Leadership,partnerships, and organizational development: exploring components of effectiveness in three full-service community schools

Full-service community schools are viewed as an approach to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for underserved student populations. The realization of these goals, however, is not guaranteed. According to Richardson’s (2009) research-based model of highly effective community schools (HECS), the effectiveness of full-service community schools depends on 3 interrelated components: leadership, partnerships, and organizational development. This qualitative case study uses the HECS model to examine different levels of effectiveness among 3 full-service community schools in an urban district in the eastern United States. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of Richardson’s model for practice and research.     

Absorptive capacity: A conceptual framework for understanding district central office learning

Globally, school systems are pressed to engage in large-scale school improvement. In the United States and other countries, school district central offices and other local governing agencies often engage with external organizations and individuals to support such educational change efforts. However, initiatives with external partners are not always productive. We draw on the idea of absorptive capacity to present a conceptual framework for understanding when and under what conditions partnerships are likely to foster district learning and support change efforts. We contend that prior knowledge, communication pathways, strategic knowledge leadership, and resources to partner are preconditions for a district central office’s absorptive capacity, and we identify the features of the external partner that likely matter for productive partnering. We argue that the relationship between district absorptive capacity and features of the partner is mediated by the nature of the interactions between district and partner, with likely consequences for organizational learning outcomes. For researchers, this framework serves as a tool for understanding how a district central office can learn from an external partner for educational improvement efforts. For school district leaders and external partners, this framework provides a structure for thinking strategically about when and under what conditions a partnership is likely to be productive.     

Technology 2000

Abstract

This article describes a collaborative university-school district project for improving teaching and learning by using state-of-the-art educational technologies. The work resulted in the simultaneous improvement of P-12 education and teacher education. The article illustrates some of the important outcomes of a project known as Technology 2000, a collaborative effort between a university, a school district, and a business partner. Through using appropriate educational technologies, pre-service teachers, in cooperation with their supervising teachers in five classrooms at two school sites, engaged in the collaborative alignment of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to facilitate student achievement. The participants believe that the outcomes of this educational technology project have important implications for improving teaching and learning in other schools and teacher education settings.     

Unterricht als Feld evidenzbasierter Bildungspraxis?

This paper sketches the debate on evidence-based educational practice focusing on teaching and instruction in schools. The authors review requirements that have to be fulfilled by educational research that aims to provide a basis for educational policy and practice. Specifically, they discuss the challenges that are associated with a notion of a sender-recipient relationship describing research and practice. Models for a stronger research-based connection with the field of educational practice are described. Subsequently, they show how the discourse on teaching and instruction that is prevalent in the educational sciences in Germany illuminates the inherent difficulties when teaching practice is expected to follow scientific evidence. The authors illustrate these two strands of the paper – communication between researchers and practitioners, and opinions about the constitution of ‘good’ teaching and instruction – by excerpts of interviews with researchers and teachers.     

论发展大学与中小学伙伴合作关系的途径

以全国性课程改革为契机,通过教育实习、教育培训、建立研究团队和“学习共同体”发展大学与中小学合作伙伴关系。大学与中小学合作以教育实习为纽带,深入教育实践第一线;通过教育培训,统一大学与中小学合作意识与思想;建立研究团队,在合作中加强理论与实践的联系;建立“学习共同体”,巩固合作伙伴关系的稳定性。促进学校间的交流、合作及相互发展。     

Research–Practice Partnerships to Support the Development of High Quality Mathematics Instruction for All Students

The gap in achievement in mathematics between at-risk students and their more advantaged counterparts is a persistent problem of the U.S. education system. Although some research-based curricula and pedagogy have demonstrated promise in supporting students from diverse backgrounds to develop conceptual understanding and procedural fluency in mathematics, scaling up instructional change across a district organization is a significant challenge. The Middle School Mathematics and the Institutional Setting of Teaching (MIST) Project is a research–practice partnership seeking to understand how large urban school districts can support the development of rigorous and equitable middle-school mathematics instruction at scale. This article enumerates the goals and design of this multiyear, multidistrict partnership, and describes one illustrative example of how our partnership activities informed and supported one district's efforts to improve mathematics instruction over multiple years. General recommendations for district–researcher partnerships are discussed.     

