Practices: What you can expect
36
post-template-default,single,single-post,postid-36,single-format-standard,river-core-1.0.5,river-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,river-theme-ver-2.2,ajax_updown,page_not_loaded,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-7.6,vc_responsive

Practices

03 March | Practices | Brooke Barrett

Practices: What you can expect

What you can expect from us here is a place where what is proven in education is highlighted and celebrated. Not unlike with our trends section, our goal is to always keep this work and these posts forward-thinking and looking, to help you cut through the occasional fluff and noise in the sector.

What is “proven” can be defined in a million different ways depending on who you are talking to and what standard of proof or research they abide by. At this point, I’m reluctant to set a bar since we’re really not seeking to be a research institution or think tank; there are already a lot of really great organizations serving that role in education.

However, there are a few standards articulated out there that I think are logical, reasonable, and clear enough for most folks to get behind and understand; one of the best examples is RAND Corporation’s:

RAND Corporation’s Standards for High Quality Research

  • The problem should be well formulated, and the purpose of the study should be clear.
  • The study approach should be well designed and executed.
  • The study should demonstrate understanding of related studies.
  • The data and information should be the best available.
  • Assumptions should be explicit and justified.
  • The findings should advance knowledge and bear on important policy issues.
  • The implications and recommendations should be logical,warranted by the findings, and explained thoroughly, with appropriate caveats.
  • The documentation should be accurate, understandable, clearly structured, and temperate in tone.
  • The study should be compelling, useful, and relevant to stakeholders and decision-makers.
  • The study should be objective, independent, and balanced.

This standard should give you a good sense of what we are looking for when we are cultivating and curating “proven” practices for you; we are looking for those that are consistently supported by reliable research.

As I wrote in the first post for trends, when I talked about founding Edutelligentsia with others I know, respect, and admire, it was always with a strong belief that our “collective intelligence”

“…a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills…The basis and goal of collective intelligence is mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities” –Pierre Lévy

—if cultivated, curated, and harnessed in a way that was created by and accessible to many—will result in building a stronger education ecosystem. The work you do everyday, the work we get to do with you, and the results/lessons of that work makes up that collective education intelligence (a.k.a. the “edutelligentsia”). We’re excited to start cultivating and curating practices with you and we hope that you’ll help us highlight and celebrate those truly outstanding practices here.

21