Services: Practice-Based Inquiry^® Services

Catalpa Ltd.™ offers services that tailor the technology of Practice-Based Inquiry to the specific objectives and requirements of a client. Since Practice-Based Inquiry sets new limits and provides new opportunities for follow-through and action, Catalpa works with its clients to understand both.

The services include:

• Conducting school visits
• NEW! Special services for Rhode Island School Districts
• Designing new Practice-Based Inquiry^® protocols
• Strengthening the rigor in existing visit protocols
• Program and policy evaluation
• Establishing a Practice-Based Inquiry^® large scale accountability and support system

Schools that have good control of their governance are good candidates for a single visit (e.g. private and charter schools). Practice-Based Inquiry visits often prove particularly helpful to schools that are clear they want to make important jumps in the quality of the teaching they offer their students or that appear to face intractable or deeply puzzling problems in their daily life and work.

The purpose for commissioning a Catalpa School visit range from:

• Wanting an expert report that carries with it the highest degree of legitimacy
• Wanting to gain a deeper understanding of a particular vexing problem in the school’s performance
• Piloting a protocol for a larger project
• Building local capacity to carry out visits.

Catalpa has considerable international resources to take full responsibility for the conduct of a visit and the preparation of a school report. Catalpa can fill teams with national and international experts on either content or methodological issues. Catalpa can help you choose a team of peers. An example can be found at Catalpa Project Sites: School Networks: The Chicago Schools Alliance.

To inquire about this service click here.
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NEW!  Special Services for Rhode Island School Districts
Because of severe budget cuts, Rhode Island school districts face historic challenges to strengthening student learning in their schools.
Click here for more details on SALT.

Catalpa, and others who have studied the effectiveness of the SALT visit, gives the visit extraordinarily high marks for its value to the schools and visit team participants. A Rhode Island principal wrote, “It is the best thing RIDE has done for improving student learning in Rhode Island.

Over the last four years, Catalpa has administered the Team Member Survey™ to learn how team participants perceive the value of the SALT visit. The response across teams from 1996 to 2008 was high (52%).

And the ratings were extraordinarily high for a survey of this type. Some of the initial findings of this year’s analysis include: 

“Over the 12 years of SALT visits, 86% of teacher team-member respondents say that participating on the one week-long visit was “intense” and that it was the “most powerful professional development experience they have ever had.”

They say it “gave me new ways to think about my teaching” and “new ways to look at student learning in my classroom.”

More than 90% of the teachers said the SALT visit made a “positive difference” in how well they now actually teach.

Between 83-87% of the team members rated the effectiveness of the SALT visit “as a way to improve student learning” at “high” or “very high”. With this rating they place the SALT visit at the top of many state department school interventions. They see the SALT visit as 30 percent more effective than “state testing,” as a program “to improve student learning.”

Team members (on teams between 2004 and 2008) strongly agree that the SALT visit “has proved itself,” and is not “just a pilot that will fade away.” 

Even more relevant in this time of severe budget cuts, they do not see the SALT visit as “a nice luxury that we can’t afford at this time.” Rather, they believe that RIDE should give “top priority to its continued use." They do not see the visit as “inherently too subjective.” Rather, they see the SALT visit as in “the forefront of new and better ways for a state department to promote better accountability.” 

For more detail see SALT Results in the SALT visit section of project sites.

SALT has been funded solely by state money, so it comes under the same tough scrutiny as district spending. The criteria are not program value, but whether it helps reduce the budget.

The SALT visit has proved itself as a useful, efficient tool for districts to take on. Its potential cost to value ratio is excellent. Since active school practitioners carry out the visit and visit related activities, it has great potential as a professional development tool, as well as an accountability tool. This is evident in the high scores on the SALT survey that team participants gave their participation on the visit.

The direct, substantive conclusions in the visit report about how well a school is performing have spurred direct improvement in schools, but they also have the potential of informing districts that are shaping their policy and activities for improving the learning of the students they serve.

