This panel focuses on several approaches to studying and making use of implementation evidence to improve outcomes of DR K–12. Typically, implementation research focuses on fidelity from an individual perspective. In this panel, policy researchers share approaches to using evidence about teachers’ social networks and their sense making about organizational issues to explain patterns in implementation.
This panel will present different approaches to studying and making use of implementation evidence in research and development projects. Typically, implementation research focuses on gathering evidence of fidelity to designers’ intentions from an individual perspective. The presenters on this panel are engaged in research focused on interpersonal and organizational dynamics that can shape implementation. Their contributions will focus on how a study of these dynamics can contribute to a deeper understanding of implementation from practitioners’ point of view that can in turn be used to inform design.
The panel overview will provide a rationale for studying implementation in research and development projects and for theorizing implementation “beyond fidelity.” The three main presentations that follow will all focus on implementation research that is examining the process of instructional change, but in different domains (science or mathematics) and using different combinations of methods (discourse analysis, social network analysis, and analysis of observations of both teacher meetings and classroom practice). The presentations share a focus on the ways that collegial interactions in schools shape implementation decisions of individual teachers and groups of teachers. The studies illustrate how and when teachers can make productive use of local resources and collegial networks to support changes to their views of instruction and to implement new teaching and assessment practices.