HTH 305: Inquiry into Practice II

This 12-week portion of the course is all about doing the work of improvement. Students will engage in a series of 6 learning cycles (LCs) that serve to deepen their understanding of the problem they are trying to solve and, ideally, to lead toward measurable improvements. More specifically, students will a) identify or develop measurement tools that allow them to gather baseline data; b) undertake at least 4 formal “Plan-Do-Study-Act” cycles; and c) identify preliminary findings and/or learnings which emerge from this process. Throughout, students will be supported in designing and piloting both qualitative and quantitative data collection tools, such as field notes, exit cards, interviews, surveys, focus groups, and work samples; students also will learn techniques for preliminary data analysis. Midway through the course, students will return to the relevant research literature in order to strategically inform their learning cycles. At the end of the course, students will synthesize their actions and their learning in order to participate in a mid-project “improvement review,” which they will present to their advisers and fellow advisees.  

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

• In terms of the broad arc of the improvement research process: where have we been, where are we now, and where are we going?

• What do I want to have improved by this spring and how will I know if I’ve made headway?

• What do I want to have learned by the spring and how will I know if I’ve made headway?

• What best practices can guide my thinking as I develop tools for collecting baseline and outcome data?

• What do I need to do next in order to launch the “doing” portion of my project?

• How are these learning cycles changing or deepening my understanding of the underlying problem? How can I represent these changes using tools such as driver diagrams?   

• How can the research literature continue to inform my actions?