Supporting District Transformation Through a Research-Practice Partnership in Early Childhood Education: Lessons for the Field

• In Event: Research-Practice Partnerships for Educational Transformation

Abstract

Perspective and objectives
Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in early childhood education (ECE) offer a promising strategy to promote equity, yet are understudied (Bassock et al., 2021). In RPPs, researchers and educators create trusting partnerships to address urgent problems of practice (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; Cobb et al., 2013; Coburn & Penuel, 2016; Henrick et al., 2018). The value of such transformative partnerships is especially notable during “unusually disruptive times such as COVID-19 pandemic” (Bassock et al., 2021, p. 7). Recent evidence calls for the utilization of RPPs in ECE to conduct rigorous and policy-relevant research with immediate application to transform practice (McLanahan et al. 2021).

The New Vistas project began when a cross-disciplinary team of university researchers in education and neuroscience designed a RPP to address educators’ pressing questions about early learning and development. This paper reports on how the project supported district transformation in ECE.

Methods
With a student population that is 60% Latinx, 64.5% in poverty, 10% homeless, and 24% English learners, the district represents the growing diversity of many districts across the nation. Beginning in Fall 2018, our research team began to follow a cohort of 4-year-old children enrolled in transitional kindergarten in six elementary schools, matriculating into 27 kindergarten classrooms in Fall 2019. Annually our team completed multiple data collection time points, assessing the children’s neurocognitive, language and literacy, numeracy, attentional, executive function and self-regulation, and social-emotional development within the contexts of school and home. Data from these sources provided a rich characterization of students’ academic and developmental trajectories. Data were shared in aggregate with a team of P-3 educators and administrators in monthly Teacher Researcher Collaborative meetings, the goal of which was to co-examine data to inform practice. Our purpose here is not to report findings on children’s development, but rather to examine how the RPP supported district transformation in ECE. Qualitative data analyzed for the purpose of this paper include teacher interviews and extensive field notes and artifacts from TRC and other professional development meetings. Data were coded using Dedoose.

Results
Engagement in the RPP supported district transformation in ECE in several ways. First, researchers and educators had a clear, shared goal of creating a continuous learning pathway from early education through the primary grades, and supported it through a variety of unique collaboration structures within the district that brought together a variety of stakeholders. Second, engagement in the RPP increased teacher and administrator familiarity with research in early childhood education, enabling the possibility of research-informed classroom practice. Finally, researchers pivoted to flexibly address needs raised by district educators, particularly in the pandemic, which helped address pressing equity needs.

Significance
The findings from this project provide lessons regarding the potential of RPPs to support district goals for supporting young children’s development. The first lesson was researchers and educators jointly conceptualizing ECE as a pre-natal to grade 3 continuum. The second lesson included maintaining direct, consistent, and frequent contact between researchers and educators. The third lesson included actively engaging a broad base of partners (district administrators and educators) to share common goals and practices.

Authors

• Alison G. Wishard Guerra, University of California - San Diego

• Amanda L. Datnow, University of California - San Diego

• Shana R. Cohen, University of California - San Diego

• Benjamin C. Kennedy, University of California - San Diego

• Matthew Doyle, Vista Unified School District