Diffusion and the Social Dynamics of Organizations: The Case of Educational Innovations and Schools

1. Diffusion and the Social Dynamics of Organizations: The Case of Educational Innovations and Schools Kenneth A. Frank College of Education and Fisheries and Wildlife Michigan State University With William Penuel, Yong Zhao Min Sun, Chong Min Kim, Ann Krause, Kathryn Borman, Nicole Ellefson. Susan Porter, Corinne Singleton

2. Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (1995) Current

3. Diffusion: Beneath the Surface http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100333707 NPR Science Friday

4. Diffusion: Beneath the Surface: Entering the System

5. Penetrating the Boundary

6. Absorbed by the System

7. System Adaptation

8. Internal System Reaction

9. Counteraction

10. How Does the Social Organization of the School Create a Complex System? Social organization of the school (beneath the surface)  complex response

11. Starting Point: Most Variation in Achievement Outcomes and Teacher Behaviors is Within Schools • 10%-30% of the variance in achievement is at the student level • Konstantopoulos, S. (2006). Trends of School Effects on Student Achievement: Evidence from NLS:72, HSB: 82, and NELS:92. Teachers College Record, 108, 2550-2581. • http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/docs/publications/2131199576456b88344ffba.pdf • Only 10%-20% of the variation in teacher outcomes is within schools Lee & Smith, 1991; Rowan et al., 1992

12. Baseline Assumption: Instruction is the Proximal Cause of Learning http://ies.ed.gov/funding/pdf/2011_84305A.pdf page 28 See also: Cohen Raudenbush & Ball, 2003

13. Baseline Assumption: Teaching is Fundamentally Complex • Teaching requires integration of: • curriculum, • variable student needs • assessments • conflicting organizational demands • teachers’ previous educational experiences • non-linear cognitive processes • Must be coordinated with others • Shared students • Shared contexts • Bidwell, 1965; Woodward, 1965;

14. Baseline Assumption: Teachers Need Local Knowledge to be Effective • Must adapt external, general knowledge to context of the school • Local knowledge allows teachers to comply with local norms • Local knowledge (if made explicit) can be shared with others to improve school • Frank et al., 2011

15. Where Does Local Knowledge Come From? • Professional Development • Externally generated, needs to be adapted • Experimentation • Intensive • Limited to previous experiences – what to do for new type of student or curricular unit? • Interaction with others within school • Shared contexts: curriculum, students, organizational demands

16. Complex Process:Knowledge Changes as it is Locally Adapted Data: supported by Michigan Department of Education

17. Example of Interaction as Source of Local Knowledge (Coburn and Russell, 2007, page 23): We talked about, like, the math message and the mental math and how to coordinate the two and that we should be linking the message to the initial onset of the mini lesson and how those two are connected and that that would get the children eventually into their individual work and that we should connect them and that the math messages is separated from the mental math after it’s done until we go back to it and use that as a lead in for the lesson. So that’s something I’d like to get straight. Because the teachers’ guide was a bit fuzzy about that, I thought. It was a bit misleading when it came to the math message and the mental math. So he was able to tell me that I should teach it in that sequence. So that helped. Complex: new approach, math message, must be coordinated with the old, mental math  teachers talk about how to implement the new approach, motivate the children, differentiate the approaches, and structure the lesson. within local context: math curriculum, coach.

18. Theoretical Implications • Network effect stronger for those who have • Focused professional development, experimented • Language is key • School as organization transforms knowledge • Adapted from external to internal • Through experimentation and interaction • Knowledge made explicit through interactions

19. Broader Findings • Network effects matter • As much as classic predictors of implementation such as resources and perceptions of innovation • Technology: Frank, K. A., Zhao, Y., and Borman, K 2004; Frank et al, 2011 • Reforms: Penuel et al, 2010 • Reading Instruction: Frank, Penuel et al (under re-review) • Math Instruction: Jim Spillane & Paul Cobb • Achievement: Jackson & Bruegmann, 2009 • Caveats • Small to moderate effects to change in practices: Beware of large effects • But can accumulate • Spillover to other areas: talk allows other flows • Most studies for elementary and middle schools

20. Penetrating the Boundary

21. Absorbed by the System

22. System Adaptation

23. How Can Teachers Access Local Knowledge? • Consider Motivations of Teachers: • Efficacy (STEM supplemental PD) • Fit into social context • Frank et al (2010); Youngs et al (forthcoming) • Where is $? (Shirley) • Once they have base pay, marginal return for $ not motivating? • “To summarize, we find no overall effect, pooling across years and grades, of teacher incentive pay on mathematics achievement. Likewise, we find no overall effect by year, pooling across grades.” (page 30) • See also Scholastic, 2010: http://www.scholastic.com/primarysources/pdfs/Scholastic_Gates_0310.pdf

24. Teacher Utility f(personal efficacy, fitting into social organization of school) assessment Whole language Utility Perceptions of Efficacy Curriculum Teacher behaviors Student outcomes Other’s expectations Phonics

