Coordinating Learning Across Institutions in a Research Practice Partnership with UCLA

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Learning in Practice: Student Voices, Shared Governance, and Organizational Learning in a Multi-College Research Practice Partnership

Abstract

This presentation explores how cross-campus coordination enabled differentiated, equity-focused inquiry within a three-college Research Practice Partnership (RPP). As the university-based coordinator from UCLA for the Learning Together Initiative, the presenter supported faculty, staff, and administrators in designing localized responses to student voice data while maintaining a shared vision for institutional learning. Drawing on partnership design frameworks from Penuel and Gallagher (2017), the work illustrates how relational trust, distributed facilitation, and collaborative framing practices helped scale equity inquiry across diverse contexts.
The initiative engaged all colleges in a shared pattern of intake, inquiry, problem-solving, and analysis. While this common structure guided cross-institutional retreats and coordination, each college engaged differently with its student equity challenges due to local cultural dynamics, distinct interview protocols, and unique findings. Thus, the coordination strategy was both collective and differentiated—rooted in a shared governance framework but responsive to how each institution managed and interpreted its own data.
This presentation reflects on coordination experiences and shared tools that may offer insight into how partnership structures can support emergent, context-responsive approaches to institutional learning.

Author

• Lynn Kim-John, University of California - Los Angeles