Reconceptualizing Policy as Designs for Supporting Learning

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Reconceptualizing Policy as Designs for
Supporting Learning

• Paul Cobb Kara Jackson
• Vanderbilt University

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Purpose

• Describe and illustrate a learning design
  perspective for analyzing policies
• Justification - usefulness
• Anticipate limitations of specific policies
• Understand why specific policies play out in
  particular ways in particular situations
• Feeds back to inform the revision of the policy

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Overview

• Develop the learning design perspective on
  policies
• Illustrate the usefulness of this perspective
• Efforts of a US school district to improve the
  quality of mathematics instruction
• Policies for improvement in mathematics
• How they were implemented
• Develop entailments of this perspective on
  policies

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Policy and Change

• A policy specifies either
• Changes in a group of peoples practices
• Principals will act as instructional leaders by
  observing classroom instruction and giving
  feedback
• Changes in results/outcomes that require the
  members of one or more groups to change in
  practices
• Schools will increase students test scores in
  mathematics

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Policy and Change

• A policy is an attempt by members of one group to
  influence the practices of members of another
  group
• (Coburn Stein, 2006)
• Policies necessarily involve relations of power

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Dominant Views of Policy

• Researchers in educational policy typically begin
  by analyzing national or state policies
• Study extent to which the targets of policy
  implement the policy as intended
• Change their practices as intended by
  policymakers
• (Stein, 2004)

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Dominant Views of Policy

• Dissemination of information about the intent of
  the policy
• Know what changes they should make in their
  practices
• Incentives and accountability
• Motivate to make intended changes

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Policy and Learning

• Any serious policy - any policy that does not
  simply endorse current practice and call for more
  of it - requires learning on the part of those
  who implement it
• (Cohen Barnes, 1993)

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Policy and Learning

• Ambitious policies require practitioners to
  develop new capabilities and to unlearn present
  capabilities
• Implementation of a policy is a species of
  learning, and policy is a sort of instruction
• (Cohen et al, 2007, italics added)

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Policies as Designs for Supporting Learning

• Three components that correspond to the what,
  how, and why of policy
• What A vision for the practices of members of
  the target group
• Principals will act as instructional leaders by
  observing classroom instruction and giving
  teachers feedback

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Policies as Designs for Supporting Learning

• How The designed supports for learning for
  members of the target group
• Professional development for principals as
  instructional leaders

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Policies as Designs for Supporting Learning

• Why An (often implicit) rationale that explains
  how the supports will bring about the intended
  improvements in practice by scaffolding the
  learning of members of the target group

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The How of Policy Supports for Learning

• New positions or changes in responsibilities for
  existing positions
• School-based mathematics coaches
• Support principals as instructional leaders in
  mathematics
• Tools
• Curriculum maps

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The How of Policy Supports for Learning

• Tools can be conceptual as well as material
  (e.g., principles for organizing mathematical
  ideas implicit in the content maps)
• Must be reified by the members of the target
  group
• What is constituted as tool is an empirical
  question

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The How of Policy Supports for Learning

• Intentional learning events
• Group of people work together on an ongoing basis
  with the explicit goal of improving their own
  practices
• Either ongoing or discrete

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The How of Policy Supports for Learning

• Ongoing intentional learning events
• Regularly scheduled meetings that build on one
  another group is relatively small so it can
  become a genuine community of practice
• Discrete intentional learning events
• One-off professional development sessions (e.g.,
  on using the content maps)
• Regularly scheduled meetings that do not build on
  each other (e.g., monthly principal meetings)

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The How of Policy Supports for Learning

• Incidental learning events
• At least two people working together to a
  function of the school
• Weekly meetings between principal and coach to
  discuss quality of math teaching and consider how
  to support teachers learning
• Improving their own practices is not an explicit
  goal
• Nonetheless, learning opportunities can arise in
  the course of the joint work incidentally
• Either ongoing or discrete

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The How of Policy Supports for Learning