Because of these factors, as well as its institutional commitment to districts, RIDE is devoting a considerable percentage of its SALT staff time to strengthening the approach of the visit for district purposes. Likewise, Catalpa has designed the services it can offer toward the same goals.

The legitimacy and power of the SALT visit is built upon the principles of Practice-Based Inquiry. As this website explains, Catalpa’s sole focus for the last 16 years has been on the study, development and program implementation of PBI principles. This includes Catalpa’s work with RIDE over the last 12 years, during which it has provided continuous services on the design of visits and the endorsement of SALT visit reports. Click here to see more detail on SALT.

Catalpa has played a key role in developing the SALT visit—including training and coaching SALT visit chairs and endorsing the SALT visit reports. Catalpa has also played a research and consultant role for NEASC resulting in improvements in its accreditation visits to high schools. Catalpa’s work is based on the principles of Practice-Based Inquiry^® described in this site.

Assessing the district-wide benefits gained from SALT visits with recommendations about how to build on the expertise gained by those who have already been on visits.

Instituting a district-wide SALT school visit program.

Using Practice-Based Inquiry principles for local school self-study (In-School Visit™). Click here for more.

Building networks of teachers and principals to examine individual practice using Practice-Based Inquiry.

Developing district level cadres of leaders who can support Practice-Based Inquiry activities. This would include chairs for teams, and school improvement specialists to work directly with schools.

Call or send e-mail to set up an exploratory conversation about:

What are the benefits and costs of using Practice-Based Inquiry  and the SALT visit as a district tool?

How can PBI and the SALT visit be adapted to the objectives and strengthen the services of school districts?

What services can Catalpa offer your district that will increase the effectiveness of its work toward its objectives?

Check out Tom A. Wilson’s blog for more on how Practice-Based Inquiry informs the thinking that is behind the SALT visit.

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Designing new Practice-Based Inquiry^® protocols
Catalpa has developed a collaborative and iterative process for the design of an inquiry that is both solidly based on the elements of Practice-Based Inquiry^® and tailored to meet the requirements of the client organization. The design work uses a number of technologies to increase efficiency and ensure quality.

The design covers all the preliminary planning for a solid visit including training, logistics and preparation of documents that will ensure a legitimate visit.

An example can be found at Catalpa Project Site: Individual Schools: The Chicago Schools Alliance and at Program Evaluation.

To inquire about this service, click here.
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Catalpa offers this protocol review and re-design service to strengthen the rigor of these protocols by bringing them into closer compliance with the principles of Practice-Based Inquiry. Most often this involves both a review of existing protocols and observation of visit teams at work. This results in an analysis of issues and specific recommendations for changes in the protocol that will increase rigor. It also includes what changes would be required for the protocol to be certified as a legitimate Practice-Based Inquiry protocol.

See Accreditation: NEASC for an example of this service.

To inquire about this service, click here.
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This includes assessing the impact of the implementation of a program on a single institution or on a set of institutions. With careful modifications of the visit design to meet the purposes and to target the actual practices supported by the intervention and the actual expected results Practice-Based Inquiry^® program evaluation enquiries have generated valid and useful information for program assessment and improvement.

On the basis of this work, beginning in January 2006 Catalpa now offers program evaluation services. This service includes both the design and the conduct of an evaluation project. While Catalpa is able to certify chairs, teams and reports for this service, it is not yet available for licensing.

See Program and Policy Evaluation: Chicago Public Education Fund and The Spencer Foundation for an example of this service.

To inquire about this service, click here.
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All institutional accountability and support systems depend on how professional performance is measured. Practice-Based Inquiry allows much more direct assessment of actual practice, rather than indirect artifacts of performance such as tests scores or opinion surveys.

Catalpa offers services to support discussion and planning of much more effective accountability, institutional self-study, professional development and organizational leaderships systems based on Practice-Based Inquiry and its theory of action.

See State Accountability: Rhode Island - SALT for an example of this service.

To inquire about this service, please click here.

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