In Conversation with Aurora’s New Research Manager, Kelly Organ

Aurora’s Communications Director Chiara Wegener sat down with the organization’s new Research Manager, Kelly Organ, to hear about her past work experiences, where she sees challenges and opportunities in the education innovation space right now, and what hopes she has for Aurora’s research agenda.

CW: It’s great sitting down with you today, Kelly! Can you tell us a bit about your professional experience before coming to Aurora?
KO: I have a background in non-formal education, and started in program implementation and management before I shifted to the research & evaluation side. I started my career in adult education, working for a church denomination doing educational programs and advocacy work. Then I went overseas and worked in Romania for some time for an organization that was doing service-learning and active citizenship work. Over time I started to wonder ‘is this the best way to meet our partners’ needs?’ I didn’t know how to answer this question in a rigorous way. That sent me to grad school. I wanted to know: what are the methods that we’ve developed to try to answer these thorny conditions about how we develop as whole people – what works, why, for whom, and under what conditions? Then, I got my masters in educational research and took a job at Character Lab, where I helped facilitate big research studies about youth development in school contexts.

CW: What drew you to Aurora? What interests you about competency-based education, in particular?
KO: I had always worked in the CBE-tangential space: non-formal education, service-learning, action civics. When I think about the most formative experiences in my life, the things that have stuck with me are the real world things–out of school time experiences–that formed deep convictions in me and put my school understanding to the test.

I’ve always had an inclination that there’s something about those out of school experiences that are really important in our formation. And yet, school is this incredibly central institution in most kids’ lives, and it doesn’t always acknowledge those out of school learning experiences.

Growing up, I did school well. But the system was built for kids like me. That doesn’t mean it’s inherently good, just that it was an easy fit for me. As I’ve come to realize how many people it doesn’t work for, and how many gaps it left in my own knowledge, I now have a different vantage point. The status quo of how our education system operates cannot continue as is if we want to equip people with the skills they need to thrive in a diverse, democratic world. This general sense that something needs to change brought me to competency-based education and Aurora. I was drawn to Aurora’s big picture work of how to create transformative environments that truly serve all learners.

CW: I know a big part of your work will be supporting the evaluation of Washington State’s Mastery-Based Learning Collaborative. What excites you about that work?
KO: I really love that Washington is marrying mastery-based learning with culturally responsive and sustaining education practice. In general, I think there’s room for improvement in the CBE space in how we talk about CBE being a lever for equity and inclusion. We generally don’t unpack it and aren’t specific enough. So I really, really appreciate the way Washington is being intentional about this. This is such a cool project to be a part of!

CW: What hopes do you have for Aurora’s research agenda?
KO: I hope that Aurora can become a strong voice around using CBE as a lever for equity. Also, a lot of the rigorous, quantitative evaluations are often focused on a particular program, and I’m excited that Aurora hasn’t wed itself to a particular way of implementation. I really think the organization has this unique role to play in connecting folks in the education innovation space and helping folks learn from each other.

CW: In what ways can Aurora lean into research and evaluation through an equity lens?
KO: First of all, it’s super important as a researcher or evaluator to be up-front about your positionality and the perspective that you bring to the work. When we think about this work through an equity lens, it’s also important to think expansively about what counts as data. Oftentimes, traditional spaces have narrow ideas about what counts as rigorous data. There’s good reasons for this and this can really privilege certain epistemologies. Additionally, when we’re looking at research, we need to look at outliers. We often think about what works for the bulk of learners (and this matters), but equity means also thinking about those kids who are not being reached! Lastly, we also need to think about who we’re involving in the research design and analysis work. Let’s think about inviting folks whose data we’re looking at to make meaning of that data.

CW: From your perspective, what are some of the trends or places you’re seeing attention being put on education research and evaluation right now?
KO: There’s a lot of attention being put on “who gets to decide what this data says?” and rethinking how we approach quantitative methods. How have we asked the questions, who gets to decide what’s worth measuring, who gets to analyze the data, and has bias been embedded so that we are telling deficit narratives? And how can we do all of this differently?

I think there’s also a strong movement around student voice and a push for more participatory research. People have realized that education is really localized. You have to move slower and deeper to make meaningful change, and that involves sitting down and talking to kids. You can have a randomized control trial and make sweeping claims about kids everywhere, but I think there’s more of an understanding now that while that can have some value, there’s also value to a smaller, deeper, more participatory approach. Both have benefits in different ways.

CW: What misconceptions do you think people have about researchers that you’d like to squash?
KO: I think there’s this misconception that researchers are not in it for the human story, and just care about the data. But I’m here for the kids, especially the kids who have fallen through the cracks. That’s why I’m doing this work.

CW: When you’re not doing researchy things, how can we find you spending your time?
KO: I have a 15 month old, so mostly I’m watching him develop all sorts of strange competencies – like blowing raspberries and learning how to say ‘bleh!’ It’s been interesting to enter this new job as my son is in this explosive period of development. I spend a lot of time with him – mostly trying to convince him to not eat leaves off of tomato plants!

CW: Anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t talked about?
KO: I have immense respect for teachers. I think they have the hardest possible jobs in this ecosystem. It’s very easy for those of us not in the classroom to pass judgments or theorize about new approaches that are really challenging to do in practice. If our research can’t translate into something useful for folks who are doing this in the real world, it’s not good research.