• New organizational routines
• Organizational routine A repetitive,
  recognizable pattern of interdependent actions,
  carried out by multiple actors
• (Feldman Pentland, 2003)
• Learning Walks with the math coach
• Assess quality of mathematics instruction in the
  school and thus identify teachers needs

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Summary Policies as Learning Designs

• What Envisioned practices
• How Supports for learning
• New positions
• Tools
• Intentional learning events
• Incidental learning events
• New organizational routines
• Why Justification or rationale

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Background US Educational System

• Decentralized education system
• Local control of schooling
• Each US state divided into a number of
  independent school districts
• Rural districts with less than 1,000 students
• Urban districts with 100,000 students or more

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Background US Educational Policy

• No Child Left Behind Policy (NCLB)
• Standards for mathematics learning
• 50-80 standards per grade common
• Assessments at the end of each school year to
  test whether students are achieving these
  standards
• Primarily procedural skill at expense of
  conceptual understanding
• Yearly student achievement goals in mathematics
  for each school

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Background US Educational Policy

• Instruments used to influence practice are
  typically disconnected from the learning that
  teachers and school leaders have to do to develop
  more effective practices long on pressure and
  short on support
• (Knapp Shields, 1995)
• Policy rarely attends to what school leaders and
  teachers would have to learn to carry it out
• (Elmore, 2000 Spillane Thompson, 1999)

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Background Research Project

• Central question What does it take to improve
  the quality of mathematics instruction on a large
  scale?
• Four urban districts
• High proportion of students from traditionally
  underserved groups
• Limited financial resources
• High teacher turn over

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Background Research Project

• Most schools and districts clueless about how to
  respond productively to high-stakes
  accountability
• A small minority have reasonably worked out
  strategies (Elmore, 2000)
• Investigating the four districts instructional
  improvement efforts in middle-school mathematics
  (12-14 years old students)
• District B as an illustrative case

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Background US Educational Policy

• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
  (NCTM) Principles and Standards for School
  Mathematics
• Build on students current reasoning to achieve a
  mathematical agenda that focuses on central
  mathematical ideas
• Consistent with research in mathematics education
  and related fields

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Background US Educational Policy

• Teacher adjusts instruction to the students
• Ongoing assessment of students reasoning
• Teaching becomes non-routine
• A complex and demanding activity

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Background US Educational Policy

• Deep understanding of mathematics
• Mathematical knowledge for teaching
• Knowledge of how students reasoning develops in
  particular mathematical domains
• Anticipate range of solutions
• Know-in-action how to achieve a mathematical
  agenda by building on students (diverse)
  solutions

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Background US Policy Context

• NCLB - specifies a result that requires
  unspecified changes in instructional practice
• Increased student mathematics achievement
• NCTM - specifies an envisioned form of
  instructional practice

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Background US Policy Context

• The how of both national policies
• District and school leaders will formulate
  concrete local policies for improvement
• Potentially competing national policies are key
  aspects of the contexts in which district leaders
  make policies for mathematics teaching and
  learning

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National Policies as Discourses

• NCLB and NCTM constitute alternative policy
  Discourses
• Discourse of high-stakes accountability
• Increase student performance in mathematics
• Discourse of instructional reform
• Improve quality of mathematics teachers
  instructional practices
• (Confrey et al., 2000)

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National Policies as Discourses

• Discourses are sociohistorical coordinations of
  people, objects (props), ways of talking, acting,
  interacting, thinking, valuing, and (sometimes)
  writing and reading that allow for the display
  and recognition of socially significant
  identities
• (Gee, 1997)

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Background District B

• 80,000 students
• 56.9 Hispanic
• 27 of all students Limited English Proficient
  (LEP)
• 26.3 African American
• 15 White

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Background District B

• Eighth grade state mathematics standards
• 38 of African American students
• 55 of Hispanic students
• 27 of LEP students
• 76 of White students

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Background District B

• District leaders situated primarily in the
  discourse of instructional reform
• Betting that test scores will increase as the
  quality of mathematics instruction improves
• Coherent set of strategies for supporting
  teachers and school leaders learning

