Dr Kevin Winn

This case study examines in-depth the participating districts in Cohort 3 of the 2021 Early Learning Network (ELN), an inter-district network focused on redesigning learning environments to better address the early learning needs of vulnerable children. Over the course of the 2021 calendar year, The Innovation Project (TIP) and The Friday Institute developed and implemented this network and provided individual coaching for district leaders.

The NC ASSISTments Replication Study began in the 2017-18 school year and aimed to replicate the findings from a prior study conducted in Maine. That study found that the students of 7th-grade mathematics teachers who used ASSISTments for homework scored significantly higher on the Terra Nova mathematics exam than the students of teachers who did not use ASSISTments. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic forced North Carolina’s schools to move to all-remote instruction in March 2020 and the End-of-Grade exams were canceled, which made the replication study impossible to complete. This forced a change in the ASSISTments study and a re-evaluation of what researchers could learn about the use of ASSISTments in schools in North Carolina. Using surveys and interviews, researchers at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation conducted a case study of teachers’ use of ASSISTments in in-person instruction and in remote instruction, both during the NC ASSISTments Replication Study and outside of the study.

From January-December 2021, five school districts participated in The Innovation Project’s (TIP) Early Learning Network, an initiative that centers equity in addressing vulnerable children’s learning needs. Participants on district teams underwent the Liberatory Design Process—a seven step approach to centering equity in reimagining and redesigning educational interventions. Researchers from the Program Evaluation and Education Research (PEER) Group from the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation sought to better understand (1) how the design process impacted district teams and (2) the supports and barriers to design thinking and how to improve the design thinking process. Through case study methodology that incorporated focus group interviews, one-on-one interviews and artifact analysis, the researchers found that notions of accountability and intentionality, the awareness of self and others, and the development of community partnerships were impactful for districts conducting this equity work. Further, intradistrict dynamics, the availability of resources, team-level dynamics and non-linear processes frequently acted as supports and barriers to successful implementation of the Liberatory Design Process.