Learning Community Project and Large-Scale Instructional Innovation in Mexico

• In Event: Large-Scale Instructional Innovation and the Power of Education Research

Abstract

Purpose. I use the Learning Community Project (LCP) in Mexico as a case study to examine: 1) how and under what conditions powerful instructional innovation can be brought to scale, and 2) the role of research in large-scale instructional innovation.

Context. LCP started in 2004 as a small-scale, NGO-led initiative aimed at radically transforming instructional practice in a handful of Mexican public middle schools in historically marginalized communities (Cámara, 2006; Rincón-Gallardo et.al, 2009). In LCP schools, tutors offer students a collection of topics they have previously studied and mastered in their wider network of tutors, and each student chooses among those topics what they are most interested in. Students work at their own pace, practice the skills of independent learning, present their learning in public, and engage in tutorial relationships with their teachers and other students. The knowledge in this way generated becomes the common property of the group and is made available to tutors and students in other schools (City, Elmore & Lynch, 2012; Rincón-Gallardo & Elmore, 2012).

Between 2004 and 2008, LCP expanded to hundreds of schools through networking and outreach undertaken by local actors and LCP leaders. In 2008, the model was adopted by the Ministry of Education and further expanded to the 9000 lowest-performing schools in Mexico (DGDGIE, 2010). Between 2009 and 2011, the schools that adopted the model significantly increased the proportion of students scoring at “good” and “excellent” levels in the national standardized test.

Perspective. I conceptualize large-scale instructional transformation as a process of wide-spread cultural change (Rochon, 1998) that occurs when new practices developed by critical communities are adopted and disseminated by movements in the social, political, and instructional arenas (Rincon-Gallardo, 2013).

Data sources and modes of inquiry. 500 LCP documents, interviews with 50 LCP actors, and my personal experience/knowledge as former LCP leader were reviewed with the explicit intention of understanding: 1) the processes and conditions of LCP’s scale-up and 2) the role of research to support the innovation.

Conclusions. LCP successfully mobilized change in the instructional arena through a backward-mapping strategy (Elmore, 1979/1980) that started out by transforming classroom practice through intensive coaching/modeling and then strategized to adapt surrounding institutional environments. In the social arena, LCP actors attracted interest and support by activating networks of teachers, local leaders, and communities, inviting new actors to visit LCP sites and experience the tutorial model. In the political arena, LCP leaders took influential positions in the Ministry of Education, accessing and mobilizing resources and political support for the large-scale rollout.
Research supported instructional innovation by demonstrating LCP’s impact on student learning (attracting political support and international collaboration), identifying institutional constraints to instructional innovation (helping to refine strategies to overcome constraints), and identifying areas of improvement.

Significance. The large-scale transformation of teaching and learning (Elmore, 1996) is a pressing challenges of educational systems around the world. This presentation advances knowledge in this direction through the development of explicit, practical theory that explains how and under what conditions effective instructional innovation can be scaled-up.

Author

• Santiago Rincon-Gallardo, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education