25. Comment on Utility • Teachers seek individual efficacy and to fit into their school • Teachers with different utility will make different trade-offs • Novice teacher needs extensive local knowledge, more willing to conform • Senior teacher who will retire soon may have no incentive to conform • Different conformity pressures for formal versus informal leaders (Min Sun, Ken Frank et al)

26. Utility and the Social Capital ExchangeKnowledge through the Network for Compliance to Norms • Teacher seeks knowledge to improve efficacy • Teacher with knowledge seeks conformity of other to gain: • Reputation (Blau: Social exchange) • Legitimacy • Own personal efficacy: the organizational effect • If 3rd grade teacher can get a 2nd to teach more phonics, the 3rd grade teacher can be more effective • Social capital exchange

27. Social Capital Exchange: Knowledge for Conformity

28. Policy Implications of Social Capital Exchange 1) Schools may improve implementation as much by focusing on social structure as on changing attitudes or improving resources. Leveraging social capital is cheap and quick relative to changing attitudes or purchasing resources 2) Attempts to implement multiple innovations may compete for fixed social capital Failure to fulfill multiple obligations may be detrimental to overall social capital 3) Success of implementation depends on distribution of social capital Are there sources of expertise available to each actor?

29. Caveats • Teachers must identify with school and others for social capital exchange • Otherwise no penalty for failure to conform • Does not apply for high teacher turnover

30. System Reaction

31. Normative Compliance Structured by Cohesive Subgroups • Teachers organized in subgroups • Partly aligned with departments • But emergent • Excellent source of local knowledge • Others know context • Similar orientation  less conformity pressure (Nonaka; Yasumoto; Hansen) • Subgroups create own norms • Subgroups filter response to external institutions and forces

33. Clusters in Foodwebs Krause, A., Frank, K.A., Mason, D.M., Ulanowicz, R.E. and Taylor, W.M. (2003). "Compartments exposed in food-web structure." Nature 426:282-285

34. • Each number is a teacher • G_ indicates grade in which teacher teaches • Lines connecting two numbers indicate teachers who are close colleagues Solid lines within subgroups, dashed between • Circles indicate cohesive subgroups

35. Ripple Plot • Overlay talk about technology on social geography of crystallized sociogram • Lines indicate talk about technology • Size of dot indicates teacher’s use of technology at time 1 • Ripples indicate increase in use from time 1 to time 2

38. Theoretical Implications:Subgroups as Meso-Level Entities • Individuals’ experience within organizations is mediated by subgroups within which interactions are more concentrated • In schools, subgroup boundaries align to varying degrees with formal organizational structures (e.g., grade level) and aspects of the informal social structure (e.g., cohorts of teachers) • Many school actors are not assigned to a single grade • Interactions within and across subgroup boundaries can have different effects on practice • Across subgroups, effects tend to be the result of acquiring new information (see, e.g., Granovetter, 1973) • Within subgroup boundaries, effects tend to be normative in nature (see, e.g., Coleman, 1988)

39. Subgroups and the Organizational Response to NCLB • The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 changed the institutional environment of schooling • Sanctions for schools failing to meet achievement targets for all subgroups of students (“tightening” coupling) • Requirement that schools and districts adopt evidence-based programs and practices • In reading, a focusing of resources on phonics-based instruction that built decoding skills of early readers (reducing heterogeneity of environment) • A core assumption of NCLB is that school actors will adapt to the changed environment because they are motivated by the threat of sanctions and promise of resources and rewards

40. NCLB Pressures Institutional Environment Sanctions Resources (Programs, PD) School

41. Penetrating the Boundary

42. NCLB Pressures: Varying Initial Practices Institutional Environment Sanctions Resources (Programs, PD) School

43. NCLB Pressures: Varying Initial Practices and Subgroups Institutional Environment Sanctions Resources (Programs, PD) (microfoundations) School

44. Normative Pressure • Pressure result from having a collegial tie (direct effect) with someone or from being part of the same subgroup (indirect effect) • Individual teachers may be particularly responsive to pressure from subgroup members to the extent that: • They share a common context for teaching (Smylie, 1989; Kennedy, 2005) • High levels of trust exist among subgroup members(see Ingersoll, 2003)

45. NCLB Pressures Institutional Environment Sanctions Resources (Programs, PD) TIME 1 School

46. NCLB Pressures Institutional Environment Sanctions Resources (Programs, PD) TIME 2 School

47. Implications: CHANGING SCHOOLS NOT TEACHERS • Subgroups, conformity to subgroup norm (for knowledge exchange)  increased variation between subgroups in organizational response • Uncoordinated effort (Shirley’s reform du jour) • Stratification: which kids/families can compensate? • Schism affecting next implementation of next innovation (Nora) • John and Gary: maybe OK that schools spit CISCO back out. % buy in during adoption • How Does this help create the engineers Rick Stephens needs?

49. Agent Decisions • Choose production technology based on which one gives them the highest utility given their level of knowledge • Decide on social investments based on perceived resources and probability of reciprocity from potential alters Production vs. Leisure w: return / effort w=f(price,knowledge) Conformity gii`: tie strength between actor i and actor i’ = f(trade balance)

50. Agent-Based Model:Diffusion of Extraction Practices