What is Improvement Science?

Have you ever wanted to get better at something? I mean, really get better at something and understand exactly what is was that you did to improve? As educators we are constantly experimenting with our practice. We try something and then make an adjustment and the try something else until we figure out what works best. We engage in these cycles of learning all of the time. In fact, we do this so often that sometimes we don't even realize we are doing it!

Making small adjustments and experimenting with our practice is a way to learn and share ideas with colleagues. In order to create an environment for this new learning to happen and to really stick, we need to set ourselves up for success by having the right conditions for learning in place. Improvement Science offers educators a framework for getting better at our practice, in measurable ways, within a networked learning community.

At the core of improvement science are three simple questions to help guide your learning (Langley et al., 2009): What are we trying to accomplish? How will we know if a change is an improvement? What changes might we introduce and why? Improvement science places an emphasis on developing a clear theory of action, identifying and using “practical, easy-to-use measures,” engages teachers in quick iterative cycles to guide learning, and the process happens within a network structure that facilitates sharing between teachers thereby accelerating learning (Bryk, Gomez, & Grunow, 2011; Yeager et al., 2013).

If you want to learn more about improvement science visit the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Website. You may also be interested in reading this article from the Phi Delta Kappan about a group of elementary school teachers from HTeCV who used improvement Science during the 2015-2016 school year to get better at making student thinking visible.

References

Bryk, A.S., Gomez, L.M., & Grunow, A. (2011). Getting ideas into action: Building networked improvement communities in education. In M.T. Hallinan (Ed.), Frontiers in Sociology of Education (pp. 127-162). The Netherlands: Springer.

Langley, G., Moen, R., Nolan, K., Nolan, T., Norman, C., & Provost, L. (2009). The improvement guide: A practical approach to enhancing organizational performance. San Francisco, CA: Wiley.

Yeager, D., Bryk, A., Muhich, J., Hausman, H., & Morales, L. (2013). Practical measurement. www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/publications/practical-measurement

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