Welcome toDesigning for Educational Improvement:

A Research-Practice Partnership Workshop

Workshop Agenda: go.ncsu.edu/rppworkshop

Twitter: #rppnc

Overview of Research-Practice Partnerships

Jeni Corn, Ph.D., jocorn@ncsu.edu

Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, NC State University

William Friday (1920-2002)

Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

• The mission of the Friday Institute is to advance education through innovation in teaching, learning, and leadership.

• Bringing together educational professionals, researchers, policy-makers, and other community members, the Friday Institute is a center for fostering collaborations to improve education.

Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

The FI is a “Think and Do” tank housed in the College of Education at NC State University.

The FI:•Conducts research and evaluation

•Develops comprehensive plans for statewide rollouts

•Develops educational resources

•Provides professional development programs for educators

•Advocates for improvements in teaching and learning

•Helps inform policy-making

Equity and excellence in education in

NC

Partnerships with

education leaders

Utilization-focused

evaluations

FI Research and Evaluation Team Drivers

Research-Practice Partnerships

An emerging national movement of relating research and practice that is collaborative, iterative, and grounded in systematic inquiry.

The Synergy of the RPP Movement

Collaborate

Inform research

Inform practice

Co-design

Systematic approach

Partnerships are the Foundation

long-term collaborations

between educators and researchers that

are organized to investigate problems

of practice and solutions for

improving district outcomes

• Builds trust necessary for ambitious joint work that also challenges systemic inequities

• Supports mutualism necessary for sustained work on problems of practice

• Enables a nimble response to changing environments (e.g., shifts in people, policies, and priorities)

What Partnerships EnableWhat Partnerships Enable

RPP Influence on Practice

•Focus on informing and improving practice, while developing local capacity

•Research-practice partnerships go beyond the focus of many current organizations on making data accessible to district leaders → RPPs produce original analyses of data to answer research questions posed by school districts and school leaders

•Results in context-specific data and results, as well as actionable findings and conclusions (that can then be iterated on again) → leads to continuous improvement

• Increases confidence in relevance of research• Opportunity to produce research that

immediately informs practice• Data-sharing agreements with districts and

other youth-serving agencies → large datasets for longitudinal analysis of multiple issues

• Generate findings beyond local settings to inform the national conversation

RPP Influence on Research

Partnerships Across Levels

• Developing knowledge about RPPs & cultivating a network of them

Meta-Partnership Level

• Institution-level management of the shared enterprise (e.g., leadership team, project team)Leadership Level

• Multi-team coordination and execution of the design work (e.g., designing PD)

Program Design Level

• Multi-team delivery of learning experiences for educators (e.g., supporting professional learning)

Project Level / Program Delivery

• Central focus of the enterprise; also involves project work (e.g., shift classroom practice)

Target Learning Environment Level

Framing the Complexities of Research in SchoolsImplementation Framework: Multiple & Embedded Settings & Contexts of Schooling (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001)

Consensus

• The problem is important to a variety of stakeholders who (1) will potentially benefit from a solution to the problem, and/or (2) will be responsible for implementing the solution

• The problem also address a need for knowledge that people outside the context share

There should be evidence to support both of these assertions.

Empathy

• Seek to understand the problem from your partner’s point of view

• Check your understanding with the person to whom you are listening

• Try and represent the problem back to your colleagues without using “deficit language”

Negotiation

Individuals bring different understandings of the purposes and key strategies of a partnership.

• Negotiation can identify commonalties and productive differences.

Individuals bring different motives for investing their time and energy in the partnership.

• Negotiation can identify deep motivations for participation that might be addressed through participation.

Partner organizations’ needs and priorities change.• After a proposal is developed, re-negotiation of the

problem can sustain the partnership.

Theory

• Focus attention on the how and why of implementation decisions by local actors from their point of view

• Theory provides more specific guidance regarding key drivers of change and implementation

Expertise

• Design of equitable learning environments for youth• Design of professional learning experiences• Educational implementation & organizational

behavior• Educational research: DBR/DBIR, other methods for

theory development• Interdisciplinary (cross-practice) collaboration &

partnership management• Project & team management; apprenticeships• Grant development, contracting & management• External communication & resource sharing

Mutualism

• Partnerships should operate on the grounds of mutual dependence, shared benefit, and negotiated compromise

• Since school systems hold the social contract to educate our youth, their priorities should be central to the work

Memorandum of Understanding

(MOU)

Equity

• Commitment to collaborative design that is inclusive of all stakeholders

• Surfacing of tensions and dilemmas related to differences in power, marginalization, and exclusion

• Commitment to equity in research – in process and in focus

Where to Begin

• Start partnership work as early as possible

• Be problem-driven

• Identify possible sources of funding

• Be realistic about what you can accomplish given constraints

• It’s a marathon, not a sprint (start early; no, sooner than that!)

Audiences and Partners

• Practitioners– District leaders and staff

– School leaders and staff

• Researchers– Education researchers

– Policy researchers

– Learning scientists

• Additional Educational Stakeholders

Common RPP Tensions

autonomy consensus

theory practice

complexity simplicity

idealism pragmatism

RPP Questions and Methods Mapped to Different Phases of Research

Phase of Research Potential Research Questions

Potentially Useful Methods/Data

Exploratory: Negotiating the Focal Problem of Practice

What problem of practice should be the focus of our joint work?

Analysis of available data from multiple sectors; research evidence related to domain learning; perspectives and values of stakeholders; improvement science methods – e.g. root cause analysis

Design and development: Co-Design

What should be the focus of our work? To what extent do teams leverage the diverse expertise of stakeholders? What co-designed tools might help address the shared problem of practice?

Documentation of design rationales; participatory design routines; ethnographic analyses of the co-design work

Design and development:Early implementation research

How do implementers adapt the innovation to their local contexts? How do they use the innovation to reconstruct their practice? What are appropriate measures of impact from early cycles of improvement?

Observations & analysis of implementation; interviews; practitioner documentation; principled assessment design (e.g. evidence-centered design, construct modeling)

RPP Questions and Methods Mapped to Different Phases of Research

Phase of Research Potential Research Questions

Potentially Useful Methods/Data

Efficacy What is the potential impact of the innovation on teaching and learning? What mediates impacts on learning?

Randomized controlled trials; interrupted time series designs; explanatory case studies

Effectiveness and Scale-Up

What supports are needed to implement the program effectively across a system?What are the conditions for sustainability?

Experimental comparisons of different means of support; explanatory comparative case analysis