For more information contact Dr. Erin Anderson, University of Denver (erin.anderson249@du.edu).

The University of Denver’s Design Improvement Program (DI) integrates Liberatory Design Thinking with Improvement Science as a means to collaboratively design and accelerate school improvement efforts that will lead to increased and equitable outcomes for students and leadership capacity. The goal is to create and sustain productive system level change that ensures equitable and excellent teaching practices by addressing school-specific problems of practice.

The Design Improvement Program Theory of Action is:

If we build capacity within a school or district to use the Design Improvement (DI) process to collectively and deeply examine equity-centered problems of practice, ideate potential solutions, and implement actions monitored through an improvement science framework (PDSA), then schools/districts will develop patterns of behavior, systems, strategies and tools that will be sustainable over time and adaptable to new problems.