Shared sense-making strategies in curriculum reform: District-level perspective

Curriculum reform that has an effect on the everyday practices in schools always entails translation of new ideas into new educational practices. This takes place primarily through shared sense making. However, our understanding of the different ways in which shared sense making is carried out is still scarce. In Finland, the district level plays an important intermediary role in orchestrating curriculum development work at the municipalities and in translating and mediating reform into school-level development work. The study explores different shared sense-making strategies employed by 12 district-level curriculum reform steering groups around Finland, including participants from 54 municipalities. Three hands-on strategies of shared sense making including comparison, standardisation and transformation were identified. The results indicated that different hands-on strategies have different functions in the process of making sense of the reform objectives. To a certain extent, the strategies can be viewed as hierarchical. Overall, results suggest that district-level actors aim to foster shared sense making; however, a more intentional use of strategies is needed.

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Differences in state- and district-level stakeholders’ perceptions of curriculum coherence and school impact in national curriculum reform

Journal of Educational Administration ◽

10.1108/jea-08-2018-0153 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 57 (3) ◽

pp. 210-226 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jenni Sullanmaa ◽

Kirsi Pyhältö ◽

Janne Pietarinen ◽

Tiina Soini

Keyword(s):

Curriculum Reform ◽

Educational System ◽

Latent Profile Analysis ◽

National Curriculum ◽

District Level ◽

School Level ◽

Reform Process ◽

Content Type ◽

The Core ◽

High Coherence

Purpose Shared understandings of curriculum reform within and between the levels of the educational system are suggested to be crucial for the reform to take root. The purpose of this paper is to explore variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact among state- and district-level stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach The participants (n=666) included state- and district-level stakeholders involved in a national curriculum reform in Finland. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify profiles based on participants’ perceptions of the core curriculum’s coherence and the reform’s impact on school development. Findings Two profiles were identified: high coherence and impact, and lower consistency of the intended direction and impact. State-level stakeholders had higher odds of belonging to the high coherence and impact profile than their district-level counterparts. Practical implications The results imply that more attention needs to be paid in developing a shared and coherent understanding particularly of the intended direction of the core curriculum as well as the reform’s effects on school-level development among state- and district-level stakeholders. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature on curriculum reform by shedding light on the variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact of those responsible for a large-scale national curriculum reform process at different levels of the educational system.

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Shared Sense-Making, Agency, and Learning in School Development in Finnish School Reforms

10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1659 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tiina Soini ◽

Kirsi Pyhältö ◽

Janne Pietarinen

Keyword(s):

Transformative Learning ◽

Curriculum Reform ◽

Core Curriculum ◽

School Development ◽

Pedagogical Practices ◽

School Level ◽

Sense Making ◽

The Core ◽

Primary Means ◽

The Impact

Curriculum reform is at the heart of educational change and impacts pupils, teachers, other educational professionals, and society at large. Moreover, the way we go about developing our schools and designing curricula defines our future and reveals where we stand regarding the role of education in society. In order to research the desired aims of reforms, it is crucial to understand curriculum making: How does the school develop, and what regulates the development? Learning is at the core of school development. It can be considered as both the aim and the primary means of achieving and sustaining any change in schools. Accordingly, the impact of a school reform is highly dependent on the quality of learning enabled within the school communities. Particularly, the extent to which the reform engages teachers in active and skillful learning by promoting their professional agency is a central determinant of the reform’s outcomes. The core curriculum is the single most influential regulator of school development in Finland. It is renewed approximately every 10 years and provides a common direction and basis for renewing school education and instruction, and sets the framework and foundation for district- and school-level curriculum development work. Teachers in Finland are curriculum makers not only in the class and school, but also at the district and even national levels of the school system. In such a system, teacher autonomy and teacher agency are at the core of school development. Moreover, teachers’ ability to understand the aims of the reform and to integrate, modify, and adopt them as part of their pedagogical practices is essential. This requires making sense of their aims. In Finland, shared sense-making has been the main strategy in the latest participatory reforms, with the aim of promoting transformative learning in professional communities in order to reach reform goals.

