Multiple Mediator Models of Educational Reform: Organizational Learning as Persistent Change

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Systems Learning From Educational Change

Abstract

Educational reform can be viewed as a type of organizational learning. The critical question of whether educational reform is successful can be then be recast in terms of the conditions that support organizational learning. In this paper, we address these issues in the context of a specific educational reform, data driven decision making. Based on case study data from twelve schools implementing this reform, we have developed multi-agent simulation models of the interactions of administrators, teachers, and students in these schools, and we analyze which kinds of interactions support the persistent change that characterizes learning and which do not. We identify a four-element memory unit as a key component of models of schools that undergo successful educational reform.

Authors

• James A. Levin, University of California - San Diego

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