How Participation in a Networked Improvement Community Refined Teachers' Understanding of Student Interest-Based Projects

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 45
  In Roundtable Session: Supporting Youth Through School-University Partnerships

Abstract

This paper describes how participation in a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) allowed educators in a public school to refine their understanding, and formalize their process of interacting with students over interest-based projects. We present how, through a collaborative design of iterative versions of their protocol, teachers’ interactions with students around projects changed from tacit practices to becoming structured, meaningful dialog protocols. These protocols provided support for student-led projects, thereby potentially increasing student engagement in school.This work shows how a NIC can lead educators to make tacit practices public and shareable in ways that increase teachers’ depth of understanding of their students’ work, and facilitate an increase in students’ agency.

Authors

• Tanushree Rawat, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Arlene Strikwerda, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Richard R. Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison