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From Invisible Problems to Instructional Change: Teacher-Led Innovation through Teaching Improvement Groups (TIGs)

Fri, April 10, 1:45 to 3:15pm PDT (1:45 to 3:15pm PDT), JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE, Floor: Ground Floor, Gold 4

Abstract

Theoretical Framework and Objectives
Research is often siloed: social psychologists study motivation, learning scientists study mental representations, and statisticians improve modeling techniques. But in the classroom, these factors are not easily disentangled. Teachers don’t experience “retrieval practice” or “missing-at-random data.” They experience students who don’t do the work, don’t show up in the data, and don’t care, all at once.
This presentation introduces Teaching Improvement Groups (TIGs), collaborative structures that surface and address problems of practice that fall between disciplines. Our objective is to illustrate how participatory inquiry with teachers exposes blind spots in research, generates grounded hypotheses, and leads to co-designed instructional objects that integrate theory and practice.

Methods
Eight high school teachers and a researcher conducted iterative cycles of design-based research. Each instructor used the CourseKata ABC statistics and data science curriculum. TIGs met monthly (in two groups of 4) on Zoom to review student engagement data, share classroom experiences, and collaboratively investigate instructional problems. Using the Toyota Kata cycle (Rother, 2009) and applying the Practicing Connections Framework (Fries et al., 2020), we turned practitioner insights into instructional objects deployed across classrooms. Artifacts include meeting transcripts, field notes by the facilitator (first author), teacher reflections and observations.

Results
A shared concern emerged early: a substantial number of students were not engaging with the interactive textbook at all. They were not completing assignments, not responding to surveys, and were thus invisible in the data. Teachers hypothesized that shared in-class learning experiences might help students build enough background knowledge and confidence to engage more deeply with data inquiry.
Teachers had already been experimenting with hands-on data collection and improvised activities but expressed burnout and uncertainty about impact. Together, the TIG co-developed two new paired instructional objects to accompany textbook sections: an overview notebook providing an interactive summary for guided in-class use, paired with paper-based guided notes to support students' ease of future reference. Teachers implemented a prototype in Chapter 3, using cold calling and collaborative work. Feedback was unanimous among all eight instructors: the materials helped scaffold students’ entry into the curriculum.
In a second iteration, designed for Chapter 7, teachers added a “Practice on Your Own” section for in-class rehearsal of concepts and skills prior to homework. The improved Chapter 7 prototype received a unanimously enthusiastic response. Instructors reported reduced prep time, increased student engagement, and greater clarity about what Practicing Connections (Fries et al., 2021) looks like in a real classroom.

Significance
This work contributes to a growing literature on research-practice partnerships and teacher-led instructional improvement. It challenges traditional research agendas by centering problems that are simultaneously motivational, pedagogical, and statistical but rarely framed that way. TIGs serve as a model for how teachers, researchers, and developers can co-construct solutions that are responsive to the classroom while grounded in learning theory. In the next year, we will expand this model to examine how overview notebooks affect students and teachers who were not part of the original design process.

Authors