Projects

Current Projects

SIMPL

SIMPL is an educational quality improvement collaborative focused on improving the training of surgeons. To date, we have analyzed tens of thousands of workplace-based performance assessments of surgeons' developing operative performance. We are currently using these assessments to better understand how surgeons' operative skills develop over time. We are also examining various ways of presenting data on trainee's performances for program directors across the country. 

MUSIC

The Michigan Urological Surgery Improvement Collaborative (MUSIC) is a physician-led quality consortium of urology practices in Michigan working together to improve urological care for patients across the state. Through askMUSIC, we are working to activate a large, comprehensive clinical registry for improvement purposes.

Catch up to Cancer

In collaboration with the Michigan Primary Care Association, the Rogel Cancer Center is using collaborative quality improvement approaches to close cancer screening gaps caused by COVID-19.

Elaborating Data-Intensive Research Methods through Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships

• Andrew Krumm (PI), Alex Bowers (Co-PI), and Mingyu Feng (Co-PI). National Science Foundation, DRL-1444621, 9/1/2014-8/31/2017.

In this project, my colleagues at Teachers College and SRI International and I organized a data-intensive research-practice partnership with a leading charter management organization (CMO). The purpose of the partnership was to combine data from multiple technological systems to answer the CMO's own driving questions. Across multiple cycles of inquiry, the partnership worked to better understand how students used digital learning environments as well as the relationships among specific learning behaviors and student outcomes.  We developed an approach referred to as a “data sprint” that involved researchers and practitioners jointly developing research questions, co-analyzing common datasets, and co-developing data products and follow-on change ideas.

A Researcher-Practitioner Partnership to Promote English Language Learners’ Science Learning in the Elementary Grades

• Savitha Moorthy (PI), Eileen GIlligan (Co-PI), and Andrew Krumm (Co-I). Institute of Education Sciences, R305H140021, 7/1/2014-6/30/2017.

In this project, my colleagues at SRI International and I formed a research-practice partnership with Clark County School District (i.e., Las Vegas, NV) around better supporting emerging bilingual students in upper elementary science instruction. We combined improvement science, design-research, and large-scale data analyses to support a network of elementary schools develop and refine instructional change ideas over time.

Developing Community & Capacity to Measure Noncognitive Factors in Digital Learning Environments

• Andrew Krumm (PI) and Britte Cheng (Co-PI). National Science Foundation, SMA-1338487, 9/1/2013-8/31/2017.

This project, referred to as Analytics for Learning, involved organizing a community of researchers around measuring learning strategies and behaviors from data collected by digital learning environments. As a test case for this project, we launched a data-intensive research-practice partnership with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Carnegie Math Pathways. The partnership aimed to support the Pathways’ efforts to improve developmental math outcomes across 2- and 4-year colleges throughout the United States. Toward this aim, we collaboratively analyzed data from a learning management systems (LMS) used by students and instructors in the Pathways. For example, we used LMS data to measure students’ “productive persistence” behaviors, generate evidence for launching improvement projects, and develop early warning indicators.

Additional Support and Projects

In addition to the above projects, I have also collaborated with the following educational organizations around collaborative data-intensive improvement projects: 

• OpenSciEd

  • Daniel Edelson, Carolyn Landel, and William Penuel, OpenSciEd, National Center for Civic Innovation, 1/1/18-11/31/19. OpenSciEd is multi-state effort to provide high-quality, open source science instructional materials. Starting in 2017, my colleagues at the University of Colorado and the University of Texas, Austin and I have been leading data collection and analysis for the initiative. We are gathering data directly from the frontlines of practice to inform changes in materials and professional learning opportunities. This project was also an early adopter of TeamSpace.

• TeamSpace

  • Learner Variability Project, Digital Promise, 3/01/2018-12/31/2020. Starting in 2018, my colleagues and I at Digital Promise began to study what research-practice partnerships needed in order to effectively work with data from digital learning environments and large-scale databases. We identified that practitioners in schools, technology developers, and researchers are all critical for shaping questions, conducting analyses, and interpreting results. To support the active participation of these multiple stakeholders, we moved the core functions of collecting, storing, analyzing, and reporting on data to a single, cloud-based location. This single location, referred to as TeamSpace, makes the process of securing data and sharing what is learned easier and more efficient. Using TeamSpace across multiple partnerships, we explored the importance of context, resource constraints, and different audiences in shaping data analyses that help practitioners improve learning opportunities for all students.

• Central Valley Networked Improvement Community (CVNIC)

  • Tulare County Department of Education, 9/1/2018-6/31/2019. CVNIC was organized around improving upper elementary mathematics instruction. We used TeamSpace to jointly analyze data for the purpose of prioritizing improvement topics and assessing change ideas.

• Data Accelerator Program

  • Amazon Web Services, 7/1/2019-12/31/2019. My colleagues at Digital Promise and I worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to understand what schools needed to know and be able to do around combining multiple data sources to support predictive modeling.

• Fresno Unified School District (FUSD) and the Learning Analytics Models and Partnerships

  • Microsoft Education and Education Elements, 10/1/2017-12/31/2020. In partnership with Microsoft Education, Education Elements, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Khan Academy, and The Learning Accelerator, my colleagues at Digital Promise and I helped FUSD combine multiple datasets to understand and improve the implementation of technology-supported teaching and learning strategies.

• Equity in STEM Education through Project-Based Learning

  • Janet Carlson (PI) , Equity in STEM Education through Project-Based Learning: A Research-Practice Partnership, Lucas Education Research, 11/7/2016-8/31/2020. Adoption and Implementation of Open Educational Resources within a Research-Practice Partnership, Lucas Education Research and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 4/1/2017-11/30/2017. In collaboration with San Francisco Unified and Stanford University, my colleagues at SRI International and Digital Promise and I examined the implementation of middle school science curriculum. This project set the foundation for our work with OpenSciEd and originated from our improvement science activities for the Building a Networked Improvement Community project.

• Renaissance Learning

  • With Renaissance Learning and the MIND Research Institute, my colleagues at SRI International and Digital Promise and I worked with with an elementary school to co-develop interoperable data products that combined assessment data from Renaissance Learning and instructional data from ST Math.

• Measurement for Improvement and Deeper Learning

  • With support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 4/1/2016-9/15/2017, my colleagues at SRI International and I worked with multiple educational organizations to develop a process referred to as collaborative data-intensive improvement that we described in the book Learning analytics goes to school: A collaborative approach to improving education.

• Building a Networked Improvement Community

  • Working with Buck Education and Lucas Education Research, my colleagues at SRI International and I launched and maintained a networked improvement community with school districts throughout the United States with the goal of developing a virtual instructional coaching model.