Jill Alexa Perry

This volume extends the interactive and supportive approach of the original Scaffolding the Language of Power to the unique genre demands of the Dissertation in Practice (DiP), the capstone of the Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED)-aligned Education Doctorate. Like its predecessor, the book is grounded in three interconnected commitments: doctoral writing as social justice, as genre, and as scaffolding. However, in this edition, original author Kathryn Strom teams up with CPED Executive Director Jill Alexa Perry to reimagine that framework for scholarly practitioners with professional knowledge, practical wisdom, and contextual change agendas that are central to the work of the dissertation. The book’s unique design features stem from our understanding of the DiP as a distinct form of doctoral inquiry oriented toward understanding, improving, and leading change within a specific practice context and in service of particular communities. Accordingly, this volume emphasizes the dual-audience nature of the DiP: although students write to their committee first, DiP work simultaneously needs to serve a practitioner/professional community. To achieve that, for example, scaffolds for organization, headings, and topic sentences are framed not only as tools for writing, but also for producing writing that is accessible to multiple audiences beyond academia. Second, the book maintains a practice-to-improvement arc, reminding readers throughout that their writing is building toward something that they will be implementing, evaluating, and acting on. Third, the book is written to honor the highly contextual nature of the DiP, helping writers achieve the specificity needed to make local work understandable and transferable to readers in other settings. Finally, the volume explicitly affirms a scholar-practitioner identity, positioning professional knowledge in dialogue with scholarly knowledge rather than as something requiring academic legitimization. These design features support readers while guiding them to complete the specific tasks of the dissertation in practice, which includes articulating a problem of practice grounded in organizational urgency and stakeholder impact; constructing a review of scholarly and professional knowledge; and using that literature to create a theory of action and contextual plan of intervention. The book focuses on applied research, with specific guidance for three methodologies most common to CPED-aligned programs, Action Research, Improvement Science, and Program/Practice Evaluation. As in the original volume, each chapter follows a carefully sequenced structure that includes warm-up reflections, explicit instruction in the genre's linguistic moves, annotated modeling, and scaffolded exercises that build systematically toward independent writing. Many examples are drawn from CPED-aligned dissertations, giving readers models that reflect the scholarship of practice central to their own doctoral work. Ultimately, the book provides an affirmative apprenticeship that honors practitioners' existing expertise while making visible the often-hidden rules of academic writing, helping scholarly practitioners build confidence in their writing and facilitating the dissemination of impact in service of local change.This title is part of a series--the first volume, Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Doctoral Level Writing and the Companion Workbook are available as a bundle. 

Reclaiming the Education Doctorate: A Guidebook for (re)Designing EdD Programs is a practical guide for those seeking to (re)design a professional practice doctorate program in education that prepares Scholarly Practitioners. To tackle the comprehensive change process necessary for (re)designing the EdD, this book will guide the reader with an improvement lens that looks at the roots of the confusion of the EdD, the system that created it, and the framework that helped to reclaim it. Readers will be guided through a backward mapping (re)design process that begins with defining graduate outcomes, maps through the milestones and courses, ends with rethinking the admissions process. Along the way, readers will learn how to design and integrate a dissertation in practice into the curriculum, consider best practices for their program (re)design, and view examples of successful programs. Additionally, to support readers in their (re)design efforts, each chapter will offer exercises, tools, and resources that will guide the process. The book will prove to be an invaluable resource for anyone developing or revising their EdD program. After the opening chapter that explains the mission statement of Reclaiming the Education Doctorate, Jill Perry structures chapters to deal with the full range of issues that impact EdD programs, including: Roots of the EdD ProblemAim: The Professional Practice Doctorate Driving ChangeBackward mapping: beginning with the endThe heart of the program: CurriculumThe beginning: Admitting CandidatesMeasuring ImpactLeading Change

The intent of Challenges in (Re)designing EdD Programs: Supporting Change with Learning Cases is to provide faculty, who are seeking to redesign their EdD programs into professional practice doctorate, with case examples that describe common challenges and pitfalls encountered during the redesign process. Each of the cases portrays real situations generated from case study research conducted by the chapter authors. Each case is comprised of three parts: a) a contextual overview of the challenge or problem, b) case study notes that ground the challenge or problem in literature and provide deeper understanding of the issues at hand, and c) a set of discussion questions that will guide faculty in conversation about similar issues they may face in their own program redesign. This volume is an invaluable resource for program leaders, faculty, and graduate students involved in EdD programs.

The Improvement Science Dissertation in Practice provides a narrative and illustration about the purpose and features comprising the Dissertation in Practice and how this culminating experience is well suited to using Improvement Science as a signature methodology for preparing professional practitioners. This methodology, when combined with the Dissertation in Practice experience in EdD programs, reinforces practitioner learning about and skills for leadership and change. As a guide, the book is an extremely valuable resource that supports faculty, students, and practitioners in the application of Improvement Science to pressing educational problems in a structured, disciplined way.CPED Initiative Fireside Chat with Jill Perry: https://vimeo.com/508666806To learn more about Improvement Science and see our full list of books in this area, please click through to the Myers Education Press Improvement Science website. Perfect for courses such as: Educational Leadership, Research Methods, The Dissertation Process, Dissertation Writing and Research, and Thesis and Dissertation