Sustainability of Elementary Science

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