Microsoft U.S. Partners in Learning Mid-Tier Projects
Updated: July 25, 2007
Microsoft is committed to understanding more about what it takes to scale effective education programs. According to Dr. Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, Technology, Innovation, and Education at Harvard University and Mid-Tier project consultant, “scaling-up” involves adapting an innovation in a local setting to effective usage in a wide range of contexts. Currently, the nine Mid-Tier grantees are experimenting with the scaling strategies described below. Throughout this experimentation process, grantees are documenting lessons-learned, evaluating effectiveness, and sharing findings with various stakeholders.
The scale framework described below grows out the context of innovations in teaching/curriculum. Coburn (2003) defines scale as encompassing four interrelated dimensions: depth, sustainability, spread, and shift in reform ownership. “Depth” refers to deep and consequential change in classroom practice, altering teachers’ beliefs, norms of social interaction, and pedagogical principles as enacted in the curriculum. “Sustainability” involves maintaining these consequential changes over substantial periods of time, and “spread” is based on the diffusion of the innovation to large numbers of classrooms and schools. “Shift” requires districts, schools, and teachers to assume ownership of the innovation, deepening, sustaining, and spreading its impacts. A fifth possible dimension to extend Coburn’s framework is “evolution,” in which the innovation as revised by its adapters is influential in reshaping the thinking of its designers, creating a community of practice that evolves the innovation (Dede, 2006).
Learn about findings from the U.S. Partners in Learning initiative related to scalability in education in the Spring 2007 issue of Cable in the Classroom's Threshold.
For more information, view the Scaling Education Programs tutorial.
Dimensions on scale
| • | Deep and consequential changes in practice (depth) |
| • | Maintaining these changes in practice over substantial periods of time (sustainability) |
| • | Diffusion of the innovation to large numbers of users (spread) |
| • | Ownership of the innovation assumed by users, who deepen and sustain via adaptation (shift) |
| • | The innovation as revised by its adapters is influential in reshaping the thinking of its designers (evolution) |
Sources of leverage for scale
| • | Depth: evaluation and research to understand and enhance causes of effectiveness |
| • | Sustainability: robust-design to enable adapting to negative shifts in context |
| • | Spread: modifying to retain effectiveness while reducing resources and expertise required |
| • | Shift: moving beyond "brand" to support users as co-evaluators, co-designers, and co-scalers |
| • | Evolution: learning from users’ adaptations about how to rethink the innovation's model |
Traps to avoid in scaling up
| • | The trap of perfection prevents depth |
| • | The trap of mutation prevents sustainability |
| • | The trap of optimality prevents spread |
| • | The trap of origination prevents shift |
| • | The trap of unlearning prevents evolution |
Learn more about scale at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/scalingup/.
References
Coburn, C. (2003). Rethinking scale: Moving beyond numbers to deep and lasting change. Educational Researcher 32, 6 ( 3-12).
Dede, C. (2006). Scaling Up: Evolving Innovations beyond Ideal Settings to Challenging Contexts of Practice. In R.K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, pp. 551-566. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
