How Participation Structures and Routines Contribute to Critical Learning Needs to Support Network Functioning

• In Event: 51.045 - Social Organization of Networked Improvement Communities: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Studies of Its Dimensions

Abstract

Objectives
NICs are propagating rapidly in education spheres as a promising innovation for accelerating learning and improvement. NIC designers must make decisions about the structures and routines for organizing the work without much empirical guidance on which structures are most efficacious and for what purposes. To engage in the work productively, participants must learn how to participate in a network, learn how to use the improvement methodology, and deepen their understanding of the specific problem of practice. We draw on developmental evaluations of two instructionally-focused NICs to understand these participation structures in relation to these three types of learning that are critical to the functioning of a network.

Theoretical Framework
This paper draws on two theoretical perspectives. First, we use the NIC development framework (Authors, 2017) to understand NIC initiation and development and to anchor our analytic approach. Second, we draw on scholarship that examines the role of routines in organizational change to help identify and analyze network participation structures (Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Authors, 2011).

Methods & Data Sources
We utilized the developmental evaluation approach with two instructionally-focused NICs. One of the NICs is a content-specific network (high school algebra) organized for individual, voluntary teacher participation. The other NIC is a cross-content network focused on formative assessment and organized for voluntary, school-based teams of teachers. The developmental evaluation approach was utilized in order to respond to the uncertain conditions within these complex, innovative change networks. This allowed us to provide rapid, almost real-time support as the Hub designers adapt the structures and routines for participation.

Data sources for this analysis include participation surveys administered to all network members two times per year, semi-structured participant interviews two times per year, documentation of participant engagement in improvement cycles, recordings of inquiry cycle coaching sessions, observations of all school-based and full-network convenings, regular meetings with the Hub, and surveys of Hub leaders that measure their perceptions of network development.

Results
We identified key participation structures within each network and then utilized a combination of data sources to understand whether and in what ways the structures contributed to learning in one or more of the three key areas: how to participate in a network, improvement methodology, and the problem of practice that is the focus of the network. The analysis yields rich exemplars of how key learning goals can be supported by a variety of participation routines and structures. The study offers insights in the particular qualities associated with efficacy and the developmental nature of some of the participation structures.

Scholarly Significance
This work offers NIC designers and researchers empirically-based linkages between network participation structures and critical learning needs for efficacious networks. These insights might support more intentional design of networks and more focused data collection and evaluation within future studies of NICs.

Authors

• Jennifer Zoltners Sherer, University of Pittsburgh

• Jennifer Elise Iriti, University of Pittsburgh

• Jennifer Lin Russell, University of Pittsburgh