Purpose of the Study

This project explores how a one-day professional development program that included topics such as the network improvement communities (NICs), the PDSA cycle, and the 5Whys allowed teachers to reflect on their roles as educators and advocates for students. The process included facilitating reflection on the educators’ role in the classroom and school setting.

The following research questions guided the study: 

RQ1. What challenges do teachers perceive when implementing NICs and PDSA to improve academic achievement?

RQ2. What are the roles of educators in removing the identified challenges?

Theoretical Framework

Interactions among students, the school context, and the larger community influence students’ academic achievement by aligning ecological and sociocultural factors. The ecological approach creates a classroom environment conducive to learning, while the holistic approach includes students, families, teachers, schools, and communities. Sociocultural theory indicates the importance of societal contributions to individual development, demonstrating the importance of the community’s cultural artifacts, local practices, and activities in which individuals participate. These theories helped to understand the synergies within an educational institution in Ecuador and the importance of stakeholders working together to solve classroom issues to benefit students.   

There is an increasing interest in improving academic issues in the classroom; however, variability in the educational context does not allow for a one-size-fits-all solution due to students’ performance, administrators’ leadership, teachers’ pedagogical strategies, and parents’ engagement. Thus, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2015) focuses on addressing issues of variability in education to help the field of education become better at getting better. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2016), the networked improvement communities (NICs) have four characteristics: (1) clearly defined objective, (2) understanding of possible solutions, (3) implementation of a rigorous method to articulate the implementation of the program, and (4) coordinated implementation and testing of the practices. Improvement Science is an approach for improving schools through continuous inquiry and learning (REL, n.d.). Bryk et al. (2015) articulated the importance of utilizing the PDSA cycle as a systematic approach in which possible solutions are tested and changed rapidly by utilizing the plan, do, study, and act (PDSA) cycle to inform the system to be improved. The 5Whys is an iterative technique to explore the root of the problem(s) by repeating the question “why” (Hibino et al., 2018).  The American Institutes for Research (2017) indicated a NIC helps organizations learn from promising practices implemented in a specific context.

Educational System and Diversity in Ecuador

As part of the effort to increase academic expectations, a national plan, “Plan Decenal 2006-2015,”  was developed and re-authorized in 2018 building in prior achievements toward education transformation (Ministerio de Educación,2018). This plan incorporated a renewed focus on quality schooling with equity and a vision of increased tolerance and inclusiveness; however, teachers’ voices were ignored as part of the plan.

The Ecuadorian Institute for Educational Assessment collects information on teachers and students to strengthen the education system by identifying areas in the curriculum that require increased time allocations and/or different instructional foci and revised delivery methods. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education wants to improve education at the different levels and assessment system in place; therefore, it is expected that educators are prepared to articulate philosophies incorporating the country’s diversity within the curriculum. The diversity of Ecuador’s cultural and linguistic population is reflected in the languages spoken in the nation. Ethnologue (2019) has documented 21 indigenous languages (e.g., Cofán and Quechua). Considering Ecuador’s linguistic and cultural diversity is key to offering an equitable education to all.

This exploratory study utilized a qualitative case study (Stake, 2000) to explore the outcomes of an all-day workshop on collaborating to find possible solutions to academic problems in the classroom and institution. The qualitative data were collected from group discussions during the workshop and four subsequent focus groups lasting one hour, including five teachers in each group. The qualitative data included focus groups responding to six open-end questions, adapted from Langley et al. (2009): (1) How would a NIC work in your institution? (2) How could the PDSA cycle be implemented in your institution? (3) What have you observed about the leadership in your school regarding your efforts to improve students’ academics? (4) What have you observed about collaborative work with other teachers in your school regarding the improvement of students’ academics? (5) What have you observed about the supportive environment in your school regarding the improvement of students’ academics? (6) What have you observed about family involvement in your school regarding the improvement of students’ academics? and (7) What have you observed about ambitious instruction in your school regarding improvement of students’ academics? The researchers obtained IRB approval before conducting this research. Participants Participants in this exploratory study included 20 elementary school teachers with 5 to 26 years of teaching experience from an urban area in Ecuador. The group included 13 female teachers and 7 male teachers. These practicing teachers taught different subjects such as music, physical education, English, French, technology, and all subjects as elementary teacher substitutes. Data analysis The qualitative data were analyzed utilizing a constant comparison technique (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), which compares existing findings with new information. Throughout the process, the researcher developed codes to be categorized based on the meaning of the data. This constant comparison technique allowed the codes to emerge and be grouped through an iterative process based on their similarity (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2007). Participants explored issues impeding teachers’ efforts to improve academics in the classroom and the school system. Two themes emerged from the data collected (1) teachers’ external influences on academic improvement and (2) teachers’ internal influences on academic improvement. The discussions during and after the workshop revealed a tension between teachers and administrators, teachers and parents, and among teachers leading to teachers feeling limited to improve issues in the classroom due to the deficient engagement of parents and school leadership to solve academic issues.

