The glass box: using the organizational learning core to cultivate simultaneous renewal in school-university partnerships

Purpose School–university partnerships are widely promoted as vehicles for simultaneous renewal, yet leaders often lack conceptual tools for examining how coherence for learning is actively constructed across institutional boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and elaborate on the Organizational Learning Core (OLC) and its extension, the Simultaneous Renewal Learning Core (SRLC), as heuristics for making visible the leadership, learning, and coherence-building work required to organize SUPs as learning-centered systems rather than as collections of aligned activities. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a conceptual–analytic approach that theorizes practice through illustrative scenarios rather than reporting empirical findings. Drawing on organizational learning, coherence theory, and Complexity Leadership Theory, the paper uses analytically constructed scenarios to “open the glass box” of partnership work, making visible how shared learning priorities, distributed leadership, learning-oriented followership, and horizontal and vertical coherence interact under partnership conditions. Findings The analysis shows that coherence in SUPs is not achieved through alignment alone but is actively constructed through shared sensemaking, boundary-spanning inquiry routines, and learning-oriented participation across roles and institutions. Extending the OLC to the SRLC highlights how negotiated authority, parallel accountability systems, and relational leadership practices shape learning across autonomous organizations. Problems of practice function as generative sites for inquiry, with coherence emerging through both sustained redesign and productive engagement with unresolved tension. Practical implications For partnership leaders and teacher educators, the OLC/SRLC provides a design and reflection heuristic to move beyond transactional collaboration toward partnerships organized as learning systems, focusing attention on who learns, what learning is prioritized, and how leadership and followership interact to support learning under conditions of complexity. Social implications By foregrounding coherence for learning and shared responsibility across institutions, the SRLC supports the development of more responsive and sustainable educator preparation and professional learning systems that better serve teachers, schools, and students. Originality/value This paper advances partnership scholarship by extending coherence theory into cross-institutional systems and contributing to leadership studies by centering learning-oriented followership as a condition for coherence. The SRLC offers scholars a conceptual tool for analyzing how learning is organized across institutional boundaries and provides practitioners with a heuristic for designing and reflecting on partnerships organized for simultaneous renewal over time.