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
• 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: Individual Schools: The Chicago Schools Alliance.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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