Message from SIG Chair

Dear Improvement Science SIG community,

I am honored to serve as the chair of our SIG for 2025-26. Now is a critical time for our SIG to serve as a space for connection, solidarity, and shared learning amongst many communities who are striving to advance humanizing continuous improvement in educational systems.

Here’s a recap of our accomplishments in the past year:

• Issued newsletter three times per year
• Committed to developing our SIG identity as amplifiers for the field for a family of humanizing approaches to continuous improvement, including but not limited to improvement science, design-based research, lesson study, DataWise
  • Launched spotlights feature highlighting improvement stories in the newsletter
  • Launched shared community calendar of SIG-related communities and events 
  • Created a “Friends of the SIG” database for related improvement communities
  • Fostering partnerships with: The Improvement Scholars Network (ISN), the National Coalition for Improvement in Education (NCIE), and Myers Education Press and their improvement science book series
• Launching our inaugural SIG Awards: 
  • Early Career Award Winner: Edwin Nii Bonney
  • Field Building Award Winner: Don Peurach
  • A big thank you to our former Past Chair, Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, for leading our inaugural awards selection, and to the awards selection committee: Marcus Anthony, PhD, Rutgers University; Stacey Caillier, PhD, High Tech High GSE NCIE; and Samantha Viano, PhD, George Mason University 
• SIG events:
  • Graduate Student CV and Cover Letter Workshop
  • Early Career Panel: Dreaming about a Career as an Improvement Scholar 
  • SIG Social Hour at AERA
  • AERA Business Meeting Talk: Drs. John Diamond and Louis Gomez on “Disrupting White Supremacy and Anti-Black Racism in Educational Organizations”

We look forward to another productive year ahead! Please feel free to reach out with questions, ideas, or concerns!

Liz Zumpe

elizabeth.a.zumpe-1@ou.edu