University of Wisconsin–Madison
UW–Madison School of Education
Madison Magazine
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Associate Dean for Innovation, Outreach, and Partnerships, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Director, Wisconsin Collaborative Education Research Network (WICER Network), Wisconsin Center for Education Research (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Richard Halverson is Professor and Kellner Family Distinguished Chair in Urban Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His work connects Learning Sciences methods with educational leadership, focusing on data‑driven decision making, formative feedback systems, and technologies for learning. He co‑founded the Games + Learning + Society research group and co‑created the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL). Halverson co‑authored Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology (Teachers College Press, 2nd ed., 2018) and Mapping Leadership (Wiley, 2017). He joined UW–Madison in 2001, previously served as Associate Dean for Innovation, Outreach, and Partnerships (2018–2021), and holds affiliate roles in Curriculum & Instruction and Educational Psychology. Earlier, he was a high‑school teacher and administrator. His recognitions include an NSF CAREER Award and appointment as Kellner Chair (2022).
Leadership practice is constituted in interactions among leaders, followers, and the situation; leadership tasks are socially and situationally distributed across people and artifacts.
A framework for building school systems that translate assessment results into instructional action through functions such as data acquisition, reflection, alignment, design, formative feedback, and preparation.
Organizational model describing how schools structure artifacts and practices to create coherent formative information flows that guide teaching and learning.
A distributed, task‑based assessment and feedback system that measures school‑wide leadership practices across domains to guide improvement.
Journal of School Leadership • Journal
Develops the concept of distributed instructional leadership to explain how instructional improvement in comprehensive high schools involves multiple actors coordinating tasks, tools, and routines. Presents an analytic approach and applies it to a curriculum‑based reform case.
Peabody Journal of Education • Journal
Introduces a model of school formative feedback systems that organize how educators generate, interpret, and act on high‑quality formative information across interventions, assessments, and action spaces. The article shows how such systems underpin initiatives like benchmark assessments and behavior supports to improve teaching and learning.
Journal of Computing in Teacher Education • Journal
Distinguishes between “technologies for learning” (assessment/instructional systems adopted by schools) and “technologies for learners” (e.g., mobile devices, games, social media) that often remain outside classrooms. Discusses how these contrasting adoption patterns shape teaching, learning, and equity in a pluralistic education system.
Journal of School Leadership • Journal
Describes data‑driven instructional systems (DDIS) that school leaders build to turn assessment results into instructional action. The DDIS framework includes data acquisition, reflection, program alignment and design, formative feedback, and test preparation, illustrated through a year‑long study of four schools.
Journal of Curriculum Studies • Journal
Argues that school leadership is best examined as practice distributed across leaders, followers, and the situation. Drawing on activity theory and distributed cognition, the paper reframes the unit of analysis from individual leaders to leadership activity “stretched over” people and artifacts, showing how tools and routines mediate practice and how instructional improvement emerges from the web of interactions within schools.
Educational Researcher • Journal
Makes the case for studying leadership practice rather than only structures or roles. Using concepts from distributed cognition and activity theory, the authors outline a framework where instructional leadership is enacted through interdependent tasks, social distribution among multiple actors, and situational distribution through artifacts and routines in everyday school work.
Teachers College Press • Book
Synthesizes how digital technologies are reshaping learning in and out of school and proposes ways schools can adapt. The book contrasts enthusiast vs. skeptic arguments, traces the evolution of American schooling, and offers design‑oriented recommendations for assessment, curriculum, equity, and policy to align schooling with 21st‑century learning opportunities.
Wiley (Jossey‑Bass) • Book
Presents a distributed, task‑based model of school leadership operationalized through five domains—focusing on learning, monitoring teaching and learning, building professional community, acquiring and allocating resources, and ensuring a safe and effective environment—linking leadership tasks to continuous school improvement and the CALL framework.
Phi Delta Kappan • Journal
Introduces the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL), a formative, school‑wide leadership assessment that measures distributed leadership practices and provides actionable feedback and best‑practice guidance to support improvement in teaching and learning.
Institute of Education Sciences (NCEE 2009‑4067) • Report
Practice guide offering five evidence‑based recommendations for effective school‑wide data use: embed data in ongoing instructional cycles, teach students to use their own data, establish a clear vision, build supports and culture for data use, and develop/maintain district data systems. Includes implementation steps and examples.
Phi Delta Kappan • Journal
Argues that well‑designed video games embody social practices and epistemic forms that can support powerful learning. Proposes design principles for learning environments that leverage games’ meaningful, experiential, and social qualities, and outlines implications for integrating game‑based learning with schooling.