sustainability of elementary science
DESCRIPTION
Slides from a keynote talk on endurance of reform at a convocation on elementary science convened by the National Research Council.TRANSCRIPT
How Can the Research Literature Inform Decisions About What Can and Should be Sustained in Education?
Jeanne CenturyCenter for Elementary Mathematics and Science EducationUniversity of Chicago
April 29, 2009
We need to identify effective practices.
We need to scale up effective practices.
We need to make effective practices last.
We need to make evidence-based decisions.
What is effective science instruction?
What practices in science education reform should be sustained?
The Usual Suspects
Instructional Materials
Money
Policy Alignment
Culture
Leadership
Professional Development
Accountability
Adaptation
Critical Mass
Perception
The Un-Usual Suspects
Defining Sustainability
of Reform
The ability of a program to maintain core beliefs and values and use them to guide adaptations to changes and pressures over time. Century & Levy, 2002
innovation
program
policy
curriculum
knowledge
implementation
change
reform
organizational change
sustainability
maintenance
institutionalization
endurance
longevitypersistence
routinization
dissemination
utilization
mathematics education
business
marketing
health
economics
science education
education
What is lasting?
The program
The effects of the program
The philosophy of the program
What is the nature of lasting?
It stays the same.
It becomes embedded in daily practice.
It changes.
Factors
Characteristics of it
Elements of the external environment
Characteristics of people in the organization
Fit
Elements of the internal environment
Emotional mediators
Strategies
Fit
Fit with values
Fit with beliefs
Fit with needs
Fit with current practice
Mechanisms and Processes
Types of movement
Translation and adaptation
Scale-Up
Replication
We need to identify effective practices.
What does it mean for a practice to be effective?
Effective practices are useable, flexible and resilient.
We need to scale up effective practices.
What does it mean to scale up?
We need to translate, not replicate.
We need to make effective practices last.
What should last and for how long?
The time horizon shifts the answer.
We need to make evidence-based decisions.
What evidence counts?
Evidence from all aspects of the improvement process counts.
The Time Horizon
Consider….
Learning
“…if it were possible to make small experiments with wild ideas, while retaining the possibility of diffusing those that prove to be good ones, the adaptive position of exploration would be strengthened (Romano, 2002; Holahan, Weil and Wiener, 2003). Since structures that protect the system from the catastrophic consequences of wild ideas generally also inhibit the transfer of major discoveries (Cohen and Levinthal, 1989, 1990), there is no perfect solution to the problem.” March, 2005
Steps to take now.
ResearchersBuild and use the research.
FundersBe patient and embrace mistakes.
BusinessBring long-term perspective and participate.
Reform LeadersConsider flexible adaptation.
What do we know and what can we do?
www.researcherswithoutborders.orgcemse.uchicago.edujcentury@uchicago.edu
“Much of education is about behavior change and as educators we are familiar with some of the issues, but in education reform we are talking about changing not just the behavior of learners but the behavior of teachers teacher educators, head teachers, curriculum developers and so on.” Smith, 2005