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Hope as Strategy: The Effectiveness of an Innovation of the Mind
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Students may be situated within complex systems that are nested within each other. This complexity may also envelop institutional structures that lead to the socio-economic reification of student post-secondary opportunities by obscuring positive goals. This may be confounded by community misunderstandings about the changed world that students are entering. These changes include social and economic factors that impact personal and economic freedoms, our ability to live at peace, and the continuing trend of students graduating high school underprepared.
Building on previous cycles of action research, this multi-strand mixed-methods study examined the effects of the innovation of the I am College and Career Ready Student Support Program (iCCR). The innovation was collaboratively developed and implemented over a 16-week period using a participatory action research approach. The situated context of this study was a new high school in the urban center of San Diego, California. The innovation included a student program administered during an advisory period and a parent education program.
Qualitative research used a critical ethnographic design that analyzed data from artifacts, journals, notes, and the interviews of students (n = 8), parents (n = 6), and teachers (n = 5). Quantitative research included the analysis of data from surveys administered to inform the development of the innovation (n = 112), to measure learning of parent workshop participants (n = 10), and to measure learning, hope, and attitudinal disposition of student participants (n = 49). Triangulation was used to answer the studies’ four research questions. Triangulated findings were subjected to the method of crystallization to search for hidden meanings and multiple truths.
Findings included the importance of parent involvement, the influence of positive goals, relational implications of goal setting and pathway knowledge on agentic thinking, and that teacher implementation of the innovation may have influenced student hope levels. This study argued for a grounded theory situated within a theoretical framework based upon Snyder’s Hope Theory and Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory. This argument asserted that influence on pathway and agency occurred at levels of high proximal process with the influence of goal setting occurring at levels of lower proximal process.
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... In this way DT seeks out solving the "right" problem in any given context and considers the people within that ecosystem. While DT has been used in educational settings (Gallagher & Thordarson, 2018;Loescher 2018;Scheer, Noweski & Meinel, 2012), there remains many questions about how it can be aligned to the current educational landscape, K-12 institutions and redesign initiatives. ...
... Gutek, 2004;Crotty, 1998). It has been argued that philosophical dispositions have impacts to how educational changes are adopted (Loescher, 2018;Main, 2009;Gutek, 2004). Therefore, in addition to developing an operational definition of DT, we have proposed a theoretical alignment of DT within the field of philosophy (see Table 1). ...
... The importance of school culture has been well established within the literature (Loescher, 2018;Sheehan & Rall, 2011;Ravitz, 2010;Yasso, 2005). Within the framework of our operational definition of DT, we find that there are three primary aspects that must be considered. ...
Design thinking (DT) is both a method and mindset applicable in a broad range of fields and industries. Some of the defining features of DT included focusing on need definition before problem solving, abdication of preconceived outcomes, being situated towards ambiguity, being human-centric, and having a reflexive process that seeks to increase contextual knowledge using empathy as the basis of understanding. Based on a review of the literature and the authors professional experience, we proposed an operational definition of DT, described several of the methodologies and attributes of DT, situated DT within a philosophical framework, and discussed implications to practice in K-12 educational institutions. We argued that DT represents the operationalization of constructivist practice for learning and can be applicable to all aspects K-12 educational institutions including leadership and operations.
Keywords: Design thinking, constructivism, philosophical framework, education, human-centered design
Innovation is a buzz word that is subjective and can illicit palpable feeling of organizational pride or fear. But what is innovation? What are some of the frameworks that produce the environments that embrace innovation? What are the characteristics of innovative leadership that create an organizational culture that values not just innovation, but the processes that support it which may also lead to high levels of failure. In this presentation Dr. Loescher reflects on innovation, and provides a brief introduction on his views on it from his own research and leadership experiences.
Within the literature, action research (AR) has been described as a method and a dispositional approach. This overview of the attributes of AR takes the position that AR is a dispositional approach to research methods that has desirable methods associated with it. This presentation to doctoral students at East Stroudburg University of Pennsylvania examined the foundations of AR, the dispositional attributes of AR, the positionality of the researcher within AR, and why AR my be an innovators approach to systems change in education.
