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April 13, 2023
ASCD Blog

Guiding Teachers Through Purposeful Change

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How leaders can frame change as helpful, not hurtful.
Leadership
Guiding Teachers Through Purposeful Change
Credit: Cagkan Sayin / Shutterstock
It’s the first day of school with a new class of students, and the room is filled with emotions. The students are nervous. They’re wondering if they’re prepared for the year, how hard their classes will be, and if their teacher will like them. Their teacher knows this routine well. She spends the first few days of school getting to know her new class. She asks students questions about how they learn best, what topics they remember struggling with last year, and what their interests are. The teacher blends these introductory conversations with a slow walk into the curriculum. She builds routines that help identify prior knowledge, so students can effortlessly close knowledge gaps while gaining momentum in the grade level standards.
Through building routines and establishing relationships, our teachers are able to create environments where it is OK for students to not remember everything they learned last year and where asking questions or asking for help is a part of the learning process. Teachers know this is their role—to create an environment where it is safe to make mistakes.
Leaders, therefore, must create a reciprocal environment for teachers—a school and district where it is safe to make mistakes, where asking questions or asking for help are part of how we learn and grow together. This is particularly critical when implementing change initiatives. A leader’s job is to help find and articulate a balanced approach to change, one that is mindful of teacher capacity and supportive of teacher and student needs. Teachers cannot feel successful when every aspect of their role, from students to resources, is constantly changing. The role of leadership is to frame change as purposeful, productive, and intended to support both teacher and student success.
So, when considering change, whether big or small, leaders should ask the following:
  • What problem are we trying to solve?
  • What is the intended outcome of this change?
  • How will this change impact teachers?

The role of leadership is to frame change as purposeful, productive, and intended to support both teacher and student success.

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What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?

Districts that leverage improvement science adopt a process of continuous improvement that is iterative and focused on determining the root cause of problems. Improvement science supports districts in engaging in a “Plan, Do, Study, Act” (PDSA) cycle that supports change through collaborative inquiry. It should be commonplace to push our thinking and challenge our assumptions as we work through change together, with leaders and teachers working alongside each other. While professional learning communities often engage in PDSA cycles that focus on troubleshooting what’s not working in the classroom and sharing best practices, large-scale change initiatives have a tendency to abandon this approach and jump to the implementation of a new and different solution too quickly. The leader’s job is to slow down implementation conversations to ensure that the team has identified the problem, including its root cause, and is pursuing a solution that is purposeful.
Leaders should first consider engaging in a root cause protocol to identify the problem. While there are many versions of this type of protocol to choose from, the foundation of all of them is to focus the conversation on what you are trying to improve before jumping into how to improve it. For example, you may have identified that students with disabilities are underperforming in your district. Engaging in a root cause protocol will help dig into the potential causes for this data, potentially finding that a change is needed in curriculum, instruction, or the structure of programs. The protocol will give teams the structure needed to unpack the data and identify where the problem begins. Slowing down change conversations in this way can help leaders build consensus on potential solutions and help avoid the tendency to try something new without thinking thoughtfully about removing an ineffective or even harmful practice. In fact, the outcome of a root cause protocol could be removing a practice or resource rather than adding a new one. Leaders should give root cause conversations time to ensure that their team is focusing on solving the right problem.

What Is the Intended Outcome of This Change?

When our kids get into the car with us, they want to know where we are going, how long it will take to get there, and what we are doing once we get there. It can be frustrating to have to explain these details each time, but we also know that sharing our intentions helps our kids understand our plan and the reasons behind it. In the same way, students deserve to understand what their learning targets or goals are at the beginning of a lesson. When beginning a new unit, teachers share with students the topic and how they will demonstrate their learning at the end of the unit. They share exemplars, self-assessment tools, and provide students with feedback along the way. Because they want students to be successful, they guide their growth throughout their new learning and consistently remind them of where the class is headed together.
Our teachers also need to understand where the team is headed and why. These details build trust and create an environment where teachers are confident in the order of operations of organizational change. In fact, neuroscience research has shown that the uncertainty of where we are headed or what happens next contributes to anxiety and disrupts cognition. If our intention is to support our teachers in being comfortable with change, then we have to communicate where we are headed, how long it will take to get there, and what we are doing when we get there. Leaders need to provide a map of the destination, offer feedback and opportunities for teachers to engage in self-assessment along the way, and be clear about intended outcomes with teachers to support their success in working through change.

Our teachers need to understand where the team is headed and why.

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How Will This Change Impact Teachers?

Our teachers are our most important asset. They spend the most time with our students. They are a critical resource that cannot be replaced. In October 2022, 45 percent of schools nationwide had at least one teacher vacancy. While it might feel as though there’s nothing we can do about teacher shortages, we can work locally to create schools and districts that support the collective efficacy of our teachers through collaborative leadership, productive feedback, and safe learning environments for staff.
Here are three actions leaders can take to meaningfully include teachers in decision-making:
  • Survey and share the results: Surveying teachers can give leaders needed insight on what’s happening throughout a school and provide an opportunity for input from teachers. Sharing the results of the survey and providing time to talk through the data, after a leader has considered their own solutions, gives teachers an opportunity to brainstorm and propose other potential solutions. Leaders should carve out this time and listen to teacher insight.
  •  Allocate time to talk through problems of practice: If the structure does not already exist to include teachers in identifying solutions to problems of practice, leaders should carve out that time. Holding open meetings or office hours to sit down with teachers and talk through concerns creates a partnership between teachers and leaders that is necessary for buy-in. Leaders should communicate takeaways from these conversations to staff and embed those takeaways in their discussions on planned change to encourage more participation in the future.
  • Share a clear plan of purposeful change: When a decision is made, leaders must communicate a timeline for changes that is clear and integrates teacher feedback. When teachers can see themselves in the plan, they are more likely to commit to the improvement and feel empowered to offer feedback or ask for support along the way. A clear plan of purposeful change will help create an environment where our teacher voices are valued.
Our job as leaders is to ensure that the change we plan for and support throughout the district has a positive impact on our students and teachers. All change must be coupled with communication that details what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we will get there. While we cannot always ensure that change will be easy, we can communicate to our teachers how they will be affected by change and what our intentions are around supporting them through it. The secret to effective leadership is the dedication to supporting others. 

Stephanie Burroughs holds a doctorate in organizational change and leadership from the University of Southern California. Stephanie has more than 15 years of experience in education, with almost a decade of experience as a curriculum leader and administrator in K-12 education in Massachusetts.

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