learning from variations in practice, and focus on improvement (rather than on program adoption). Two examples of improvement science in education are examined: the Community College Pathways Networked Improvement Community and lesson study in Japan. To support improvement science use, we need to recognize the different affordances of experimental and improvement science, the varied types of knowledge that can be generalized, the value of practical measurement, and the feasibility of learning across boundaries. Keywords: organization theory/change; professional development; teacher education/development; mathematics education The theory arid tools of "improvement science" have produced performance improvements in many organizational sectors. This essay describes improvement science and explores its potential and challenges within education. Potential contributions include attention to the knowledge-building and motivational systems within schools, strategies for learning from variations in practice, and focus on improvement (rather than on program adoption). Two examples of improvement science in education are examined: the Community College Pathways Networked Improvement Community and lesson study in Japan. To support improvement science use, we need to recognize the different affordances of experimental and improvement science, the varied types of knowledge that can be generalized, the value of practical measurement, and the feasibility of learning across boundaries. This content downloaded from 132.174.254.23 on Fri, 12 Jul 2019 14:08:08 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1. What are we trying to accomplish? of a proven program in new settings. Improvement science 2. How will we know that a change is an improvement? assumes scale-up occurs through integration of basic knowledge 3. What change can we make that will result in improvement? with the "system of profound knowledge," such as knowledge about how to build shared ownership of improvement, to detect A district interested in improving students' sense-making in and learn from variations in practice, to build and share knowl mathematics might use tools and processes from The Improvement edge among practitioners, to motivate frontline innovators, and Guide to build buy-in to a shared improvement "charter" so forth. Some of this knowledge may be embedded in the orga (Langley et al., 2009, p. 90) and to build a cause-and-effect dia- nization's routines: Many education researchers have noted that gram (Langley et al., 2009, p. 429) that helps teachers and organizational and system factors crucially shape program imple administrators "see" the system that produces mathematics mentation (e.g., Cobb, McClain, de Silva Lamberg, & Dean, instruction from each other's viewpoints and identify potential 2003; Gutierrez & Penuel, 2014; Spillane, Parise, & Sherer, drivers of improvement. Creating such a system diagram might 2011) and have argued for research on the conditions that allow help administrators notice, for example, that the current teacher research-based knowledge to produce improved practice (Coburn evaluation system downgrades teachers if students use mathe- & Stein, 2010). Yet there is relatively little education research in matically imprecise vocabulary, providing a disincentive for the improvement science tradition, which emphasizes building teachers to elicit students' mathematical explanations. The organization members' understanding of the problem and its PDSA cycle provides a way to learn how a change works on a causes, buy-in to improvement, identification of improvement small scale before trying it on a large scale. Other improvement ideas within and outside their organization, and rapid testing of science tools and processes include data display and analytic promising ideas through PDSA cycles. strategies (such as run charts and control charts) that reveal the The ideas underlying improvement science are not new to extent and causes of variation within a system (for example, education researchers. Like improvement science, action research whether particular curriculum materials or instructional ele- (e.g., Argyris, Putnam, & Smith, 1985) often focuses on identi ments are associated with sense-making) and "practical measure- fication, analysis, and remediation of a problem in a specified ment" strategies that allow evaluation of potential improvement context, often using a process like the PDSA cycle to enact and ideas during cycles of rapid prototype development and testing study change. Like improvement science, the fields of formative (Yeager et al., 2013). Improvement science can be used at various (or "theory-driven") evaluation (e.g., Chen, 1990; Donaldson, grain sizes of a system, such as in a single department, a whole 2002), design-based research (e.g., Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, organization, or a group of organizations. For simplicity, the Lehrer, & Schäuble, 2003) and design-based implementation term organization will be used here. research (Penuel, Fishman, Haugan Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011) often focus on how basic disciplinary knowledge interacts with Why Is Improvement Science of Interest to Educators? Examples of Improvement Science in Education organizational conditions to produce improvement. These sub stantial bodies of work remind us that education researchers have long recognized the interplay of disciplinary knowledge Experimental science, with its hallmark method of the random- with organizational conditions. Improvement science may con ized controlled trial (RCT), provides a gold standard for drawing tribute new tools and approaches that have proven useful outside causal inferences and thereby building basic knowledge. But education and organizational processes that can be used to build experimental science draws causal conclusions by minimizing local knowledge in many different settings, variation in both treatment and setting (Lipsey, 1993), for exam ple, by requiring faithful implementation of a program in set tings with carefully selected characteristics. Unfortunately, variation is the primary issue that needs to be understood in Two examples will be used to illustrate the potential of improve educational improvement (Bryk, Gomez, & Grunow, 2010). ment science within education. The