Scaling Up through Networked Improvement (SUNI): Testing a practical theory about improving math outcomes for developmental students at scale

扩大有效项目的规模对于显著改善教育成果至关重要。然而，很多时候，在一种情况下被证明有前景的创新无法获得大规模的成功。“通过网络改进扩大规模”（SUNI）项目的目的是学习如何在各种高等教育机构中有效地采用卡内基数学途径（CMP）这一复杂的教育创新。CMP计划是一项系统性的改革努力，旨在显著提高进入发展性数学专业的大学生的成绩。每年，全国大约有170万本科生被安排学习发展性数学课程，他们必须完成先决条件和大学水平的数学课程才能获得学位或转学。然而，在社区大学，大约80%的学生不能在3年内完成大学水平的数学课程，而在综合四年制大学，60%的学生不能在2年内完成。CMP包括两个课程路径，Statway和Quantway，加速学生进入发展数学，并在一年内通过大学水平的数学。CMP的教学设计为学生提供了学习数学内容的机会，这些内容与他们的学术目标相关，采用以学生为中心和以问题为中心的方法，支持学生的坚持和参与。这项工作的一个显著特点是，实施路径课程的机构被组织成一个网络改进社区（NIC）。CMP NIC为机构领导人提供支持，帮助他们学习如何有效地实施衔接课程，并在成员机构之间和内部分享他们的学习成果。自2011年启动以来，Statway/Quantway已在58所高等教育机构实施，并影响了22,000多名学生，将发展数学和大学学分完成率从约6%提高到50%或更高。SUNI项目将使另外12所学院加入NIC，影响至少280名教师。根据目前的课程成功率，与传统的补习课程相比，参与项目的学生中，预计将有1万多名学生完成发展性数学课程，并在大学取得成功。SUNI项目将测试和完善通过NIC在机构内扩展复杂教育创新的实践理论，同时在全国范围内扩展CMP项目。三个组别的高等教育机构将会大规模实施该计划。将支持这些机构的领导团队开展一系列实施活动（CMP实施框架），通过一系列结构化的学习活动，利用正式的改进方法，并利用NIC作为一种社会学习结构。通过广泛的统计研究和领导力学习的深入案例研究，该项目将建立对SUNI方法有效的理解，对谁有效，以及在什么条件下有效。关于大规模创新的制度实施的结果证据，以及从这些知识中获得的具体产品，对教育研究、政策制定和课堂实践具有重要价值。该项目的成果传播将为创新、组织变革和改革提供信息，特别是为在高等教育环境中实施全系统变革而进行的大规模努力。

Scaling effective programs is critical for dramatically improving educational outcomes. Too often, however, innovations that prove promising in one context fail to achieve success at scale. The aim of the Scaling Up through Networked Improvement (SUNI) project is to learn how a complex educational innovation, the Carnegie Math Pathways (CMP), is effectively taken to scale across a variety of institutions of higher education. The CMP initiative is a systemic reform effort to dramatically improve the outcomes of college students who place into developmental mathematics. Roughly 1.7 million first-time undergraduates are placed into developmental mathematics courses each year across the country and must complete prerequisites as well as a college-level mathematics course to complete a degree or transfer. However, in community colleges, approximately 80% of such students do not complete a college-level mathematics course within 3 years, and in comprehensive 4-year institutions 60% fail to do so within 2 years. The CMP consists of two course pathways, Statway and Quantway, that accelerate students who place into developmental mathematics to and through college-level mathematics in a single year. CMP's instructional design provides students with opportunities to learn mathematics content that is engaging and relevant to their academic goals using a student-centered and problem-centered approach that supports students' persistence and engagement. A distinctive feature of the effort is that institutions implementing pathways courses are organized as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC). The CMP NIC provides support for institutional leaders to learn about how to effectively implement pathways courses and share their learning across and within member institutions. Since their launch in 2011, Statway/Quantway have been implemented in 58 institutions of higher education and have impacted over 22,000 students improving developmental mathematics and college credit completion success rates from around 6% to 50% or higher. The SUNI project will bring an additional 12 colleges into the NIC, impacting at least 280 instructors. Based on current course success rates, 10,000 more students across participating sites are expected to complete developmental mathematics courses and be successful in college than would have done so with traditional remediation. The SUNI project will test and refine a practical theory about scaling complex educational innovations within institutions through a NIC, while scaling the CMP program nationwide. Three cohorts of institutions of higher education will implement the CMP at scale. Leadership teams in those institutions will be supported to undertake a set of implementation activities (the CMP Implementation Framework) through a structured series of learning engagements utilizing formal improvement methods and leveraging the NIC as a social learning structure. Through broad statistical study and deep case study of leadership learning, the project will build understanding about what works, for whom, and under what conditions for the SUNI approach. The resulting evidence about institutional implementation of innovation at scale, as well as the concrete products derived from that knowledge, are of significant value to educational research, policy development, and classroom practice. The project's dissemination of findings will inform innovation, organizational change, and reform, particularly about large-scale efforts to implement system-wide changes in higher education settings.