ERIC Number: EJ1018620
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0077-5762
EISSN: N/A
More than a Network: Building Professional Communities for Educational Improvement
Dolle, Jonathan R.; Gomez, Louis M.; Russell, Jennifer Lin; Bryk, Anthony S.
Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, v112 n2 p443-463 2013
This chapter is a case study of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's Pathways [TM] program. The goal of the Statway [Registered Trademark] and Quantway [Registered Trademark] pathways is to improve the success rate of community college students who place into developmental mathematics. What makes these programs unique is their strategy of building a particular kind of professional network, what Carnegie refers to as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC), to organize and lead an array of continuous improvement processes. NICs are a social mechanism through which the collaborative designs and practical theories produced by design-based implementation research (DBIR) can become live resources for the improvement of systems. NICs are comprised of highly structured groups of education professionals, working in collaboration with designers and researchers, to address a practical problem. Driver diagrams are introduced as a tool for organizing the improvement work of NICs. After briefly describing several drivers behind the Pathways program, the chapter details the main elements of the network organization driver as a distinct approach to building communities aimed at improving education.
Descriptors: Higher Education, Community Colleges, Research Methodology, Instructional Design, Educational Research, Two Year College Students, Academic Achievement, Developmental Studies Programs, Remedial Mathematics, Educational Objectives, Instructional Effectiveness, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Learner Engagement, Student Motivation, Educational Innovation, Cooperation, Social Networks, Educational Improvement, Case Studies
Teachers College, Columbia University. 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. Tel: 212-678-3774; Fax: 212-678-6619; e-mail: tcr@tc.edu; Web site: http://nsse-chicago.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - General
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; Two Year Colleges
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A