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The Architecture of Anticipation and Novices’ Emerging Understandings of the Principal Position: Occupational Sense Making at the Intersection of Individual, Organization, and Institution

Teachers College Record ◽

10.1177/016146811411600705 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 116 (7) ◽

pp. 1-42

Author(s):

James P. Spillane ◽

Lauren Anderson

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Institutional Environment ◽

Organizational Legitimacy ◽

School Level ◽

Sense Making ◽

New Principals ◽

Stepping Stones ◽

Design Data ◽

Organizational Contexts ◽

Making Sense

Background While teaching and school-level administrative work remain stepping stones in most pathways to the principal's office, these formal experiences—alongside informal or formal apprenticeships—do not immunize newcomers to the struggles of occupational socialization. To the contrary, crossing over to the principal's office represents a sizable shift as newcomers assume a multifaceted job that spans instructional, managerial, and political realms. Purpose This manuscript explores novice school principals’ efforts to make sense of their new occupation immediately following their boundary passage into the principalship. To frame this work, we draw from the literature on occupational and organizational socialization and newcomer sense making. Sense making—with its emphasis on how meanings materialize in situ, thus informing and constraining identity and action—offers a utile lens given the particular challenges that new principals face as they navigate today's pluralistic institutional environment. Design/Data Data are drawn from a multiple-methods study of newly hired first-time principals in one large urban school district. Specifically, our analysis focuses on interview data collected from a sample of 18 purposefully selected new principals just after they were hired and just prior to the start of their first year on the job. Findings We find that, contending with a plurality, diversity, and simultaneity of stakeholder expectations, novices’ sense making centered on challenges related to organizational legitimacy and organizational integrity; however, the relative prominence of these dual imperatives differed based on the position of principals’ schools in the broader institutional field. Depending upon how imperatives interacted in local organizational contexts, novices faced puzzles of different kind and character. For some, localized puzzles called for a kind of institutional work that we term repairing; for others, puzzles called more for (re-)presenting, refining, and/or maintaining. In crafting courses of action, novices drew on institutional logics and metaphors from personal experience, which they used as resources in their efforts to resist exploding out organizationally and personally in response to multiple stakeholders’ diverse demands. Doing so, novices constructed occupational selves that were not unitary and that encompassed inconsistencies and contradictions. Conclusions Our analysis suggests the need to consider principals’ socialization as it unfolds in schools as they are situated within the broader institutional landscape. In addition, whereas much of the sense making literature focuses on microprocesses, our analysis attends to how the institutional environment enters sense making. In doing so, it adds to the knowledge base concerning the microfoundations of institutional theory as it plays out in the education field, and it enriches the empirical research base concerning new principals’ expectations and experiences in contemporary public schools.

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Why Is Safe Science Good Science?

10.26434/chemrxiv.5877555.v5 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Camilla Kao ◽

Che-I Kao ◽

Russell Furr

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Design Thinking ◽

Good Science ◽

Safety Issues ◽

Safety Requirements ◽

The Arts ◽

Hands On ◽

Obvious Benefit ◽

New Ideas

In science, safety can seem unfashionable. Satisfying safety requirements can slow the pace of research, make it cumbersome, or cost significant amounts of money. The logic of rules can seem unclear. Compliance can feel like a negative incentive. So besides the obvious benefit that safety keeps one safe, why do some scientists preach "safe science is good science"? Understanding the principles that underlie this maxim might help to create a strong positive incentive to incorporate safety into the pursuit of groundbreaking science.<div> </div><div>This essay explains how safety can enhance the quality of an experiment and promote innovation in one's research. Being safe induces a researcher to have greater control over an experiment, which reduces the uncertainty that characterizes the experiment. Less uncertainty increases both safety and the quality of the experiment, the latter including statistical quality (reproducibility, sensitivity, etc.) and countless other properties (yield, purity, cost, etc.). Like prototyping in design thinking and working under the constraint of creative limitation in the arts, considering safety issues is a hands-on activity that involves decision-making. Making decisions leads to new ideas, which spawns innovation.</div>

