Learning To Improve – Anthony S Bryk

The concept framework emerged through an interactive process in which prototype versions were vetted by academic experts and diverse faculty and institutional leaders. In essence, three distinct activity strands occurred interactively: research synthesis, academic expert review, and professional educator assessments. Evolving ideas from each strand were tested against the other two.

The aim was to develop a framework recognizable to both practical and theoretical experts, each of whom deeply understands this domain but through different lenses. This framework then became the basis for the develop- ment of practical measures. It also guided the articulation of changes that might be introduced into community college classrooms to ad- vance these intermediate outcomes. II. The Development of a Practical Measure. The development of a prac- tical measure of productive persistence required a second ninety-day cycle. The team began by reviewing the research literature for extant measures related to the concept framework.*’ The most feasible option was an individual student survey.

After identifying more than nine hundred possible items, the team confronted the same problem as in the framework development task. Out of this surplus of possibilities, what were the most important questions to ask? Since data collection would be woven into regular classroom instruction, time would be ex- tremely limited. Through consultation with community college faculty, the team concluded that the survey could not take more than three minutes to administer on the first day of class.

This practical constraint further refined the overall search: what were the twenty-five best ques- tions to ask? A good answer here demanded clarity about the role of a primary-driver measure. By virtue of its position as an intermediate target, a good measure for a primary driver should (1) predict the ultimate outcomes of in- terest (i.e., students’ sustained participation and success in learning); (2) be sensitive to process changes that might be introduced (i.e., the productive persistence measure functions as the immediate outcome for interventions aiming to increase it); and (3) provide guidance as to where subsequent improvement efforts might focus (i.e., for whom and where the Pathways are succeeding and not).

Copyright © 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Control Number 2014959079 Paperback ISBN 978-1-61250-791-0 Library Edition ISBN 978-1-61250-792-7 Published by Harvard Education Press, an imprint of the Harvard Education Publishing Group Harvard Education Press 8 Story Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Cover Design: Saizon Design Cover Image: daz2d/Digital Vision Vectors/Getty Images The typefaces used in this book are Minion Pro and ITC Stone Sans To all of the educators whose work and learnings are described in this volume.

They trusted in an idea and in a group of colleagues. They made improvement come alive. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/learningtoimprovO000bryk Contents Preface Introduction A Better Way 1 Make the Work Problem-Specific and User-Centered Focus on Variation in Performance See the System That Produces the Current Outcomes We Cannot Improve at Scale What We Cannot Measure Use Disciplined Inquiry to Drive Improvement Accelerate Learning Through Networked Communities N DA OA Fe W WN Living Improvement Glossary Appendix Responses to Some Frequently Asked Questions Notes Acknowledgments About the Authors Index 141 203 211 243 24/7 251 Preface IN THE FALL OF 2007, the American Enterprise Institute organized a conference titled the “Supply Side of School Reform” in Washington, DC.

The conference created an occasion for two of the authors of this volume, Tony Bryk and Louis Gomez, to draw together a set of ruminations, based on over a decade of collaboration on work to improve student outcomes in the Chicago Public Schools. The “Ruminations” paper offered a sober appraisal.’!

Something was seriously wrong with the ways the field of edu- cation sought to connect research to practice improvement. One could see small successes here and there, but the overall processes of improvement were very fragile and much too slow. The forces at work in large urban school systems were competing tsunamis of change. Each hot new idea seemed well intentioned, but often impervious to evidence. The cumula- tive effect of various reforms, layered one on top of another, was often less than helpful.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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