WestEd will have a presence at the fifth annual Carnegie Foundation Summit on Improvement in Education, April 3–5, 2018, at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis, in San Francisco, California.

This three-day, sold out event brings together a diverse and vibrant community of educators, researchers, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and policymakers dedicated to accelerating improvement in education. View a list of our presentations below.

Tuesday, April 3

Pre-Conference Session: Using Data for Quality Improvement
WestEd Presenter: Sola Takahashi
Time: 9am-4pm
Description:
This pre-conference course delves into how to develop and use measurement and data. Participants will learn to link their improvement ideas to concrete measures in order to understand if and how their system is improving. They will also learn about using data to examine variation and understand systems, how to create a system of measures to support improvement plans, and the resources and routines that underpin effective data use.

Thursday, April 5

Session: Improving Teacher Preparation and Development
WestEd Presenters: Jonathan Dolle, Melissa White
Time: 10:15–11:30am
Description:
Participants will learn about the technical assistance infrastructure New Generation Educators Initiative developed to improve the capacity of K–8 teachers to deliver standards-aligned instruction. Participants will also hear about the New Teacher Center’s research, strategies, and tools, including lessons learned and actionable steps for supporting the formation, scale, and sustainability of impactful networks of districts and state leaders.

Session: Two Network Approaches to Support Social Emotional Learning
WestEd Presenter: Haley McNamara
Time: 1:30–2:45pm
Description: This session will compare and contrast the efforts of two networks focused on student agency and engagement. The Student Success Network (SSN), a four-year-old networked improvement community (NIC) of education and youth development non-profits in New York City, has seen rapid growth and tremendous progress in common data collection. SSN will share their work to solidify member ownership of the network and increase the rigor of their continuous improvement cycles. In addition, a Productive Persistence improvement team of researchers and faculty from within the Carnegie Math Pathways NIC will present their findings from three interventions to promote students’ use of effective learning strategies, as well as the data that led them to develop those interventions. Participants will also learn about the structures and processes that have allowed the Productive Persistence team to learn together since 2011.

Session: Mature Enterprises Scale, Spread, and Continuously Improve
WestEd Presenter: Ruth Schoenbach
Time: 1:30–2:45pm
Description:
In this sessions, leaders of two mature programs — Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) at WestEd and Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) — will demonstrate their commitment to improvement and their evidence of scale, sustainability, and positive program effects. SLI aims to improve students’ ability to learn from complex texts by building teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and pedagogical capacities. BARR aims to create equitable schools so that every student has access to a high-quality education where adults know them, recognize their strengths, and help them succeed.

Poster Session: Leveraging Learning Huddles to Improve Instruction
WestEd Presenters: Kim Austin, Marianne Justus
Description: The Literacy Improvement Partnership aims to improve writing outcomes for K–6 students in Washoe County School District by focusing on teacher-led, grade-level team meeting protocols called “learning huddles.” The poster describes how teachers implement plan-do-study-act cycles of inquiry to improve student collaboration, time for independent writing, and writing conferences.