Topic: Professional Learning Communities

This report details the lessons learned through the Research-Practice Partnership between NYKids, Tech Valley High School (TVHS), Chatham Central School District (CSD), and the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The report, co-written by members of the collaborative, reflects on positive outcomes from the RPP, challenges team members faced, and future goals for improvement.

In this presentation entitled “Backbone Organizations for Improvement Research and Continuous Improvement Utilization: Opportunities and Challenges from New York State” NYKids Director and Associate Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership, Kristen C. Wilcox details the continuous improvement efforts made by NYKids and our partners across New York State.

This presentation, entitled “Advancing Educational Equity Research, Policy, and Practice,” was delivered by NYKids Director Kristen C. Wilcox and longtime collaborator Hal A. Lawson at the Educational Leaders without Borders conference held in Athens, Greece in April, 2023. The presentation discusses the importance of equity-focused research and recounts over two decades of NYKids scholarship.

NYKids team members Kristen C. Wilcox, Maria I. Khan, and Jessie Tobin presented this poster at the 2023 Carnegie Summit held in San Diego. The poster, titled “Addressing Differential Impacts of COVID via a National Research-Practice Partnership Network” outlines research improvement work NYKids has connected as part of a collaboration with Tech Valley High School, Chatham City School District, and American Institutes for Research.

This research brief outlines the major findings from NYKids’ latest study on the effects of the pandemic on the educator workforce. The full report, “Opportunities and Challenges to Adapt and Innovate: How Educators Confronted the COVID-19 Pandemic,” was published in December, 2022 and is available on our website. The brief succinctly describes the four drivers for adaptation and innovation found in positive outlier schools that participated in the study: Empowerment and Collective Responsibility; Responsiveness and Flexible Problem Solving ; A Relationship- and Connection-Centered Orientation; and Adaptive and Innovative Systems.

NYKids team members Kristen C. Wilcox and Maria I. Khan presented findings from an ongoing research study at the Comparative and International Education Society. The presentation, entitled “Improving Educational Equity through Research-Practice Partnerships & University-School Collaborations in the Post-Pandemic Era,” explores the research-practice partnership between NYKids, Chatham Central School District, and Tech Valley High School. This work is also being conducted with the support of the American Institutes for Research.

In this conference brief Sarah Zuckerman and Kristen Wilcox describe paradigm shifts which they feel are needed with regard to how and what we prioritize when attempting to improve schools, as well as how those engaging in school improvement work are supported.

This slide deck is taken from a presentation at the 2022 Carnegie Summit by Dr. Kristen C. Wilcox and Dr. Tammy Ellis-Robinson. The presentation entitled, “Decolonizing Pedagogy: Engaging in Disciplined Inquiry in Higher Education” explores efforts of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Task Force at UAlbany’s School of Education.

This presentation was delivered by Dr. Wilcox to the University Council for Educational Administration Annual Conference Paper. It discusses the roles of school leaders during the pandemic and school closures over the last 18 months and draws on data from the ongoing NYKids study of the differential impacts of COVID-19 on schools across New York State.

Dr. Kristen C. Wilcox delivered this presentation at this year’s New York State School Boards Association annual conference. The topic is on how Rural Research-Practice Partnerships can assist educators in improving school outcomes.

Workshop participants learned how they can model the work of Improvement Science (IS) and engage others in using IS strategies and tools for continuous improvement.

This presentation explores the relationship between teacher and student agency at odds-beating secondary schools. We find that teachers, when offered opportunities to act as agents, tend to offer similar opportunities to their students similarly. This research further suggests that affordances for teachers to assert agency can mitigate the constraining effects of state accountability system compliance-oriented practices.

Drawing from lessons learned in other sectors, educators are increasingly looking for ways to address longstanding outcome disparities for children and youth growing up in poverty and from diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. When seeking to improve student outcomes, the Six Principles of Improvement Science can guide educators to develop strategies for continuous improvement. The NYKids’ COMPASS-AIM process melds the principles of improvement science with research on odds-beating schools to help schools and districts tackle complex problems effecting student success.

This qualitative multiple case study contributes to the growing body of translational research that
seeks to better understand what is needed to develop capacities for evidence-guided continuous
improvement in P-12 settings. The study investigated school leadership team participants’
perceptions of an intervention called COMPASS. COMPASS engages teams from different
schools and districts in activities to identify strengths, weaknesses, and priorities then engage in
an inquiry cycle of implementing action plans, gathering data and interpreting evidence in order
to reach targeted goals. Two-hundred and twenty-eight district and school leaders and
instructional staff from 36 school teams provided reflections on the intervention revealing the
majority reported increases in competence in all dimensions of evidence-guided decision
making, from priority and goal setting to identifying potential research-based levers to
improvement as well as increased capacities for school- and district-wide action planning and
progress monitoring. Observation field notes, documentary evidence, and interviews with school
leaders also indicate that the process fundamentally shifts educators’ focus on systemic changes
to achieve system-wide targeted goals. Implications for theory, future research, and
considerations for those interested in university/P-12 partnerships for continuous improvement
are discussed.

This case study is one of 10 produced as part of a larger study of high schools conducted during the 2007-08 school year. Research teams investigated 10 consistently higher-performing and five average-performing high schools based on student performance on New York State Assessments of English, mathematics, science, and history. Researchers used site-based interviews of teachers and administrators, as well as analyses of supportive documentation, to determine differences in practices between higher-and average-performing schools in the sample.

This case study is one of 10 produced as part of a larger study of high schools conducted during the 2007-08 school year. Research teams investigated 10 consistently higher-performing and five average-performing high schools based on student performance on New York State Assessments of English, mathematics, science, and history. Researchers used site-based interviews of teachers and administrators, as well as analyses of supportive documentation, to determine differences in practices between higher-and average-performing schools in the sample.

This case study is one of 10 produced as part of a larger study of high schools conducted during the 2007-08 school year. Research teams investigated 10 consistently higher-performing and five average-performing high schools based on student performance on New York State Assessments of English, mathematics, science, and history. Researchers used site-based interviews of teachers and administrators, as well as analyses of supportive documentation, to determine differences in practices between higher-and average-performing schools in the sample.

This case study is one of 10 produced as part of a larger study of high schools conducted during the 2007-08 school year. Research teams investigated 10 consistently higher-performing and five average-performing high schools based on student performance on New York State Assessments of English, mathematics, science, and history. Researchers used site-based interviews of teachers and administrators, as well as analyses of supportive documentation, to determine differences in practices between higher-and average-performing schools in the sample.

2010 Collaboration Does Make a Difference

This presentation shares research from NYKids on the importance of collaboration in middle school settings.