Creating Meaningful Change Through P20 Innovation Lab Networking

• In Event: Roundtable Session 90
  In Roundtable Session: School Networks and Sustainable Educational Change

Abstract

Over the past few years, much attention has focused on P-12 student learning in schools across the U.S. Accreditation standards and processes have been redesigned with documentation of student learning at the heart of the accreditation enterprise (NCATE, 2008). National and state education agencies have emphasized accountability for student learning through federal and state-mandated testing programs (No Child Left Behind Act, 2001). Yet, the media, policymakers, educational commissions, and parents paint a picture of teachers and principals who are unable to ensure learning for all their students. Further, students are often bored, unchallenged, and lack the motivation or desire to learn. Coupled with this dire picture is the achievement gap that is a reality for many students who are considered outside the mainstream of schools and communities across the nation.

Educators at various levels in the instructional process play the blame game, pointing to those teachers at an earlier level who did an inadequate job of setting high expectations for student performance and providing instruction that captures student interest and engagement in learning. Others point fingers of blame at Colleges of Education that prepare these educators. Clearly, there is enough blame to go around. Perhaps at no time in our nation’s history has there been a greater need for P-12 schools and higher education institutions to work together through school-university networks to ensure the learning of all students.

A land-grant, research extensive university in the Southeast region of the United States is attempting to address this concern. In partnership with P-12 schools and educational and community organizations, the institution has established a P20 Innovation Lab designed to transform education in the state. Although hosted and partially supported by the university, the lab is a statewide, collaborative space that brings researchers, state personnel, school district leaders, teachers, parents, business leaders, nonprofit organizations and other community members together to solve educational problems. The lab is an incubator of new and promising educational ideas. It is a technology hub and learning distribution mechanism. It is systemic in orientation but grassroots in operation. The lab is uniquely positioned to facilitate the conversations, research, experimentation, partnerships, policy changes, and statewide scalability to help transform education for every child in the state.

This presentation features individuals who were involved in the development of the lab from its earliest stages. Through analysis of a number of quantitative and qualitative data sets, we describe their advocacy for the lab that led the university to commit substantial resources to the effort, their strategies for partnering with key agencies and P-12 schools to make the lab a reality, and ongoing work in smaller, issues-based labs that have practitioners, university personnel, and educator preparation candidates focused on the improvement of P-12 student learning.

Author

• Mary John O Hair, University of Kentucky