This project is important because classroom teachers and administrators should work together to determine what changes need to be implemented to achieve the desired academic outcomes. Establishing a systematic process can help teachers reflect on their role in the process. Data indicate that participants were able to consider the variability in student outcomes and how the variations pose challenges for finding solutions. They also identified the complexity of the educational setting and stakeholders’ roles in achieving the desired goals utilizing a systematic approach. The impact of this realization was explained by Lewis (2015) and Bryk et al. (2015), indicating that self-study is a way to facilitate improvement in the school context. Partnerships should be formed among school administrators, parents, and teachers to support students’ academic success and to integrate changes into complex systems (Hannan et al., 2015). The findings indicated that the teachers’ external influences included school administrators, parents, and the educational system. Regarding teachers’ interactions with administrators, the participants indicated limited conversations about issues in the classroom. Concerning parents, teachers expressed the limited support in educating the students. About the educational system, participants expressed little flexibility for implementing changes. The second theme teachers’ internal influences on academic improvement refers to professional relationships among teachers and their limited collaboration due to limited time and opportunities to interact. Fajardo-Dack (2016) and Dionne et al. (2004) argued the role of administrators is to influence teachers’ performance, collaboration, and interactions with parents. NICs and PDSA are relevant to any educational classroom because as teachers collaborate, knowledge is generated and possible solutions to issues are identified and can be tried in the field. The interactive process of the PDSA within the NIC supports continued improvement within the educational institution benefiting students as well as teachers participating in the process.

American Institutes for Research (2017, April). Establishing and sustaining networked improvement communities: Lessons from Michigan and Minnesota. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/midwest/pdf/REL_2017264.pdf Bryk, A.S., Louis Gomez, Alicia Grunow, and Paul LeMahieu. (2015). Learning to improve: How America’s schools can get better at getting better. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2015, August). “Why a NIC?” https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/blog/why-a-nic/ Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2016, May). Integrating collaboration, learning systems, and empowerment to accelerate improvement in education — The promise of NICs. https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/blog/the-promise-of-nics/ Dionne, S.D., Yammarino, F.J., Atwater, L.E., & Spangler, W.D. (2004). Transformational leadership and team performance. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17(2), 177-193. doi: 10.1108/09534810410530601 Ethnologue (2019). Languages of the world. https://www.ethnologue.com/country/EC/languages Fajardo-Dack, T. 2016. Teacher disempowerment in the education system of Ecuador. World Journal of Education 5(3), 82-89. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Hannan, M., Russell, J. L., Takahashi, S., & Park, S. (2015). Using improvement science to better support beginning teachers: The case of the building a teaching effectiveness network. Journal of Teacher Education, 66(5), 494-508. Hibino, S., Noguchi, K., & Plenert, G. (2018). Toyota’s global marketing strategy: Innovation through breakthrough thinking and Kaizen. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis Group. Langley, G. J,. Moen, R .D., Nolan, K. M., Nola, T. W., Norman, C. L., & Provost, L. P. (2009). The improvement guide: A practical approach to enhancing organizational performance. (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Leech, N.L. & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2007). An array of qualitative data analysis tools: A call for data analysis triangulation. School Psychology Quarterly, 22(4), 557-584. DOI: 10.1037/1045-3830.22.4.557 Lewis, C. (2015). What is improvement science? Do we need it is education? Educational Researcher 44(1), 54-61. Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador. (2018). Propuesta de la comunidad educativa para el plan nacional de educación 2016-2025. https://www.siteal.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/sit_accion_files/siteal_ecuador_0240.pdf Regional Educational Laboratory Program. (n.d.). Introduction to improvement science. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/west/Blogs/Details/2 Stake, R. E. (2000). Case studies. In N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.). Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 435-454). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.