The IPI process was designed to provide school-wide profiles detailing how students are engaged in thinking throughout the school day and year.  The process is led by an IPI Team of teacher-leaders who are trained specifically to collect the IPI student cognitive engagement data, analyze and organize the data, and engage their colleagues in the study of the data. 

The role of administration is to build an understanding of the IPI Process and thus effectively support the IPI Team so they can implement the process in their respective schools and lead the faculty in the study of the data and the setting of cognitive engagement goals as a school.  The administrative team does not collect the engagement data, nor do they view or study the raw data.  Administrators study, as do the whole faculty, the school-wide engagement profiles and discuss, along with faculty, the profile data and ways to fine tune instructional practices to increase higher-order thinking and reduce disengagement during learning time. The role of the “teacher-leaders” who are members of the IPI Team is to champion the process as they explain the process to their colleagues, collect the IPI data, and lead their colleagues in the study of the school’s IPI data profiles.   The IPI and IPI-Technology workshops are designed to build the capacity of the school’s IPI Teams to accomplish those tasks.  The role of the workshop leader is to maintain interaction with the IPI team following each data collection and provide on-going support to the IPI Team, both in person and via Zoom as needed, as the Team implements the process and leads their colleagues in collaborative data analysis and goal setting.    

The IPI Data Profiles provide critical insight for on-going instructional growth.  First and foremost, IPI data about student Higher-Order/Deeper (HO/D) thinking and about the percentage of time students are in class and supposed to be engaged, but are disengaged, are fundamental to student academic success.  The evidence gathered by scholars over several decades has made the importance of those two variables common-knowledge factors in academic success, whether that success was measured formatively or summatively by state-wide high-stakes assessments, end of unit exams, or spontaneous assessments by the teacher during lessons.   Increasing the amount of time students spend engaged in Higher-Order/Deeper thinking positively impacts learning and the amount of time students spend Disengaged during learning time adversely impacts learning.  Simultaneously, the IPI also profiles the degree to which students are engaged in Lower-Order/Surface (LO/S) forms of thinking during class time.  With data about HO/D, LO/S and Disengagement, faculty can focus on how to fine tune lessons and classroom learning experiences so as to gradually increase HO/D thinking time, reduce Disengaged time, and determine whether to maintain, decrease, or increase LO/S thinking time.  

Changes in thinking time in small increments make a noticeable difference.  For example, in a typical school in the United States, students are engaged in HO/D thinking time for about 20% of classroom time.  Increasing that to 25%, which can be done simply by adding three HO/D mental engagements of five or six minutes each day, adds the equivalent of nine to ten more days that school year of HO/D thinking time.   Small increments of refinement toward more HO/D thinking time can readily move overall HO/D thinking from twenty to thirty or more percent in just two or three years of school-wide focus on the school’s cognitive engagement data. 

In today’s schools, technology is pervasive.  Students can get an added benefit from the effective use of technology to support learning during class time.   It is common to see the use of technology in IPI schools increase HO/D thinking significantly as the faculty study their IPI and IPI-Technology profile data detailing cognitive engagement when students are using, and not using, technology in support of learning.  A four-year analysis of K-12 classrooms in 1:1 IPI schools when technology was in use to support the learning activity averaged 34% HO/D thinking time, compared to 17% HO/D thinking time in classrooms when technology was not in use.  That 17% difference equates to 31 more days per school year of HO/D thinking time (62 days vs. 31 days) in a 180-day school year.  The ability to have IPI data that allow the faculty to see these types of numbers for their own school and discuss the advantages to their students’ academic success is a prime example of the value that collecting IPI data brings to a school and, in essence, to students’ academic success. 

There are no quick and effortless ways to increase student HO/D thinking and reduce Disengaged thinking time.  There are no guarantees that a professional development process such as the IPI Process will drastically increase HO/D thinking time and student academic success.  While the numerous studies of the process and the sophisticated analyses used to measure impact of the process imply high likelihood of change and growth, we all know that instructional growth is a matter of effort, focus, knowledge, persistence and commitment attached to a set of strategies that are likely to work.  Almost all schools that implement the IPI Process see positive and statistically significant changes in student cognitive engagement during the second year of implementation, which is usually after six or seven data collections and faculty study sessions.   That’s a mathematical probability and one that includes continued growth, but it is not a guarantee.   The IPI Process has an average lifespan in a school of several years.   For some schools, it may be three or four, for others it has been twenty-plus.   Stability of leadership at the school or district level is the best predictor of how long the IPI Process, or for that matter any non-mandated growth initiative, is used in a school or district.   The IPI process is not mandated by state law in any state, though schools in some 35 (and counting) states and several foreign countries use the process.  And some states recommend the process, and some have required it for “schools in jeopardy.”   But in essence, it’s a voluntary-use process that has the potential to impact student academic success and typically does so effectively.   It was developed as part of a school improvement project in 1995-96 and it has sustained a life of its own since that time.  Awareness of the process has always spread by word of mouth, through conference presentations, and through the many research papers that have studied the process.   The growth of the IPI Process has been steady over the years; to date, more than 30,000 educators have been trained in the implementation of the process, and it has been used in thousands of schools in the U.S. and beyond.  Publishers have asked for a book about the process, but I have graciously declined because the potential misuse of the process is great without the adequate professional development necessary to ensure valid, reliable data collection and integrity to the implantation tenants designed throughout the process that fit our knowledge of best practices for school improvement, particularly instructional refinement.   

The IPI Process is a unique school improvement strategy that fosters instructional growth and fits hand-in-glove with other school improvement programs and strategies.  For a relatively minimal investment of time, the process accurately categorizes and profiles student thinking.  When the faculty study their school-wide, and disaggregated, data on a quarterly basis they can set cognitive engagement goals and move steadily toward implementation of those goals.  Studies document that faculty collaborative study, reflection, and goal setting of the IPI Data Profiles gradually and positively influence teacher lesson design and delivery, and thus student academic success.     

Jerry Valentine                                                                                                                                        February 14, 2025