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A future of journalism beyond the objectivity–dialogue divide? Hybridity in the news of entrepreneurial journalists

Journalism ◽

10.1177/1464884919867216 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 146488491986721 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Juho Ruotsalainen ◽

Jaana Hujanen ◽

Mikko Villi

Keyword(s):

San Diego ◽

Appraisal Theory ◽

Sense Making ◽

Hybrid Form ◽

Daily News ◽

New Ideas ◽

The Voice

As pioneers of new ideas and practices, many entrepreneurial journalists spearhead the change of journalism towards hybridity. By applying appraisal theory, this article examines a hybrid of objectivity and dialogue in daily news articles by five entrepreneurial journalism outlets – Axios, MustRead, National Observer, The Skimm and the Voice of San Diego. For comparative purposes, a dataset from three legacy media outlets was also analysed. The results show that the entrepreneurial journalism outlets employ journalistic dialogue in otherwise stylistically objective news texts notably more often than do legacy media outlets. Dialogic registers provide subtle, non-partisan assessments of events and issues and make the news more informal. Such a hybrid form of journalism serves the functions of sense-making, establishing an interpersonal connection between ‘private’ audiences and ‘public’ news, and connecting journalism with fields outside of its core. By doing so, the hybrid journalism of entrepreneurial journalists offers a distinctive vision of the futures of news journalism.

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The Denouncers: Populism and the Press in Venezuela

Journal of Latin American Studies ◽

10.1017/s0022216x16000419 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 49 (1) ◽

pp. 1-27 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

ROBERT SAMET

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Making Sense ◽

Everyday Practices ◽

The Press ◽

The Everyday ◽

The Media ◽

The Relationship ◽

Recent Attention

AbstractDespite recent attention to the relationship between the media and populist mobilisation in Latin America, there is a misfit between the everyday practices of journalists and the theoretical tools that we have for making sense of these practices. The objective of this article is to help reorient research on populism and the press in Latin America so that it better reflects the grounded practices and autochthonous norms of the region. To that end, I turn to the case of Venezuela, and a practice that has been largely escaped attention from scholars – the use of denuncias.

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Making sense of continuous development of digital infrastructures

Journal of Information Technology ◽

10.1177/02683962211046621 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026839622110466

Author(s):

Karen Osmundsen ◽

Bendik Bygstad

Keyword(s):

Research Question ◽

Sense Making ◽

Interaction Patterns ◽

Longitudinal Case Study ◽

Learning And Development ◽

Continuous Development ◽

Organizational Contexts ◽

Making Sense ◽

Digital Infrastructure ◽

Definition Of

Continuous development extends the agile approach and focuses on bringing valuable services to users with the aim of achieving a continuous flow of learning and development in short cycles. The objective of this work is to theorize the idea of continuous development in the context of digital infrastructure evolution and explore the organizational interactions underlying continuous development. By drawing on literature on digital infrastructure theory and continuous development as it has emerged as an idea from the DevOps thinking expanded from agile, we outline main characteristics of continuous development and propose a theoretical definition of continuous development in organizational contexts. Then, in answering our research question “which patterns of interactions can be identified in the continuous development of digital infrastructures?”, we conducted a longitudinal case study at a Norwegian grid company and explored how a specific digital infrastructure evolved through continuous development. We identified generic interaction patterns with two cycles of sense-giving and sense-making between organizational actors, enabling the continuous development of the digital infrastructure. Our findings and model of interaction patterns offer a nuanced perspective on both digital infrastructure evolution and established views of sense-making and sense-giving mechanisms, as well as new ways to think about digitalization in incumbent firms.

