Working to improve

This ebook brings a comparative focus to seven improvement approaches that are now in increasing use in both U.S. and international education settings. The authors and editors explore both the commonalities that exist among these different strategies and also highlight features that are distinctive to each. The seven approaches are: Networked Improvement Communities, Design-based Implementation Research, Deliverology, Implementation Science, Lean for Education, Six Sigma and Positive Deviance. Some of these have been around for a long time (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma), while others are either more recent addition to the scene (Networked Improvement, Design Based Implementation Research, Deliverology) or just recently adapted for application in education (Positive Deviance, Implementation Science). Whether long established or newly arrived, it is clear that an appetite within the education sector for these quality improvement approaches and tools is growing rapidly. For practicing educators to make wise choices among these alternatives, given the particulars of some specific situation, they need to understand better both the commonalities among these approaches and also the distinctive purposes and strengths of each. There is a need for an understanding of each individually and all of them collectively. This is what this ebook seeks to provide.