Presenter(s): Rebecca Woodland, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, rebecca.woodland@educ.umass.edu Shannon Barry, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, skbarry17@gmail.com Abstract: Public schooling is under intense pressure to increase student performance and close gaps in student achievement. To achieve these ends, school district leaders seek to enact professional development (PD) that provides systemic, job-embedded opportunities for teachers to acquire new knowledge and skills. The effectiveness of PD is mediated by the quality of underlying staff and administrator communication structures and the capacity of a school’s network for “diffusion of innovation” (Rogers, 1962). In this presentation we showcase our use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to: 1) mathematically and visually assess the quality of teacher, staff and administrator communication networks, 2) predict how these networks support and restrain the pace and quality of PD, and 3) inform stakeholder decisions about how to re-configure the network to increase capacity for school reform. Challenges and opportunities associated with using SNA to evaluate district capacity for diffusion of innovation will also be discussed. Slides attached#Prek-12EducationalEvaluation #2012Conference #SocialNetworkAnalysis