Leveraging a Networked Improvement Community to Strengthen Program Coherence: Case Studies of Two Innovative Schools

• In Event: Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Leading and Addressing the Complexities of School Improvement

Abstract

This paper describes how educators in two public schools leveraged a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) around personalized learning to refine their student-teacher conferring practices. The paper first describes the NIC process that drew together educators to identify and refine conferring practices. We then apply the concept of instructional program coherence to make sense of how the educators sought to use new practices to both reinforce and extend the school instructional framework. The study adds to the evolving literature on NICs as an improvement process and personalization as an element of school transformation. Implications for future research on student-teacher conferring practices and NICs as a way to promote instructional program coherence are also raised.

Authors

• Steven M. Kimball, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Jessica Arrigoni, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Sarah Hackett, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Richard R. Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison