Given the rapid growth of research-practice partnerships (RPPs), we need a framework that helps the field understand how RPPs can facilitate organizational learning in service of local educational improvement and transformation. Drawing on sociocultural and organizational learning theories, we argue that learning can happen for the organizations…

Given the rapid growth of research-practice partnerships (RPPs), we need a framework that helps the field understand how RPPs can facilitate organizational learning in service of local educational improvement and transformation. Drawing on sociocultural and organizational learning theories, we argue that learning can happen for the organizations…

Curriculum reforms often fail because teachers are asked to implement approaches to teaching and learning that are contrary to their beliefs about students and how to teach them. Since curriculum reforms are attempts to resolve particular educational problems, failures in implementation produce parallel failures to resolve the problem for which…

One of the major challenges in educational reform is supporting teachers and the profession in the continual improvement of instruction. Research-practice partnerships and particularly networked improvement communities are well-suited for such knowledge-building work. This article examines how a networked improvement community with eight…

The field of education is asking how research and evidence can bolster the knowledge of its practitioners. Educators increasingly are asked to use research and evidence to support their choices of programs, practices, and processes. The promise of using research in this way is more effective teaching and learning. But not all research and evidence…

This article presents 7 years of qualitative research into the emerging understandings of a population of 456 beginning 7 to 12 urban teachers who supplied 130 participants who were enrolled in a total of 26 MSEd English Language Arts courses over 7 years. These were interviewed while teaching in urban schools focused primarily on testing and…