SCALE Showcase

Organizational Mapping: The form and function of a K-20 partnership for improvement of mathematics and science teaching

Description

"SCALE is a five-year project, and thus it provides us with an excellent opportunity to
examine partnerships as they develop. SCALE's proposal writers included a longitudinal
organizational analysis study with formative and summative components as part of the
partnership's research and evaluation plan. Our research asks the following broad
questions about the SCALE partnership:

1. Why do particular structures, functions, and people come to work within the
SCALE partnership?

2. How do leaders organize people and tools to accomplish partnership goals, as
stated in the formal initiating documents?

This paper particularly addresses the second research question by describing how the
partnership, as an organization, has been positioned to meet its goals. In describing the
structures, functions, and people actively engaged in SCALE, we introduce
"organizational mapping" as a method of census-taking, which provides a partial
representation and understanding of the partnership."