Getting Better at Getting Better: Using the Science of Improvement to Accelerate Systemic Change in Higher Education

The Action Network for Equitable Wellbeing (ANEW) is focused on creating systemic change in higher education settings to enable all college students to thrive and flourish. The basic premise is that educational outcomes, student wellbeing, and equity are inextricably linked, and ANEW works to create systemic change at the intersections of all three. To realize sustained and equitable improvement of all three outcomes, colleges and universities must fundamentally transform their norms, structures, and processes across all areas of the institution—including academic policies, instructor practices, course pedagogy, and redesigning holistic support pathways for students—to address root causes of why students struggle and to create enabling conditions for students to flourish in our institutions and beyond. ANEW's change model is grounded in the science of improvement, a disciplined approach to address complex problems that integrates problem analysis, methods for developing, testing, and scaling new ideas, and measurement. Improvement science includes practical methods and tools that can help academic leaders and instructors to disrupt the status quo and accelerate the pace of sustainable improvement of educational outcomes, wellbeing, and equity -- while minimizing risk associated with failed efforts. 

This session will highlight key insights about the associations between classroom experiences and student wellbeing and academic outcomes, introduce attendees to ANEW's change model, explore synergies and potential collaboration between ANEW and ASCN. Attendees will also have the opportunity to co-design the next iteration of ANEW's theory of change, with a particular emphasis on classroom pedagogy, academic policies, and support pathways.