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Tecendo relações entre sentido e não-sentido na cognição enativa

Revista de Ciências Humanas ◽

10.5007/2178-4582.2019.e58019 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Renata Fischer da Silveira Kroeff ◽

Póti Quartiero Gavillon ◽

Cleci Maraschin

Keyword(s):

Sense Making ◽

Enactive Cognition ◽

Making Sense

Neste artigo, discutimos a definição de não-sentido e sua relação com a produção de sentido na teoria enativa da cognição. Tomamos como ponto de partida a publicação “Enactive Cognition at the Edge of Sense-Making: Making Sense of Non-Sense”, organizada por Massimiliano Cappuccio e Tom Froese, por ser uma obra pioneira em relação ao tema. A importância da produção de sentido para a relação entre percepção e ação é abordada a partir de diferentes aspectos. Discutimos as proposições centrais das teorias da autopoiese e da enação, a partir das quais são produzidas três formas de compreender o não-sentido segundo uma perspectiva enativa. Nessas três abordagens, os autores contemporâneos sugerem que o não-sentido se constitui como elemento intermediário ou mediador em processos de produção de sentido. Por fim, discutimos a relação entre não-sentido e sentido, sugerindo uma articulação entre os domínios sensório-motor e linguístico a partir de uma definição não antagônica de saber-sobre e saber-fazer.

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Perancangan Aplikasi Knowledge Management di Instansi Kearsipan Berbasis Model Choo-Sense Making

Jurnal Teknologi Informasi dan Ilmu Komputer ◽

10.25126/jtiik.0812451 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 15

Author(s):

Eko Nur Hermansyah ◽

Danny Manongga ◽

Ade Iriani

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Knowledge Management ◽

Data Analysis ◽

Storage System ◽

Knowledge Dissemination ◽

Management Model ◽

Sense Making ◽

Making Sense ◽

Data Collecting ◽

Space Result

AbstrakIntansi Kearsipan memiliki berbagai pengetahuan yang digunakan untuk pengelolaan arsip yang dimilikinya, knowledge management digunakan untuk mengumpulkan, mengelola, dan menyebarluaskan pengetahuan yang dimiliki, sehingga pengetahuan yang dimiliki oleh instansi kearsipan dapat digunakan untuk kemajuan intansi dan tidak hilang. Penelitian ini dilakukan di Dinas Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan Kota Salatiga. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan wawancara petugas kearsipan untuk mengumpulkan data tentang pengetahuan yang dimiliki dan cara penyimpanan serta penyebarluasan yang diterapkan di intansi kearsipan. Analisis data dilakukan dengan mengelompokkan pengetahuan yang dimiliki oleh intansi kearsipan sesuai dengan model Choo-Sense Making, untuk kemudian diterapkan di Confluence sesuai dengan hasil dari pengolahan data dengan model Choo-Sense Making. Hasil dari penelitian ini untuk model Choo-Sense Making pengetahuan di intansi kearsipan dibagi atas 3 tahap yaitu Sense Making yang berisi tentang pengetahuan yang berasal dari luar intansi dibuatkan wadah sebagai media diskusi, chatting, Knowledge Creating berisi tentang pengetahuan-pengetahuan yang dimiliki intansi kearsipan yang telah di dokumentasikan diubah dalam betuk softfile kemudian diunggah kedalam space untuk memudahkan penyimpanan serta penyebarluasan pengetahuan yang dimiliki, dan Decision Making yang berisi tentang jadwal-jadwal intansi dan evaluasi yang dilakukan intansi kearsipan. Hasil dari model Choo-Sense Making dimasukan ke Confluence, memperoleh hasil space yang dapat memudahkan menyimpan pengetahuan yang dimiliki berupa file aplikasi, softfile, serta memudahkan dalam pencarian kembali dan penyerluasan pengetahuan yang dimiliki. Penerapan Choo-Sense Making selain untuk mempermudah penyimpanan dan penyerbaluasan serta komunikasi, dapat mengurangi resiko kehilangan pengetahuan yang dimiliki oleh intansi kearsipan. Kata kunci: Knowledge Management, Model Choo-Sense Making, Confluence, Perpustakaan dan ArsipAbstractArchival Agency has several knowledge that are used to manage the owned archive, knowledge management is used to collect, manage and disseminate the owned knowledge so that the knowledge that the archival agency has can be used for the agency progress and it will not missing. The research is conducted in Dinas Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan Kota Salatiga. Data collecting is conducted by interviewing the archival officer to gather data related to its knowledge, the storage system and dissemination applied in this archival agency. Data analysis is conducted by categorizing the agency knowledge according to Choo-Sense Making model and then it is applied in Confluence in accordance with the result of the data analysis from the Choo-Sense Making model. The result of this research, for Choo-Sense Making model, the knowledge in the archival agency is divided into 3 steps; Sense Making, Knowledge Creating and Decision Making. Sense Making contains knowledge coming from the outside of the agency that has forum as discussion media, chatting. Knowledge Creating contains knowledge that owned by the archival agency that has been documented and changed in the form of softfile then uploaded into space to ease the storage and the knowledge dissemination. Decision Making is about agency schedules and evaluation toward the activity in this archival agency. The result of Choo-Sense Making Model is input into Confluence, get space result that ease to save the knowledge in the form of application file, softfile, and ease to search and disseminate the owned knowledge. The application of Choo-Sense Making eases the storage system, dissemination, and communication. It also reduces the risk of losing knowledge owned by the archival agency. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Model Choo-Sense Making, Confluence, Library and Archive

