Partnering for Improvement: Improvement Communities and Their Role in Scale Up

Item

Title

Partnering for Improvement: Improvement Communities and Their Role in Scale Up

Abstract/Description

There is increasing interest in researcher–practitioner partnerships, particularly those that take the form of a networked improvement community. In this paper, we describe the partnership between the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools and the Fort Worth Independent School District to build student ownership and responsibility. By outlining the organizational structures established to enact the partnership and roles of our various partners, we provide an in-depth look at how one researcher–practitioner partnership operates. We begin by describing the concept of an improvement community as one type of partnership, identify several types of improvement communities currently operating in educational systems, and define the key features of improvement communities. Then, we outline the specific improvement communities that are central to the Center's work, highlighting how these structures help us enact our partnership. We end with our reflections about how the partnership created new roles for both researchers and practitioners as well as the challenges and opportunities that accompanied those new roles.

Author/creator

Cannata, Marisa A.

Cohen-Vogel, Lora

Sorum, Michael

Date

2017

In publication

Peabody Journal of Education

Series

Peabody Journal of Education [Special Issue]: New Frontiers in Scaling Up Research

Volume

92

Issue

5

Pages

569-588

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

en Preprint/Forthcoming Resource

Scholarship genre

en Methodological

en Empirical

IRE Approach/Concept

Research Practice Partnership (RPP)

Networked Improvement Community (NIC)

Scale Up

School Improvement Design Team (SIDT)

Student Ownership and Responsibility (SOAR)

District Innovation Design Team (DIDT)

Featured case/project

National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU)

Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD)

DOI

10.1080/0161956X.2017.1368633

URL

Publisher Webpage

Open Access Preprint

Grant funding

Institute of Education Sciences (IES)

Grant number

Institute of Education Sciences Grant #R305C10023

Citation

Cannata, M., Cohen-Vogel, L., & Sorum, M. (2017). Partnering for Improvement: Improvement Communities and Their Role in Scale Up. Peabody Journal of Education, 92(5), 569–588. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2017.1368633

Cited in

Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Improvement

Item sets

Open Access Resource (IRE)

Peabody Journal of Education [Special Issue]: New Frontiers in Scaling Up Research

OB Citations - Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Improvement

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