Rick Mintrop

1. UC Berkeley
Leadership for Educational Equity
Program (LEEP)
Rick Mintrop
mintrop@berkeley edu
With assistance from: Mahua Baral, Elizabeth Zumpe, and John Hall

2. CPED Essentials
• Excellence and ethics
• Making a positive difference
• Partnerships
• Problems of practice
• Professional knowledge base
• Signature pedagogy

3. Signature Pedagogy
For the professional education doctorate:
Design Development Studies
since 2006

4. Purpose
• Need of the field for cumulative practical
design knowledge in school and district
improvement
• Need of educational leaders for better
decision making on ‘big’ programmatic and
strategic decisions
• Need of schools and districts for a more
powerful model of organizational
improvement

5. The Provocation:
• Problems endure, but
attention to these
problems waxes and
wanes
• ‘Solutions’ are created and
maintained by advocates,
activists, researchers, and
industries in search for
problems that may fit
their solutions
• Problems addressed
systematically, through a
sequence of iterative
inquiries and adjustments
• Problems framed from the
user’s point of view
• Co-designs done with
people, not to people
Garbage Can
Improvement
Science

6. Design-based Mental Model
• What behaviors or practices, exactly, need changing
in the short or medium term?
• Where will we be 6 months from now in changing
these practices?
• How do we know we got there?
• Before we choose a solution path, what makes us
think that it will change people the way we envision?
• How do our proximal changes fit in with our big goal
of improving student learning?

7. Sample Design Studies
• Baham, E. (2014). School Capacity and Overload Review (SCORE):
Measuring School Capacity to Maximize School Improvement.
• Inglesby, B. (2014). Principals Utilizing Leadership for Special
Education: The PULSE Workshop Model for Improving the Practice
of Instructional Leadership for Special Education.
• Morizawa, G. H. (2014). Nesting the Neglected “R”: Writing
Instruction within a Prescriptive Literacy Program.
• Penny-James, B. (2012). Introducing Cultural Literacy Content into
Established, Skills-based Literacy Instruction.
• Soles, B. (2013). The SHU:SH Project (Slurs Hurt Us: Safety and
Health): Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students at School.
• Wayne, M. (2011). Visiting Classrooms: A Design Study to Support
Principals’ Instructional Leadership.

8. Steps in the Design Process
• Framing and defining the Problem of Practice
• Generating an Intuitive Theory of Action
• Challenging the Intuitive Theory of Action with the professional knowledge
base
• Theory of action
– Understanding the Problem
– Understanding the Change Process
• Intervention design
• Implementation of intervention
• Collecting Impact Data
• Collecting Process Data
• Data analysis and write-up

9. Design Example: Reducing Slurs
• Co-Design team at a social justice oriented high school
• Led by an EdD student who is the principal
• Following up on an anti-bullying campaign...
• What should we do next?

10. Your Turn:
Defining the Problem of Practice
• According to your best intuition, how would
you bound the problem of reducing slurs?
Share with a Partner

11. Framing and Defining the
Problem of Practice
• Are rampant slurs a matter of student
behavior?
• Are rampant slurs a matter of teacher
behavior?
• Problem of Practice:
Many teachers ignore, and do not
intervene when they hear, slurs.

12. Generating an
Intuitive Theory of Action
• We clarify the current state
• We imagine a desired state to be attained at
the end of the intervention
• We try to understand symptoms and causes of
the problem
• We entertain an intuitive theory of change:
actions or learnings that will move us closer to
the desired state

13. Challenging the
Intuitive Theory of Action
• Needs assessments
• Knowledge base: research and practical
design knowledge

14. Back to the Example:
Understanding the Problem
• Slurs are a pervasive phenomenon of youth
culture
• Adult leadership is needed
• Teachers have fear and discomfort around
slurs
• Silence, helplessness, and inaction ensue

15. Your Turn:
Designing a Change Process
• What sort of change process can you come up
with that might remedy the problem, as
understood by the Ed.D. student/ Principal of
the social justice high school?
Share with a Partner

16. Understanding the Change Process
Motivation
• Dissonance
• Shared values/ guilt
• Collective commitments
• Efficacy
Knowledge and Competence
• Norms of communication
• Deep understanding: why
do slurs hurt
• Strategies when
encountering slurs
• Trial and error

17. From Theory of Action to Intervention

18. Collecting Impact Data
Sample Instrument:
Student Survey: Frequency of slurs; frequency of adults intervening
Tally!of!Slurs! Within!Earshot!of!Adult!! Adult!Intervened?!
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19. Collecting Process Data

20. Theoretical Base of Design
Development Studies in LEEP
Initial Inspiration
Brown and Campione (1996) Fostering Communities of Learners
Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, and Schauble (2003) Role of Theory; Ecology of design
van den Akker (1999) Design development with results
Schön (1983) Reflective practitioner, rationality, intuition
Jonassen (2000) Problem solving for ill-structured problems
Copland, 2000; Timperley & Robinson, 1998 Problem solving in education administration
Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate Signature pedagogy
Schön & Rein, 1995 Problem framing
Later Sources
Plomp & Nieveen (2010); Netherlands Institute for
Curriculum Development (SLO)
(http://international.slo.nl/).
Practice of design development
Bryk, Gomez, & Grunow, 2011 Networked Improvement Communities
Martin (2009) Design thinking
Brenninkmeyer & Spillane (2008) Diagnostics- prognostics
Berwick (2008) Improvement science

21. Design Thinking
• Rationality and Intuition
• Predictability and Uncertainty
• Planning and Creativity
• Linearity and Dialogue between means and
ends
• Functionality and Appreciation
• Transferable design principles and Context
specificity

