Supporting Leaders’ Learning of the Foundations of Improvement Science: Highlights from an Upcoming Interactive Workshop
By Kristen C. Wilcox
On Monday April 24th at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront (and available as a pre-recorded session for those attending virtually) I am delighted to join with colleagues from around the United States to offer a workshop at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Annual Summit. The workshop’s goal is to help improvement leaders and facilitators support learning around improvement research in education and the foundations of improvement science.
The workshop will be offered by improvement scholars and facilitators who have engaged in a Teaching and Learning of Improvement Research in Education work group since fall of 2022.
How we spread knowledge about improvement research in education and the use of improvement science in supporting continuous improvement (CI) efforts is of increasing importance as state and national policymakers rely more and more on CI to address long-standing opportunity and outcome gaps among youth in the U.S. and across the globe.
Who are the Workshop Co-Designers?
Claire Silva, EDD Doctoral Student in the ExSEL Administration & Supervision Organization, University of Virginia
J.W. Hammond, Assistant Professor, Michigan Technological University
David Eddy-Spicer, Professor of Education, School of Education and Human Development, University of Virginia
Elizabeth Zumpe, Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma
Maxwell Yurkofsky, Assistant Professor, Radford University
What Do We Know about the Teaching & Learning of Improvement Research in Education?
This interactive workshop engages participants in examining the scholarship around improvement research in education (IRE) and improvement science and in the context of teaching and facilitating others’ use of it.
Our work group designed this workshop to invite participants into a process of examining IRE and improvement science learner work products as we have done in our monthly meetings.
By focusing on learner work products we align our learning to the improvement science principle of staying “user-centered”. We align with another improvement science principle in our workshop by attending to variability as we invite workshop participants to explore how the teaching and learning of IRE and improvement science varies in different settings and with different learners including:
- Professional developers, consultants, state or other agency professionals working in P-12 or higher education settings on improvement initiatives
- Teaching faculty and scholars who offer improvement research in education or improvement science coursework in masters or doctoral programs (EdD or PhD)
- P12 school and district leaders and educators who work with staff on school improvement efforts
- Youth who collaborate with other stakeholders in their school settings to improve their schools
NYKids and Spreading Knowledge on IRE and Improvement Science
As the New York State Education Department’s new continuous improvement process for school improvement planning incorporates foundations of improvement science, this workshop may be of particular interest to those leading this work in New York state.
We invite you to check out the Carnegie Summit workshop session, (attendance virtually is still open), reach out to NYKids if you or others in your organization would like support in learning more about IRE and improvement science and look for our NYKids’ posts from the summit soon.
Thank you for your interest in NYKids. You may visit our webpage for the latest research and news, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, for announcements.