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Background District B

• A resource for formulating and implementing
  district policies
• Guide
• How problems are framed
• Account
• Legitimate
• (Feldman Pentland, 2003)

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Background District B

• Leaders in most urban districts situated in the
  discourse of high-stakes accountability
• Teach directly to the test
• Game the accountability system

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Background District B

• Third year of collaborating with District B
• Data for this analysis is from Year 2
• October Interview district leaders to document
  current strategies for improving middle-school
  mathematics
• Each strategy is a policy
• Specifies the What, How, and sometimes the Why
• The set of policies constitutes District Bs
  Theory-of-Action for instructional improvement in
  middle-school mathematics

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Visions for Role Groups Practices
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Visions for Role Groups Practices
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Situated Account of District B Leaders
Policy-Making
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District B as an Illustrative Case
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Vision for Principals Practices

• Support and hold teachers accountable for
  developing high-quality instructional practices
• Develop a vision of high-quality mathematics
  instruction
• Conduct learning walks (sometimes with coaches)
  to assess building needs and determine the nature
  of assistance needed by teachers
• Observe classroom instruction and give feedback
• Work with the coach to ensure coach provides
  appropriate professional development

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The How and Why of District Policy for
Principals
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Means of Support for Principals Learning
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Means of Support for Principals Learning
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Means of Support for Principals Learning
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Potential Limitations of Policy

• Limited opportunities to work with a more
  knowledgeable other on their own practices
• Limited intentional learning events that would
  sufficiently support principals development as
  instructional leaders
• Discrete learning events not likely to support
  principals development of a vision of
  high-quality mathematics instruction or how to
  support teachers development of ambitious
  instructional practices

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Potential Limitations of Policy

• In incidental learning events, principals are not
  explicitly working on their own practice
• Weekly principal/coach meetings
• Principals are not supported to learn how to use
  tools (e.g., content maps) in their own practice

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Documenting Principals Actual Practices

• Interviews in January with Principal, Mathematics
  Coaches, and Teachers
• Determine how the Districts Theory-of-Action is
  playing out in schools and classrooms
• Analysis involves triangulating Principals,
  Coaches, and Teachers accounts of the
  Principals practices

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Principals Envisioned vs. Actual Instructional
Leadership Practices
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Principals Envisioned vs. Actual Instructional
Leadership Practices
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Designed and Implemented Policy

• Identify differences between envisioned and
  actual practices
• Account for these differences by
• Situating principals learning in the school and
  district settings in which they work
• Analyzing the supports for principals learning

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Situating Principals Learning

• Additional aspects of the institutional setting
  that proved relevant included
• Accountability relations with Leadership
  Specialists
• Means of supporting principals learning
• Expertise of coach in school
• Expertise of teachers in school

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Situating Principals Enacted Practices in the
Institutional Setting

• Accountability relations with Leadership
  Specialists
• Although the policy specified that district
  leadership specialists were to hold the
  principals accountable for supporting the
  improvement of teachers instructional practices,
  the principals reported that they were held
  accountable for
• 1) Raising test scores primarily
• 2) Focusing on improvement of instruction
  secondarily
• Implications Principals do not communicate
  clear instructional expectations to teachers
  (e.g., nature of the feedback they provide)

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Situating Principals Enacted Practices in the
Institutional Setting

• Means of Support
• Principals received inadequate support for
  developing instructional leadership practices
• Limited opportunities to work with a more
  knowledgeable other on their practices
• Very few Learning Walks with Coach

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Situating Principals Enacted Practices in the
Institutional Setting

• Means of Support
• No ongoing intentional learning events
• Discrete intentional learning events (e.g.,
  principal monthly meetings) without ongoing
  learning are insufficient to support the
  development of either a vision of high-quality
  instruction or effective instructional leadership
  practices

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Situating Principals Enacted Practices in the
Institutional Setting

