Building a Teaching Effectiveness Network: Developing a Social Infrastructure for the Continuous Improvement of Supports for Beginning Teachers

• In Event: 14.016 - Catalyzing a Social Structure for Educational Improvement: Initiating Networked Improvement Communities

Abstract

The Building a Teaching Effectiveness Network (BTEN) sought to provide a social architecture to support continuous improvement of school-based supports for beginning teachers. By introducing a standardized process for providing feedback to new teachers, the network aimed to stabilize the process whereby school leaders provided feedback to beginning teachers in participating schools, and in turn provide school leadership teams with opportunities to engage in the continuous improvement of the process to address local needs and context. The uptake of the beginning teacher feedback process and continuous improvement cycles varied widely across the BTEN network; understanding this variation builds knowledge of conditions that foster capacity for continuous improvement in education. This paper focuses on one dimension of school leadership culture—attitudes toward accountability. A team’s framing of accountability (as either collective or individual) coincides with uptake and execution in significant ways, thus yielding insight into organizational characteristics linked with continuous improvement processes.

Theoretical Framework
Literature on policy implementation, social networks, and quality improvement create the theoretical framework for this paper. We use “accountability” to refer to the ways in which responsibility is framed at the school level. This idea is situated in relation to work on professional community, which typically “includ[es]… shared norms and values, a focus on student learning, social trust, deprivatization of practice, collective responsibility, and collaboration” (Author, 2008). Strong professional communities contrast with those that rely on personal accountability and (external and internal) compliance.

Methods
Qualitative analysis drives this paper, which emerges from a broader evaluation and case study of the BTEN network. Yin’s (1994) exploratory comparative case study design has structured data collection and analysis, which was informed by two main research questions:
1. How is the feedback process being taken up at the schools?
2. What are facilitators and barriers to engagement in BTEN and uptake of the feedback process?
Analysis techniques include creating case summaries and using NVIVO software for iterative coding cycles.

Data Sources
Focal schools from the BTEN network were selected using purposive sampling (Strauss & Corbin, 1994; Yin, 1994) in order to generate rich insight into the feedback process and use of improvement science methods. A combination of observation notes, participant interviews, improvement-tracking documents, and other team-generated artifacts form the data set.

Results
Preliminary analysis suggests that two contrasting leadership dynamics—individual accountability versus shared responsibility—are related to uptake of continuous improvement methods. These dynamics become visible through team relationships, implementation strategies, improvement aims, and process structures. This paper explores these dimensions’ relationship to utilization of continuous improvement strategies and facilitation of organizational change.

Significance
Insofar as professional communities facilitate access to and activation of social capital (Coleman, 1990; Author, 2008; Lin, 2001; Penuel, Riel, Krause, & Frank, 2009), this paper contributes to the literature by exploring connections between organizational culture, social capital activation, and implementation strategies. Furthermore, this paper contributes to the emerging field of continuous improvement in education by analyzing conditions that are conducive to cultivating improvement processes in schools.

Authors

• Margaret Quinn Hannan, University of Pittsburgh

• Jennifer L. Russell, University of Pittsburgh

• Sola Takahashi, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

• Sandra Park, University of California - Berkeley