Glossary
Aim: The specific goal(s) the network is working toward. These are shorter-term and more measurable than the broader vision the network is working toward.
Change Idea: Changes in practices hypothesized to lead to improvement in drivers and, ultimately, achieving the Aim.
Continuous Improvement: Continuous Improvement is defined as research that involves multiple iterative cycles of activity over extended time periods. Within the context of College Ready On Track, this means school Design Teams are encouraged to think of the theory of improvement as adaptive, in that it may shift over time or as Design Teams learn about what works, what doesn’t, and under what circumstances.
Design Improvement: Model of continuous improvement developed in collaboration with the University of Denver through the iLead partnership that integrates equity, human-centered design, and user engagement.
An innovation and improvement process that empowers those closest to the problems, our users, to understand the challenges faced, design changes, test ideas, and generate creative and innovative solutions in order to advance equity and access.
Design Improvement combines best practices from Improvement Science and Design Thinking.
Design Team: The team of teachers, staff, students, families, and/or community members in each school leading the design of change ideas and conducting PDSA cycles.
Driver Diagram / Theory of Improvement: The network’s theory about how improving specific parts of their school systems will lead to achieving their aim. The driver diagram is not meant to be inclusive of all parts of school systems. It is specific to those most directly connected to the aim. These terms can be used interchangeably.
Drivers: School system components, processes, practices, and structures.
Facilitation Lead: Facilitation Leads are individuals who lead continuous improvement activities within their school by guiding and coaching teachers through Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycles (PDSAs). Additional responsibilities of the Facilitation Lead role include:
Tracking and sharing learning from their school’s PDSA cycles
Liaising between the school and the Hub / other Facilitation Leads
Attending monthly Facilitation Lead Meeting
Participating in a bi-weekly calls with their Improvement Science Coach
Improvement Science: Improvement science is an approach to generating incremental and sustained change within school systems. Unlike traditional education reform, improvement science positions teachers and school leaders as idea generators and implementers — bringing the practitioners closest to instruction into design, prototyping, and evaluation of a “theory of improvement.”
In DPS this means that teachers, school leadership, and central office support teams develop and implement small- and large-scale innovations that they believe will improve education systems within specific schools.
Network for School Improvement: The term - “Networked Improvement Community” (NIC) was coined by our improvement science partner, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The definition of Networked Improvement Community is as follows:
“An intentionally designed social organization with a distinctive problem-solving focus; roles, responsibilities, and norms for membership; and the maintenance of narratives that detail what it is about and why affiliating with it is important. A NIC is marked by four essential characteristics. It is: a) Focused on a well-specified common aim, b) Guided by a deep understanding of the problem, the system that produces it, and a shared working theory to improve it, c) Disciplined by the methods of improvement research to develop, test, and refine interventions, and d) Organized to accelerate their diffusion out into the field and effective integration into varied educational contexts." (Learning to Improve)
Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle (PDSA): The process through which change ideas are tested and refined to lead to improved outcomes (change ideas can also be abandoned if they don’t lead to any key improvements).
User: Within Improvement Science, the term “user” refers to the people or group(s) that interact with / benefit from / use the product that is being designed. For the College Ready On Track NSI, our users are students, families, teachers, and community members.
Being “user-centered” means deeply understanding the needs of our students, families, teachers, and community. Further, it means that the needs of our users must be the focal point of all design efforts.
Specific actions the College Ready On Track NSI takes to practice a user-centered approach are:
Empathy interviews
Feedback loops
Coming soon: Student / family involvement within design efforts