Chase Nordengren

selected publications

1. Chart a Clear Course: Evaluation Is Key to Building Better, More Relevant Learning

   Nordengren, Chase; and Guskey, Thomas R.

   The Learning Professional

   Abstract URL PDF

   When we engage in professional learning, we do it for one big reason: to get better at supporting students. Rigorous and thoughtful program evaluations can provide the critical connection between well-designed programs or initiatives and continuous improvement that builds essential knowledge and skills for educators. Evaluation helps us examine what has been accomplished in a professional learning initiative and identify course corrections that cna help the initiative improve.

2. Development and Validation of a Survey on Outcomes of Professional Learning

   Nordengren, Chase R.

   Professional Development in Education

   Abstract URL PDF

   Professional learning evaluators struggle to balance the pursuit of rigorous outcomes with the time and money that some effective measures entail. While many evaluations rely on surveys for their ease of administration and application, little research has explored how surveys can measure multiple constructs beyond participant satisfaction as part of an evaluation framework. This study validates a survey of professional learning outcomes based on Guskey’s framework of professional development evaluation. The 23-item survey was administered to 1,351 teachers in one district in the United States who receive professional learning interventions related to assessment use and assessment literacy. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the study demonstrates the discriminatory validity of four constructs: knowledge gained from professional learning, skills used in the classroom, attitudes about professional learning, and beliefs about assessment. The study provides additional credence to the relevance of Guskey’s framework for evaluating professional learning interventions and insights regarding the utility of survey research in program evaluation activities.

3. Goal-Setting Practices That Support a Learning Culture

   Nordengren, Chase

   Phi Delta Kappan

   Abstract URL PDF

   What can educators do to help students care about their learning and become more invested in their own success? Chase Nordengren describes how a school district created a goal-setting culture in all classrooms at all grade levels. The district began with a complex, research-based, prescriptive program that teachers found did not work well with certain students. Young students, for example, did not understand the goal-setting forms that were part of the program. As teachers adapted the program to fit their students, Nordengren was able to discern certain commonalities in teachers’ use of goal setting that made them successful. Based on these observations, he suggests that educators start their goal-setting efforts early, set short-term goals, provide visual tools, make goal setting personal, and center student choice.

4. Ties and Talk: Tracing the Work of Informal Teacher Leaders through Mixed Methods Social Network Research

   Nordengren, Chase R.

   Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington

   Abstract URL PDF

   While much of contemporary educational leadership scholarship focuses on formal leadership (that exercised through officially designated roles in schools and school systems), leadership exercised informally is an increasing focus of theorists in instructional leadership, distributed leadership, and teacher leadership, as well as practitioners. Research has insufficiently probed how informal leaders function in schools, particularly through interactions with colleagues. This study uses a mixed methods social network research approach, combining quantitative social network analysis with qualitative study informed by social network theory, to understand informal leadership at an elementary school. All staff were surveyed regarding whom they turned to for various types of advice, information, and support; these questions produced three network diagrams used to select informal leaders for the qualitative stage. Qualitatively, three teachers leading informally were interviewed, observed, and asked to complete logs of their conversations; key teachers connected to informal leaders were also interviewed. Network analyses reveal similar highly ranked individuals across all three networks, though their leadership is exercised through different interpersonal relationships. Qualitative data focused on the interest of informal leaders in developing solutions to specific instructional issues, rather than enforcing a broad instructional vision. I propose three prerequisites to an informal leadership interaction: the vision for improved instruction of the informal leader, the presence of an instructional variation in the informal leader’s own practice, and an invitation from a colleague to offer advice, information, or support on a specific instructional issue. These findings advance distributed leadership’s consideration of how leadership is situated by particular contexts, and suggests the importance of certain leadership tools, including modeling teaching and the use of instructional technologies. Future questions and recommendations reiterate the need for work on leadership practiced informally, and suggest consideration of the contexts in which leadership interactions take place.