论研究本位的教师教育理念与实践

教师研究是教师专业发展的重要途径。研究本位的教师教育模式成为当前世界教育变革的主题。研究本位的教师教育旨在培养实践反思型教师,而不是专业的研究者。本文阐释了研究本位的教师教育的内涵、范式及其改革实践。研究本位的教师教育主要包括目标定位、课程开发、教学方法以及大学与中小学合作伙伴的教师教育研究等四个方面的策略。     

To jump the wave or not: teachers’ perceptions of research evidence in education

This article presents a microanalysis of how a group of primary school teachers deals with research evidence in their work. Based on analysis of a group of Norwegian teachers’ interactions over issues of educational research and research-based knowledge, we find that teachers’ representations of educational research particularly center on the following issues: educational research being perceived as circular, ‘polyphonic’, and a matter of accommodation to their experience-based knowledge. These metaphors also shed light upon the dilemmas that arise when research evidence meets teachers’ more contextual knowledge. We conclude that teachers’ practice-based evidence may take new forms with an increased policy focus on research-based evidence, as well as bringing forth challenges for teacher work and professionalism.     

Secondary Education and Research in New Zealand

Through the 1990s the secondary sector was a site of considerable change as the Government sought to ensure that the curriculum and associated assessment practices were designed to meet student needs and the long-term goals of New Zealand society. The new regime aimed to promote student achievement and in particular to attain more equitable educational outcomes for all New Zealand students. These were policy rather than practice driven initiatives that linked somewhat tenuously to research based evidence. This paper begins by giving an overview of the secondary sector in New Zealand and these educational reforms. The overview sets the context for the following section that describes links between educational research, policy and practice during this time. Key issues within the sector are highlighted and some of the ways research has been used to monitor changes and inform policy are identified. It is argued that much of the research over the past decade has been small scale and short term and while this has served the immediate policy agenda it has provided only fragmentary evidence to inform longer term goals such as improving student performance. The paper concludes by discussing some of the current initiatives that might contribute to improving the interface between research and policy/practice in secondary education. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

基于伙伴协作促进教师专业发展的实践尝试与省思

基础教育课程改革,教师专业发展要求大学与中小学以建立伙伴协作关系的方式实现。通过基于教师专业发展的校本培训实践尝试与省思,开辟教育理论联系实际的有效途径,建立充分发挥教育研究专业人员作用的有效方式,使中小学在与大学合作中获得新的发展力量,促进教育教学知识的生成与建构。     

对“研究型教师”研究的反思

“研究型教师”是目前我国教育界讨论的热点问题之一,其研究内容主要涉及到什么是研究型教师、研究型教师的素质结构和怎样培养研究型教师等。研究存在的问题是,对研究型教师的要求过于理想化;研究型教师的角色定位不准;研究型教师的研究内容不明;培养策略过于泛化,未能体现出教师专业成长规律等。     

Utilization of design principles for hybrid learning configurations by interprofessional design teams

Educational design research yields design knowledge, often in the form of design principles or guidelines that provide the rationale or ‘know-why’ for the design of educational interventions. As such, design principles can be utilized by designers in contexts other than the research context in which they were generated. Although research has shown that quality support is important for design success, less is known about processes that promote utilization of design principles as the rationale for instructional design. In this study we therefore explored an intervention for promoting the utilization of a set of research-based design principles in educational practice. This intervention aimed to promote utilization through enhancing perceived usefulness of the design principles by design teams in various contexts. The set of design principles that was utilized by the design teams in this study underpins the design of so-called hybrid learning configurations that are situated at the interface between school and workplace. The intervention was developed from the perspective of boundary crossing theory and was conducted with four different design teams. It was evaluated by way of a questionnaire and a dialogue with members of the design teams. This boundary crossing intervention appeared to bring about the desired outcomes. Most of the design team members considered the set of design principles useful in several different ways and they expected that utilization of the principles would lead to an improved learning configuration.     

WHY "WHAT WORKS" WON'T WORK: EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE AND THE DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

A bstract .  In this essay, Gert Biesta provides a critical analysis of the idea of evidence-based practice and the ways in which it has been promoted and implemented in the field of education, focusing on the tension between scientific and democratic control over educational practice and research. Biesta examines three key assumptions of evidence-based education: first, the extent to which educational practice can be compared to the practice of medicine, the field in which evidence-based practice was first developed; second, the role of knowledge in professional actions, with special attention to what kind of epistemology is appropriate for professional practices that wish to be informed by the outcomes of research; and third, the expectations about the practical role of research implicit in the idea of evidence-based education. Biesta concludes that evidence-based practice provides a framework for understanding the role of research in educational practice that not only restricts the scope of decision making to questions about effectivity and effectiveness, but that also restricts the opportunities for participation in educational decision making. He argues that we must expand our views about the interrelations among research, policy, and practice to keep in view education as a thoroughly moral and political practice that requires continuous democratic contestation and deliberation.     