The events of 2020 represented environments where change was necessitated by circumstance. However, a continuing problem of practice for the public sector is driving a culture of innovation. In this session we will discuss how to move educational institutions and community-based organization from being risk-adverse to being places where the spirit of innovation thrives. This includes a deep dive into innovation frameworks and why sustainable innovative environment deliver higher performance outcomes to our organizational purpose.
In the spring of 2020, educators and community-based organizations were thrust into new ways of interacting and providing supports to our children and families. Many will continue with this challenge for the foreseeable future. In this session we will discuss the complexity of what has happened, developing the health disposition of innovators, practical frameworks for innovation, and why children need the support of educators and community-based organizations now more than ever.
In the spring of 2020, students across the United States joined others across the world in school closures. Educators and youth workers were thrust into new ways of interacting with students. Many will continue with this challenge for the foreseeable future. In this session, we will discuss the complexity of what has happened, the health disposition of innovators, practical frameworks for innovation, and why educators and youth workers are needed now more than ever.
In the English language, there are two common understandings of the word Ontology, that of being and becoming. Action research is guided by understandings of the past, is grounded in the present, and is solutions orientated towards a more ideal future state. Guided by the literature and contextual knowledge, an action researcher may simultaneously be a disrupter of the status quo, an instrument of data collection, and the navigator of a political environment. This keynote address focuses on action research as a means of systemic improvement for the Friearian notion of praxis towards our first vocation, that of becoming more human. Dr. Loescher will discuss how action research is being used as a means of emancipatory practice in the service of our students and communities.
Design thinking (DT) can be considered a method, approach, or disposition towards problem solving, organizational development, and community building. The traditions of DT date to the 1950’s and originate from a variety of design sciences. In this UC San Diego, Design @ Large presentation, Dr. Loescher explores DT and how it can be utilized to transform organizations and communities. This includes an exploration of theory, situating DT within organizational philosophy, and how it is practically being used in the private and social sectors as a way of mobilizing transformational generative thinking.
Key words: Design thinking, design sciences, organizational development, generative thinking
School and school district culture are artifacts of the policies, practices, and beliefs of the institutional systems, communities, and national structures in which they are embedded. Often times these systems remain unchecked and carry hidden assumptions about who, what, when, where, and why educational experiences occur within the context of the greater community. In this keynote address Dr. Loescher explores the importance of a philosophical alignment of our theoretical frameworks and organizational practices of the district/school community to facilitate change in the classroom. He will explain how the methods of Participatory Action Research and the emerging practices of Design Thinking in education are advancing organizational innovation; adult and student learning; and student achievement through a pedagogy hope.
This study uses a mixed methods approach to examine a new type of curriculum configuration that supports students’ transitions to college: career technical programs of study (POS). Interview and survey data were collected from a college and its feeder high schools in each of three well-established (“mature”) sites in geographically varied communities in the United States to investigate how POS are structured, what the key the “ingredients” are, and what students experience as they move through the POS. Interview findings suggest that the key elements of POS include dedicated staff to create secondary–postsecondary connections, active multistakeholder advisory committees, and flexibility and compromise in developing dual-credit options for students. Survey data show that high school students feel positively about their experiences in POS; however, career guidance is lacking. Student records indicate that even when POS were in place to support their transition, less than one-fifth of students remained in the same POS in college that they began in high school. Results are discussed in relation to the 2006 Perkins IV legislation.
Constructivist grounded theory is useful for pursuing critical qualitative inquiry. This article introduces critical inquiry and shows its connections with pragmatism, the philosophical foundation of constructivist grounded theory. Pragmatism provides a theoretical frame for thinking about critical qualitative inquiry; constructivist grounded theory is a method of conducting it. Constructivist grounded theory broadens critical inquiry as it fosters defining emergent critical questions throughout the research process. This method also encourages interrogating the taken-for-granted methodological individualism pervading much of qualitative inquiry because it facilitates developing a deeply reflexive stance called methodological self-consciousness. In turn, this methodological self-consciousness supports researchers in interrogating their data, nascent analyses, and actions while they proceed with their projects. The article mentions several strategies for putting constructivist grounded theory into practice and concludes with ideas about where this practice could take us.