ResponseAbility Lab: Using a Multilateral Accountabilities Framework to Track and Enhance School Adaptive Capacity

• In Event: Roundtable Session 52
  In Roundtable Session: Life in Schools: New Research on Educational Change, Accountability, and Opportunity

Abstract

A narrow focus on grades and graduation rates prevents schools from tracing the ways in which an engaged and equitable learning community, its culture and programming, affects students' success. ResponseAbility Lab tests the notion that schools can and should evaluate how they nurture students' abilities to learn, grow, create, and thrive in social, academic, and professional settings. Our research contributes to current understandings that engagement and equity within learning environments directly affect student outcomes. Schools that pursue a broad range of goals experience improved academic results as well as better citizenship, health, resiliency, and life-preparedness outcomes. This project uses a multilateral accountabilities framework to track how schools engage with broader measures of success to enhance their adaptive capacity.

Authors

• Penelope Jean Stiles, Edmonton Public Schools

• Jean-Claude Couture, Alberta Teachers' Association

• Auralia Brooke, Edmonton Public Schools

• Sam Sellar, The University of Queensland