Michelle Forman & Richard F. Elmore SERP Institute / HGSE Internal Coherence Michelle Forman & Richard F. Elmore SERP Institute / HGSE

Internal Coherence The leadership practices, efficacy beliefs, and organizational processes associated with a faculty’s capacity to engage in deliberate improvements in instructional practice and student learning across classrooms, over time 2

Research Base IC weaves together constructs from the organizational behavior, school improvement and social cognitive literatures into a general theory of how schools improve RICHARD EXPLAINS EACH COMPONENT BRIEFLY Each of these factors bears a strong relationship to school performance in the research literature. Taken together, however, they enable us to construct a developmental theory that places schools on a continuum on each dimension, and allow practitioners to focus their instructional improvement work on their specific organizational needs.

Taken together, they enable us to construct a developmental theory placing schools on a continuum on each dimension. We suggest that these factors embody a general theory of how schools improve—a provisional causal order that can help school leaders carve out a sensible path to building this capacity in their organizations. Weave constructs together into general theory of how schools improve: a provisional causal order Developmental theory, place schools on a continuum on each dimension Help school and district leaders carve out a sensible path to building this capacity in their organizations

School improvement requires ongoing organizational processes

Internal Coherence Assessment Protocol (ICAP) Teacher Survey Classroom Observation * Non-evaluative, evidence-based, focused on task * Nature of tasks and variability across classrooms 3. Interviews with teachers, principals, leadership team * Contextualize, corroborate survey data * Administrative perspective (no survey data)

Domain Scores in Context Explains reference graphs, idea of standard deviation from the mean Points out that from an IC perspective, interested both in items where folks pile up toward “highly inaccurate” AND questions where there is a lot of variability in response Profile School

Individual Item Graphs

Developmental Theory Developmental theory, place schools on a continuum on each dimension Help school and district leaders carve out a sensible path to building this capacity in their organizations Taken together, they enable us to construct a developmental theory placing schools on a continuum on each dimension. We suggest that these factors embody a general theory of how schools improve—a provisional causal order that can help school leaders carve out a sensible path to building this capacity in their organizations.

Connection to WG Support for schools’ adoption of Word Generation, Boston Field Site, 2006 An assessment to determine the existing level of readiness, and intervention strategy for increasing IC We don’t build organizational capacity for improvement in the abstract WG as platform for building IC, attention to IC as a means to support WG

Your thoughts on IC Does the construct of IC, or the notion of the “carrying capacity” of an organization, resonate? Any questions or feedback on the model? How would you describe your school’s current level of IC? What do you imagine happening when WG hits your organization? What do you think will happen post roll-out? Taken together, they enable us to construct a developmental theory placing schools on a continuum on each dimension. We suggest that these factors embody a general theory of how schools improve—a provisional causal order that can help school leaders carve out a sensible path to building this capacity in their organizations. How much deeper imp will be if we keep an eye on role that teaming will play