These organizational resources do not directly determine teachers’ practice. Instead, Spillane and colleagues explain, “For resources to affect an organization’s output, they must be available and they have to be recognized and used by organizational members” (Spillane et al., 2009; p. 414). In other words, organizational resources must be distributed, accessed, and ultimately activated by teachers if they are to have any influence on practice. We apply this frame to understand how the organizational resources of human capital, social capital, and routines are distributed to teachers through school and district policies and then accessed and activated by teachers.
4.2.2.1 Distribution
Districts and schools can distribute these organizational resources through local policies related to coaching, PLCs, and instructional routines. For instance, a district might hire a math coach to support teachers in improving their math instruction. Districts or schools often specify the role that coaches are to play, and make hiring decisions that shape the resources that teachers may receive when interacting with the coach (Coburn & Russell, 2008; Penuel et al., 2009). For instance, will coaches specialize in a specific content area, or provide general instructional support? With regard to PLCs, districts or schools often support PLCs by designating time in teachers’ work days for them to meet. Additionally, districts or schools may specify the purpose and intended function of PLCs, who is to participate, and what types of interaction they are to involve. Finally, districts or schools may employ formalized instructional routines between administrators and teachers in order to encourage reflection and improvement-oriented discussion related to instructional practice. For example, many districts and schools mandate cycles of observation and reflective feedback tied to annual evaluations.
119
District and school distribution of these organizational resources is an important macro- level feature that shapes the organizational resources that are available to teachers as they implement instructional policies such as college and career ready standards. However, a district or school’s distribution of these resources to teachers does not guarantee that teachers will draw upon them (i.e. access) and ultimately use them (i.e. activation) to improve their instruction. For that, we look to micro-level teachers’ interactions.
4.2.2.2 Understanding access and activation through teacher networks
We employ a network lens in order to understand how teachers access and activate these organizational resources through their interactions with others. Social network methodologies provide a way to systematically and precisely measure who teachers interact with and the resources that they may draw from these interactions. Networks theorists explain that resources are embedded in social structures, and can be accessed and activated for specific purposes (Lin, 1999). We examine teachers’ “math networks”, meaning their interactions about math instruction, in order to understand how they access and activate organizational resources in their collaborations with others.
Social network methodologies are an apt analytical tool for our conceptual frame of resource distribution, access, and activation. First, network surveys and interviews generally ask teachers to report the extent to which they engage with others, whether it be coaches, teachers via a PLC, or administrators via an instructional routine. These methodologies do not assume that just because these resources have been distributed by school and district policies that they will be recognized and accessed by teachers. Second, some network methodologies do not require that researchers set the bounds of organizations in advance, allowing for resources that teachers may access outside of school or district boundaries to emerge. Finally, network methodologies can
provide means for measuring the extent to which teachers activate resources they engage with in their networks by attending to the content of their interactions.
Access
Beyond having resources distributed through school and district policies, teachers must actively draw upon or access these resources through their interactions with others in their “math network”. Social network methodologies have revealed valuable insights in studies exploring how teachers access the organizational resources of coaches, PLCs, and routines through their networks. For example, measuring the position of coaches in school networks has proven to have important implications for the extent to which teachers’ access the expertise of coaches and, subsequently, their reform implementation (Atteberry & Bryk, 2010; Coburn et al., 2013; Coburn & Russell, 2008; Penuel et al., 2009). Additionally, network methods have revealed important implications for teachers attitudes, beliefs, and practices based on how they access teaching peers in their networks (Daly et al., 2010; Frank, Zhao, & Borman, 2004; Frank, Zhao, Penuel, Ellefson, & Porter, 2011; Horn, Chen, Garner, & Frank, 2017; Moolenaar, Sleegers, & Daly, 2012; Siciliano, 2016; Siciliano et al., 2017). Formal school structures such as grade level or content area teams influence who teachers access for advice and support (Spillane, Kim, & Frank, 2012), and these groups can influence teachers’ beliefs about instructional reforms over time (Siciliano et al., 2017). Furthermore, network methods have shown that teachers’ access to administrators and formal instructional leaders may help to foster trust, collective efficacy, and an innovative climate (Moolenaar, Daly, & Sleegers, 2010; Spillane & Kim, 2012).
121
Activation
We argue that the resources teachers access will be activated when they engage in substantive exchanges about teaching and learning. Instructional reforms call for teachers to make substantial shifts in their instruction that go beyond changing surface-level features (Cuban, 1993; Tyack & Tobin, 1994). In order to make these changes, teachers need professional learning opportunities. We join a growing number researchers in measuring the substance of what transpires in teachers’ network interactions in order to understand the potential of teachers’ interactions for generating professional learning opportunities (Baker-Doyle, 2015; Coburn et al., 2013; Coburn, Russell, Kaufman, & Stein, 2012; Coburn & Russell, 2008; Horn, Chen, Garner, & Frank, 2017; Penuel et al., 2009), drawing on the concept of depth. By “depth” we refer to the extent to which teacher interactions attend to instructional concepts, pedagogy, and student thinking in a specific and detailed way (Cynthia E Coburn et al., 2013, 2012; Cynthia E Coburn & Russell, 2008). Lower-depth interactions are those that focus on surface-level features of instruction (e.g. mapping out when different content will be taught) or non-instructional issues (e.g. school schedules, materials). High depth interactions will enable teachers to activate the organizational resources that they access through their collaborations with others in their networks. Network methodologies have allowed researchers to explore the link between the depth of teachers’ interactions with those in their networks and educational outcomes of interest. Teachers who had strong ties with colleagues, access to others with relevant expertise, and engaged in higher depth interactions related to math instruction were better able to sustain reform-oriented math instruction over time (Coburn et al., 2012). Additionally, district developed instructional routines can help to foster high depth interactions amongst teachers and leaders
related to instructional reform (Cynthia E Coburn et al., 2013; Cynthia E Coburn & Russell, 2008).
Guided by our theoretical framework of exploring organizational resources as a key lever for teachers’ policy implementation, we explore the following research questions:
1. How does the distribution of math coaching at the district or school level relate to teachers’ access and activation of human capital?
2. How does the distribution of math professional learning communities at the district or school level relate to teachers’ access and activation of social captial?
3. How does the distribution of math coaching at the district or school level relate to teachers’ access and activation of human resources?
4.3 DATA SOURCES AND METHODS