Overcoming or Overstepping? Boundary Infrastructure for Learning in a Continuous Improvement Initiative (Poster 1)

• In Event: Revitalizing Education Through Knowledge Brokerage and Relational Networks

Abstract

Objective
Under federal policy guidelines, school districts are increasingly expected to engage with research evidence to guide their efforts around instructional improvement (Penuel et al., 2017). Continuous improvement (CI) approaches represent one strategy for supporting connections between research and practice (Coburn & Penuel, 2016; Farrell et al., 2021). Although existing research on CI has primarily focused on urban contexts, a large proportion of the nation’s students are served in rural districts (Guiterrez & Terrones, 2023). Rural districts possess unique assets and challenges, raising questions how CI could be adapted in rural contexts. Emerging body of literature indicates the potential for CI approaches in small rural school districts, but educators, similar to in other contexts, face limited time and capacity for doing CI (Wilcox & Zuckerman, 2019).

In this presentation, we draw on sociocultural and organizational learning theories (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Farrell et al., 2022) to examine how a CI approach can create opportunities for educators to learn new ideas and practices required to carry out ambitious instructional reforms.

Methods
As part of a larger study of research-practice partnerships, we theoretically sampled our NIC as a paradigmatic case (Patton, 2002). From 2016 to 2018, we conducted 44 interviews, 26 observations, and a 25-minute survey. We analyzed shifts in collective knowledge in two rural districts by examining the extent educators took up research-based mathematics ideas associated with the NIC. We then analyzed how the county office supported the uptake of research ideas via the development of a boundary infrastructure.

Findings
Overall, we found evidence of shifts in collective knowledge from educators involved in the CI, including teachers, school leaders, coaches, and district leaders. Additionally, although educators involved in the CI initiative named many boundaries between educators and external partners, few of these boundaries halted their ongoing partnership work. These findings can be explained, in part, by how the county office designed and facilitated a boundary infrastructure that created important learning opportunities around research ideas introduced by external research partners. Importantly, we find that the county office’s efforts to broker knowledge did not just involve overcoming or transcending boundaries but also maintaining boundaries in cases where they perceived external partners to be “overstepping.”

Discussion
Ultimately, this presentation will highlight the importance of county offices in CI efforts, showing how county offices can support the development of CI-centered educational systems in small rural contexts via boundary infrastructures. In doing so, our study builds on existing literature (Farley-Ripple et al., 2017) to highlight the importance of moving beyond individual knowledge brokers to interrogating the interconnected, dynamic, and sometimes contested systems that link research, CI and practice and the mechanisms by which learning occurs. Finally, although existing studies of knowledge brokering often focus on the ways that knowledge brokers make or strengthen connections between research and practice communities, our study suggests that maintaining boundaries is an important activity within research-practice partnerships that is often overlooked, especially when partners overstep.

Authors

• Angel Xiao Bohannon, NORC at the University of Chicago

• Caitlin Farrell, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Spencer Cook, Northwestern University