Category: Thinking about Improvement

  • June 9, 2016

    Getting “Moneyball” Right in the Social Sector

    By Gary Otake

    In a recent SSIR article, Srik Gopal and Lisbeth B. Schorr make the case that an uncritical application of the "Moneyball" ideal is a flawed approach that overlooks "the fundamental realities of how complex social change happens."

  • May 2, 2016

    Organizing for Transformational Change

    By Sarah McKay

    At the Carnegie Summit, Hahrie Han shared insights from her research on participation and activism. One of the big questions she addressed is, how can we best mobilize people to work toward change together?

  • March 31, 2016

    What is the Essential Nature of “Bright Spots”?

    By Anthony S. Bryk

    When we look for “bright spots,” we tend to see the tools or practices that we believe contribute to the positive results in certain classrooms, schools, or districts. In this way, we identify the what of improvement; but are we overlooking how these changes came to be?

  • March 17, 2016

    Fidelity of Implementation: Is It the Right Concept?

    By Anthony S. Bryk

    Studies on the effects of educational programs often focus on “fidelity of implementation.” But this approach often fails to consider the complexity both of the programs themselves and of the demands they place on the contexts in which they are carried out.

  • September 25, 2015

    Using New Research to Improve Student Motivation

    By Sarah McKay

    Teachers know that motivation matters. It is central to student learning; it helps determine how engaged students are in their work, how hard they work, and how well they persevere in the face of challenges. Though we hear mostly about the “achievement gap” between demographic groups, researchers have also identified…

  • August 4, 2015

    It’s Complex

    By Louis Gomez

    In education, we often talk of confronting complicated problems, when they are truly complex problems. The difference between complicated and complex truly matters in how we works towards our end goals. It is time we approach complex problems as complex.

  • July 21, 2015

    Improvement Discipline in Practice

    By Alicia Grunow

    Trying to improve practice is part of most educators practices, but what if we moved from trying to get better to getting better at getting better. Improvement science offers a method and set of tools to systematically build the know-how to reach our goals

  • May 18, 2015

    The Problem with Solutions

    By Lillian Kivel

    Improvement science relies on an understanding of the problem before creating solutions. Groups have found three key things helped them gain clarity on the problems and make the knowledge explicit, helping them design solutions with users, data, and will in mind.

  • May 11, 2015

    Marshall Ganz on the Power of Social Movements

    By Corey Donahue

    Senior lecturer Marshall Ganz closing keynote at the 2016 Carnegie Summit on Improvement in Education focused on a framework for social action. Drawing on his own experience in social movements, Ganz talked of combining the power of the heart, head, and hands.

  • May 10, 2015

    Avoiding the Trap of the “Iron Law”

    By Corey Donahue

    A recent post in the Health Affairs Blog discusses the challenges of scaling interventions, a problem known as the “Iron Law” of evaluation. The piece outlines four reasons why the “Iron Law” occurs and how we can reduce its effect.