Abstract:
The purpose of this research study is to investigate and gain understanding
of the factors contributing to development of the Center for Advanced Learning
(CAL), a regional collaborative educational reform project and the partnerships that
emerged from that process. The development process and partnerships are
examined from a systems thinking perspective. This study was guided by the
following research questions: 1) Why did representatives from the private sector
choose to partner with the CAL? 2) Why did some potential partners choose not to
partner with the CAL? 3) What are the systems components that contributed to
developing this collaborative educational reform project? 4) How do elements of
the developmental systems encourage sustained progress? 5) How do educational
and private sector systems interact and contribute to development of this project?
The study participants included high school and college faculty and
administrators, university faculty, and representatives from the private sector and
governmental agencies. A total of 17 interviews were conducted and 469 CAL
related documents were cataloged and analyzed.
The overall findings indicate the project evolved through self-organization
and self-regulation. The conclusions are: 1) the ability to sustain development of
CAL as an educational reform project in a living systems paradigm rather than
from a linear and directed approach required flexibility, understanding, trust,
confidence, and time to allow autopoiesis to occur, 2) CAL partnerships evolved in
a dynamic manner compared with partnerships described in the literature, 3)
motivations to partner with CAL were the result of environmental factors and
strange attractors, and 4) adaptive leadership in development of the CAL played an
important role. Implications of the study suggest that: 1) systems awareness
considerations by participants provides an increased degree of developmental
flexibility, 2) the manner in which a vision is disseminated is key to developing
momentum, and 3) curriculum development in a complex environment could be
managed with systems considerations.