• Means of Support
• What the district intended as tools to support
  principals learning (e.g., content maps) did not
  became tools for them because principals werent
  supported to learn how to use the tools

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Research Teams Feedback

• Based on our analysis, each spring we
• Provide a written report to the District Leaders
• Meet with the District Leaders to discuss the
  report
• Report/discussion includes
• Detailed feedback regarding how the Districts
  Theory-of-Action is playing out
• Actionable recommendations

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Accountability Relations
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Supports for Principals Learning
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Policies as Designs for Supporting Learning

• Usefulness Explanatory and predictive power
• Allows us to anticipate limitations in policies
• Allows us to understand why policies play out in
  particular ways in specific situations
• Explain why members of role groups develop
  particular practices and not others in the
  institutional settings in which they work

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Policies as Designs for Supporting Learning

• Institutional settings in which principals work
  are the immediate contexts of their learning
• The supports as they are actually enacted are key
  aspects of these (evolving) institutional
  settings
• Math coach
• Weekly meetings
• (Learning Walks with coach)
• Monthly principal meetings
• (Tools curriculum map)

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Policies as Designs for Supporting Learning

• Resulting situated analysis of policy
  implementation relates
• The practices that principals developed
• The institutional setting of their learning
• How of policy as implemented

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Policies as Designs for Supporting Learning

• Develop specific actionable recommendations that
  might make the policy more effective
• Propose adjustments to the districts improvement
  strategies the how of policy
• Testable conjectures about
• Envisioned improvements in principals practices
• The means of supporting that learning
• Design experiment at the level of a large school
  district

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Generality of the Learning Design Perspective on
Policy

• District B
• District leaders conceptualized instructional
  improvement in terms of supporting (and
  motivating) others learning
• Explicit vision of high-quality mathematics
  instruction
• Coherent set of improvement strategies

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Generality of the Learning Design Perspective on
Policy

• Claim Perspective is also useful when
• Policymakers conceptualize instructional
  improvement in terms of disseminating information
  about intended practices
• Policy specifies only intended results/outcomes
• Increase in student mathematics achievement (test
  scores)

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Generality of the Learning Design Perspective on
Policy

• Teachers initial instructional practices
  initial student test scores
• Consequences of the policy
• Changes in the institutional setting of teaching
• Supports, incentives, accountability
• Changes in teachers instructional practices
  resulting student test scores
• Explain why teachers changed their practices in
  the ways documented

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Policymaking at Multiple Levels

• Principals were the targets of district policy
• Principals made policies that targeted teachers
  (and math coaches)

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Policymaking at Multiple Levels

• What Vision for teachers instructional
  practices
• Form rather than function view
• How Means of achieving vision
• Observed classroom and communicated expectations
• Met with math coach regularly
• In some schools, focused on teachers
  instructional practices

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Policymaking at Multiple Levels

• Teachers made policy that targeted students
• What Vision for students mathematical practices
• Instructional goals
• How Means of achieving the vision
• Instructional practices

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Policymaking at Multiple Levels

• Network of policy makers - each makes policy in a
  setting shaped by others policy making efforts
• District leaders
• National policy Discourses
• Principals
• National policy Discourses
• District leaders, leadership specialists, and
  mathematics specialists policymaking
• Teachers
• National policy Discourses
• Principals, mathematics coaches, and mathematics
  specialists policy making efforts

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Process of Policy Implementation

• Dominant perspective
• A single policy travels down through the
  education system
• Distortion, resistance
• Learning design perspective
• Policymaking at multiple levels of the education
  system
• Develop policy vision and attempt to achieve it
• Situated reorganization of practices

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Usefulness Revisited

• The learning design perspective an an analytical
  lens
• Initial indications that it might be useful in
  the practice (of policymaking)

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Usefulness Revisited

• District leaders view instructional improvement
  as a process of
• Supporting others learning
• Disseminating information about desired practices
  and pressing for compliance
• Extent to which mathematics specialists viewed as
  a valued resource

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