How Ideas Spread: Establishing a Networked Improvement Community

• In Event: 25.035 - The Role of Networks and Social Capital Within and Beyond Organizations in Implementation and Scaling Up

Abstract

Recurring challenges in scaling and sustaining educational improvement has led to new forms of educational improvement efforts (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015; Fishman, Penuel, Allen, Cheng, & Sabelli, 2013). One approach is the use of improvement science and the formation of Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) to spread educational reforms (Bryk et al., 2013). The research described here comes from a six-year partnership between our research team and two large districts to establish district NICs to improve high schools. This paper uses social network theory to understand how these communities operated and how information spread across individuals in the network.

Authors

• Marisa A. Cannata, Vanderbilt University

• Stephanie Brown, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Ela Joshi, Vanderbilt University

• Christopher Redding, University of Florida

• Stacey A. Rutledge, Florida State University