22. The Design Development Study Logic

23. Domain Knowledge
While challenges are plentiful, transformative
leaders for equity need actionable knowledge
for three interrelated core problems:
– How to make their organization more effective
– How to enable their organization to facilitate
complex learning
– How to insure that all members of their
organization value students equally

24. The Rigor of Design Development
• Visibility
• Verifiability
• Reliability
• Validity
• Showing a plausible connection between outcome metric
and process data
• Impact data: multiple baseline – varied growth on low-
inference standardized metric
• Process data: soft, evolving qualitative data around
process indicators related to activity chunks
• Iteration
• Transferability

25. LEEP Milestone Courses
Mile 1: Framing and defining the PoP; intuitive theory of action;
challenging intuitions with knowledge base; needs assessment
- 1st milestone paper
Mile 2: Design development methodology
- 2nd milestone paper
Mile 3: Planning the intervention; dissertation proposal; data
collection instruments; implementation context
Mile 4: IRB; baseline assessment; completing proposal
Mile 5: Oral exam on relevant Knowledge Base for dissertation
Mile 6: Implementation of project
Mile 7/8: Data analysis: impact data, process data explaining
impact; write up
DONE!

26. Design Development as Partnership

27. Upcoming Book
Design Development and School Improvement:
Bridging Research and Practice with Equity-
Relevant Interventions in Local Contexts
(working title)
A Practical Guide
Rick Mintrop
with Mahua Baral, Elizabeth Zumpe, and John Hall
Prospectus: http://leep.berkeley.edu/leep/textbook

28. Studying Design Thinking in LEEP
• Two-year self-evaluation on one cohort of 10
participants from 2012-2014; data from
implementation of 9 design studies
• The data include:
– Course materials
– Drafts of student papers
– Field notes from participant observers in courses
– Semi-structured and unstructured interviews with
students
– Verbal protocols or “think alouds”
– 32 distinct analytical codes and a variety of meta-matrices

29. Leaders’ Heuristics Conducive to
Design Development
• The leader is a change agent
• Change must yield results
• Solutions should be context-specific
• Our work is complex and uncertain and so is
change
• School improvement is iterative

30. Heuristic “Traps” for
Design Thinking
• Problems are the absence of solutions
• All problems are problems of practice
• We just know: the ‘what,’ the ‘why,’ and the
‘what to do’ are fused
• Change is a set of activities: learning is doing
• Change is filling an empty vessel: to implement
is success
• Means-ends relationships are matches between
a diffuse problem and a set of best practices

31. Research on Project Implementation
• Wearing multiple hats
• Logistic issues
• Shifting organizational priorities
• Unanticipated developments and design adjustments
• Effectiveness bias
• Reflection on one’s leadership
• Need for university partner

32. Underlying Principles of
Design-based Projects
• Actionable Problem of Practice
• Pivot on results and outcome metrics
• De-personalized, no judgment or blaming
• Begins with one’s intuitive theory of action
• Challenging intuitions with the knowledge base
• Theory of action connects baseline and outcome
• Impact and process data plausibly explain outcomes
• Trial and error, iterations
• Corroborating or revising theory of action
• Design principles identified and applied to next iteration

33. Superintendent
Network Superintendent
Superintendent
Execu ve Director,
Commission on Teacher
Creden aling
Director, Personnel & Special Services
Network Superintendent
Principal
Consultant, Na onal Wri ng Project
Supervisor, Secondary Programs
Sacramento
Los Angeles
Head, Independent School
Director of Nutri onal Learning,
County Office of Educa on
Supervisor, English
Learner Services
Director, Stanford
Interna onal & Cross-
Cultural Program
Supervisor, Curriculum &
Communica ons, School for the Deaf
Assistant Principal
Director, English Learner
& Categorical Programs
LEEP Students and Alumni
Principal,
Montessori School
Assistant Superintendent,
Diocese of Oakland
Chief Business Officer, County
Office of Educa on
Director, Curriculum & Instruc on
Principal,
Charter School
Coordinator, Principal Prepara on Program, UC Berkeley
Principal
Lecturer, CSUEB
Principal
Principal
Coordinator – Charter Schools,
County Office of Educa on
Superintendent
Associate Superintendent,
Diocese of Sacramento
Director, Personnel
Manager, New Teacher Support
Superintendent
Hollister
Director, Curriculum
& Instruc on
Assistant Principal
Pajaro Valley
Director, Migrant
Educa on
Parlier
Pasadena
Principal
CEO, Transforma ve
Teacher Training
Chief Program Officer,
Transforma ve Teacher Training
Asst. Professor,
SFSU
Seattle
Principal
Director,
Secondary
Educa on
Superintendent
Director, School
Transforma on
Manager, Migrant Educa on,
County Office of Educa on
Principal
Science Specialist
Principal
Tracy
Principal
Principal
Director of Research, Assessment, &
Accountability, County Office of Educa on
Principal
Director, Curriculum & Instruc on
Assistant Superintendent
Supervisor, CSUEB
Asst. Professor, CSUEB
Coordinator, Academic Success
Coordinator, Student Services
Principal
October 2014
Coach,
Charter Network
Napa
Director, Assessment
& Achievement
Davis
Principal
Principal
Coordinator, College & Career Network, UC Berkeley
Lecturer, SFSU
Deputy Director, English
Learner Program
Deputy Marine of
Academics, Naval
Post-Graduate School
Monterey
Director, Curriculum &
Instruc on
Math Coordinator
Regional Director,
Child Development Centers
Lebanon, NH
Execu ve Director,
Educators’ Ins tute
Coach,
Charter School
Principal
Consultant
Principal
Director of Special Educa on
Boston, MA
Director, School Leaders
for Tomorrow
Consultant
Director of Technology

34. Leadership for Educational Equity Program:
http://leep.berkeley.edu
Rick Mintrop:
mintrop@berkeley.edu
34