Improvement Science Course Design

• In Event: Improvement Science in University-Based Education Courses: Where Are We and What Research Is Needed?

Abstract

As improvement science emerges as a new paradigm for educational leaders, university-based courses present could be an opportunity to spread the ideas of improvement science and support districts moving in this direction. A first step toward understanding how improvement science might be taught in this context is to identify design principles that can be adapted by faculty and course instructors to their context, course configuration, overarching program goals, and student interests and needs. For the purposes of generating discussion, this paper proposes three design principles for improvement science course design. The three principles were distilled from a three-credit, semester graduate course taught at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in the spring of 2019.

The first design principle is introducing the ideas of improvement science through research and practitioner perspectives through the selection of course readings. For example, Chapter 2 from Design-based School Improvement (Mintrop & Zumpe, 2016) provides a text that explicitly combines both theory and practice on identifying a problem of practice. Likewise, the special issue of Quality Assurance in Education (LeMahieu, Bryk, Grunow, & Gomez, 2017) might be paired with articles from the special issue of School Administrator focused on Continuous Improvement (Greco, 2019). These readings sparked generative discussion about the research-practice gap, what constitutes knowledge for improvement, the characteristics of data for improvement versus research, sensemaking during change, and much more.

The second design principle is to structure opportunities for students to test a change idea and experience improvement. This might be done through in-class activities and/or a course project. In-class activities can leverage “The Game Guide” developed by the National Quality Center (Cruz, 2010), which provides activities and discussion guides on topics such as variation, systems thinking, and measurement. These exercises facilitate constructivist learning as they reveal misconceptions and spark discussion. Semester-long projects allow students to try out a change idea based on their own interests and in their own context. In the course described above, all students identified their own problem of practice, used the PDSA cycle to test out their change idea, then shared their results through a poster fair with invited guests from the community. The final presentations required students to share representations of their understanding with an authentic audience.

The third design principle is that the course itself be improved with students. At the root of improvement science is identifying “what works when, for whom and in which contexts” (Bryk, Gomez, & Grunow, 2011, p.25). Faculty and lecturers model responsive, iterative, and user-centered design principles when they build on the interests and needs of the students. This might include shifting readings or project requirements in ways that are still aligned with course goals.

To be sure, university courses may not be the ideal format and structure within which to teach improvement science. The design approach taken in this paper, however, aims to support faculty and instructors in maximizing this opportunity to integrate improvement science into their leadership preparation courses.

Author

• Julie M Kallio, The Breck School