Examples Of Research-Partnership Types

Community Of Practice

STEM Ecosystems

https://stemecosystems.org

The STEM Ecosystems Initiative is built on over a decade of research into successful STEM collaborations and seeks to nurture and scale effective science, technology, engineering, and math learning opportunities for all young people.

This initiative encompasses 27 communities of practice selected from across the United States to form the initial cohort of a national community of practice. Each participating community demonstrated cross-sector collaborations to deliver rigorous, effective pre-K-16 instruction in STEM learning. These collaborations happen in schools and beyond the classroom — in after-school and summer programs, at home, in science centers, libraries, and other places both virtual and physical.

To support the design and implementation of STEM Learning Ecosystems across the country, a team of STEM and cross-sector collaboration experts provides technical assistance tailored to each community. The initiative matches each site with a consultant based on the site’s specific needs.

The consultant supports the development and implementation of each STEM Learning Ecosystem. However, the focus is on establishing and maintaining a peer-to-peer professional learning network for communities to share information and expertise. This initiative was recently recognized as innovative by the U.S. Department of Education (https://innovation.ed.gov/2015/11/19/communities-come-together-to-support-stem-education).

Study Council

New Jersey School Development Council

https://njsdc.gse.rutgers.edu/Home

Headquartered in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, the New Jersey School Development Council is a cooperative, not-for-profit network of educational agencies and school districts that explores emerging issues relevant to leadership in education.
The council provides educational leadership in New Jersey through conferences on topics of emerging concern, a leadership institute on strategies for school improvement, and other activities. In addition, the council offers professional development strands in specific areas in conjunction with faculty and staff from Rutgers Graduate School of Education, local school district personnel, and national consultants. Topics for each year’s program are chosen from an annual needs assessment of the membership conducted in the spring.

Research Alliance

University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research

https://consortium.uchicago.edu

Since its establishment in 1990, the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research has had the dual goals of conducting research that Chicago Public Schools can use to improve student achievement and that simultaneously contributes to the school reform field.

The consortium provides a research-based framework and technical analysis — evidence that tests theories and hypotheses, but does not provide answers — for the use of educators and the larger education community. Its research agenda over the past five years, for example, centered on rigor and readiness in high schools, middle schools and the transition to high school, human capital and professional capacity, and schools as organizations.

In addition, the consortium researches high-priority topics that the Chicago Public Schools and other constituents in the area’s education community identify. The consortium develops indicators and analyses of trends in Chicago Public Schools, along with confidential reports for individual schools on aspects of their conditions, operations, and outcomes. The consortium also helps enhance educators’ capacity to use data effectively.

Design Research

Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute

www.serpinstitute.org

The institute grew out of work at the National Academy of Sciences in 2003 to provide the infrastructure for the research, development, and implementation of solutions to the critical problems of practice in individual districts. In design research partnerships, the institute reaches into multiple universities and disciplines for the expertise to respond to each district’s selected problems of practice, while the institute’s national headquarters staff takes care of overall management functions that include quality control, communication, finance, and long-term planning.
During a district’s engagement with the institute, envisioned as a long-term relationship, district personnel join institute staff and experts on three tiers of teams: a core group of leaders for executive oversight; an ideas team with direct knowledge of the focal problem for more precise framing, imagining of solutions, and review of the work done by the research, development, and implementation teams; and teams for carrying out the design and testing cycles.

NETWORKED IMPROVEMENT COMMUNITIES
Building A Teacher Effectiveness Network
www.carnegiefoundation.org/in-action/bten
Building a Teacher Effectiveness Network is a relatively recent initiative to develop and retain teachers during their first three years in the profession. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching serves as its hub by providing overall guidance and facilitation. The network’s school district members between 2011 and 2015 were the Austin Independent School District with 19 participating schools and Baltimore City Schools, along with the American Federation of Teachers, New Visions for Public Schools, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Key tools include a driver diagram and adoption of Plan, Do, Study, Act cycles. Once the network narrowed its focus to the quality of feedback new teachers receive on their teaching and the support they perceive from their principals, the network engaged experts, teachers, principals, and other school-based staff in developing a new protocol for feedback and support that was then subjected to small-scale cycles of testing and refinement in both districts. The network is currently developing strategies and tools to improve district systems of support for new teachers.