Here I am, my second year attending the Carnegie Foundation Summit on Improvement in Education! I’m presenting a poster of my research: A Cross-Case Analysis of Three Networked Approaches to Educational Change.
Every time I attend a conference, I try to write out my goals for attending or questions I have. I try to do this before the conference, but this year it’s happening on day two.
My experience with the conference this year is a bit different because over the past year I’ve immersed myself in the work of Improvement Science and Networked Improvement Communities, Design-Based Implementation Research, and the Theory of Action of the Institute for Personalized Learning (see poster above).
My focus this year will be to look for strategies for starting a Networked Improvement Community. I’m also keeping my ears open for opportunities for my own research inquiry/dissertation. To do this, I’m looking for what people talk about, how people talk about it, what people don’t understand or struggle with, and contradictions in what people say. One of the most interesting threads is Improvement Science and NICs for social justice. I wonder how critical theorists might think about this work.
Sessions I’m interested in attending:
- Launching a NIC
- Crafting the narrative of your NIC
- Building a measurement system for improvement
- Network Development Evaluation (meta-analysis of the network)
- Understanding the Problem you are trying to solve: Causal system analysis OR Leveraging content expertise to build change packages in networks
Keynotes:
- Tony Bryk – Narrative of the Pathways program
- Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland – digital media and data scientist
- Hahrie Han – how organizations “engage, mobilize, and organize activists and leaders”
- Bryan Stevenson – Equal Justice Initiative, author of Just Mercy
Julie Kallio, PhD 