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Identifying Levers Related to Student Performance on High-Stakes Science Exams: Examining School, Teaching, Teacher, and Professional Development Characteristics

10.31219/osf.io/83hm2 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Christian Fischer ◽

Brandon Foster ◽

Ayana McCoy ◽

Frances Lawrenz ◽

Christopher Dede ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Student Achievement ◽

Student Performance ◽

Science Teachers ◽

Curriculum Reform ◽

The United States ◽

School Level ◽

High Stakes ◽

Reform Implementation ◽

School Teaching

Background: Many students enter into postsecondary education without the college readiness skills that allow them to face the demands of postsecondary education. Increasingly, policymakers and educational researchers are responding to calls for reforming secondary education to provide more opportunity for all students to receive high quality education and to become career and college ready. Purpose: This study attempts to identify levers to increase student performance in secondary education. In particular, it examines relationships of school, teaching, teacher, and teacher professional development characteristics with student scores on high-stakes Advanced Placement (AP) examinations in the sciences.Setting: This study is situated in the context of the large-scale, top-down, nationwide AP curriculum and examination reform in the sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) in the United States. This is an unprecedented opportunity to analyze changing educational landscapes in the United States with large-scale national student-, teacher-, school-, and district-level data sets across multiple science disciplines and different stages of the curriculum reform implementation connected to a standardized and high-stakes student outcome measure.Population: This study analyzes nationwide data samples of the AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics population during the first, second, and third year of the curriculum reform implementation. Across disciplines and years, the analytical samples include a total of 113,603 students and 6,046 teachers. Research design: This empirical quantitative study uses data from web-based surveys sent to all AP science teachers. Additionally, College Board provided student- and school-level data for all students taking AP examinations. Data preparation methods included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Associations towards student achievement were analyzed through multi-level ordered logistic regression analysis separately by science discipline and year of the curriculum reform implementation. Afterwards, the results were aggregated through a meta-analysis. Findings: Student performance is not pre-determined by students’ background, leaving roughly 60% of the AP score variance potentially malleable for teacher and school-level factors. In particular, teachers’ perceived administrative support, self-efficacy, teaching experience, and elements of classroom instruction were related to student performance. Notably, teachers’ professional development participation has a small, mixed impact on student achievement. Conclusion: The identified levers for improving student achievement provide a strong rationale for the continued efforts of policy makers to improve school environments and to support science teachers to ultimately both increase student learning and help all students graduate prepared for college and ready for their future careers.

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