理论先行还是实践先行--兼论教育理论研究者与教师的关系

教育理论与实践的紧张关系一直是困扰教育研究者和教师的难题。从哲学角度说,经验分析理论、解释学理论以及批判理论都不同程度地触及到了这一问题的关键,同时,教育界的理论家们也对此进行了不懈的探索,这对思考教育理论的研究方法以及教师教育的走向都颇有启示。     

Relationship Between Educational Resources and School Achievement: A Mixed Method Intra-District Analysis

This study examines the relationship between educational resources (fiscal, personnel and facilities) and school achievement within a large urban/suburban elementary school district. A sequential mixed methods approach reveals inequitable resource allocation trends and patterns between schools within a school district by producing different student outcomes. The educational resources positively correlated to higher school achievement are: higher teacher salaries, newer schools, more multi-purpose space per pupil and less portable classrooms. Without question, White students receive more of these resources than Latino students, low-income students and English Language learners. This study also conducts a multiple comparative case study analysis comparing between Title I and non-Title I schools, within Title I schools and within non-Title I schools. The study contains policy and practice implications to improve opportunity and school achievement in urban/suburban school districts.     

研究型课堂：理论思考与实践探索

大学课堂应当是研究型课堂。培养教师的课堂,尤其需要构建研究型课堂。研究型课堂的哲学基础包括人本主义、后现代主义、批判哲学,研究型课堂的教育目标是＂成才＂与＂成人＂相融合,研究型课堂的基本理论是研究性学习与研究性教学,研究型课堂的教师工作包括五个环节——研究性备课、研究前引导、小组研究指导、课堂探讨、协商性评价。     

Professional development,changes in teacher practice and improvements in Indigenous students’ educational performance: A case study from New Zealand

This paper considers the relationship between a professional development programme designed to bring about changes in teacher practice through iterative cycles of implementation and evaluation and associated changes in Indigenous students’ educational performance. The paper does this by documenting the outcomes of the implementation of the Te Kotahitanga research and development project between 2007 and 2009 in schools in the third and fourth phases of the project. Evidence shows that the professional development programme of Te Kotahitanga has been implemented consistently in Phase 3 schools since 2004 and in Phase 4 schools since 2007. Changes in teacher practice and associated improvements in Māori student outcomes were seen in Phase 3 schools between 2004 and 2006. The first question is, therefore, have these changes been maintained during the period 2007–9, that is, during the fourth to seventh years of the project’s implementation in these schools. If so, then what implications does this maintenance of practice have for sustainability? The second question is, have the changes that were seen in the Phase 3 schools in the first three years of the project’s implementation, 2004–2006, been replicated in the Phase 4 schools in their first three years of the project. If so, what implications does this have for determining the strength of the association between improved student performance and the implementation of the professional development programme. In other words does a repeated measure over two different groups of schools at different times indicate that changes in Māori student outcomes are strongly associated with changes in teacher practice, even if we cannot demonstrate a direct cause–effect relationship.     

Is action research a contradiction in terms? Do communities of practice mean the end of educational research as we know it? Some remarks based on one recent example of religious education research

(Action) is frequently a taken-for-granted aspect of educational action research. Proponents often focus on how research will benefit educational practice without explaining what is meant by educational practice or action. Here, the author reverses that emphasis: exploring his interest in how different conceptions of action lead to diverse relationships with research. He uses Arendt's tripartite division of human action into labour, work and action to show how each version of practice involves a different link to theory, knowledge and research. Educational labour research focuses on finding better means to achieve predetermined ends and educational work research concentrates on developing new ends. Arendtian educational action research, however, attempts to use research to understand how human freedom might be exercised in dialogue with others. The argument is illustrated with examples drawn from his own practice and from articles in one issue of Educational Action Research.     

Bringing science into the classroom by basing craft on research

In response to Crockett's analysis of the relation of science and the instruction of students with learning disabilities, we discuss reasons why teaching in special education is infrequently affected by science and research, and we propose a model of naturalistic decision making and make recommendations for bridging the gap between research and practice based on that model. By building an extensive experiential base in using effective practices, we propose that teachers can become experts at the craft of applying research-based methods. Bringing science into the classroom by basing craft on research in this way represents one promising alternative for improving outcomes for students with and without learning disabilities.     

Design as a social practice: the design of new build schools

In this paper we present the findings of an investigation into the ways in which the discourses and practices of school design produce educational spaces which influence the discourses and practices of teaching and learning when the building is occupied. It expands notions of post occupancy evaluation (POE) research by exploring how the objects/motives of an educational vision which informed an initial school design, those of the final build, and those of the people who occupy that building interact in a way which influences experiences of the end users. Crucially we looked at the social interactions that arose within a building as it was used over time. The focus is on the changing relationships between design and practice through time.