Handbook for Developing Supportive Learning Environments, The

Teddy Holtz- Frank

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317922247
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

This book provides practical strategies and guidelines to improve student success and develop supportive learning environments. It is geared for school administrators, teachers, trainers, business and organizational leaders, community organizers, faith based leaders, and all those who work to improve schools. The easy-to use tools can be applied to initiatives already underway in your school, such as No Child Left Behind Mandates, School Improvement Grants, Title I Programs, and Teacher Education and Mentoring Programs

1

An Overview of the Action Planning Process: How Do We Get to Where We are Going?

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Focus on the Action Planning, Not the Plan

An action plan is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end. It is essentially a learning process, a living laboratory, research in action. The intentional act of planning forces a team to grapple with a host of questions, including the following: What is our purpose? What do we hope to accomplish? What strengths can we build on? What issue(s) are we addressing? What does the data say about our strengths and areas for improvement? What are the best methods for achieving our aims? What does the research say? How will we know if it’s working?

Effective planning builds structures, programs, policies, and practices that create relationships and promote student-centered learning. The end result is less about the document that gets created and more about the results; the systemic changes and the knowledge, skills, and attitude shifts that occur within the school community. The plan is a living, breathing document that needs to be constantly reviewed and refined through ongoing evaluation and continuous improvement processes to stay alive. Otherwise, it becomes one more dead document that gathers dust on the shelf.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower captured this succinctly when he said, “Plans aren’t important; planning is!” To paraphrase General Eisenhower, the planning process is what gets things done, not the plan. The plan is a template that will be adjusted and tweaked over time as the team learns from its successes and misses. The action-planning steps outlined in this book, if followed with fidelity, create a smoothly functioning team that is capable of implementing a wide variety of initiatives, all designed to improve student achievement and develop a supportive learning environment.

Guiding Principles of Successful Plans

Many initiatives get started. Few get evaluated for successful outcomes. Even fewer get sustained and embedded into the everyday functioning of the organization. The following principles should guide any effort at systemic improvement: ■ The plan is integrated with existing (school improvement and/or strategic) plan to ensure organizational coherence and cohesion. ■ The plan is based on a data inquiry process that includes input from multiple data sources and constituents to ensure equitable and diverse representation. ■ The plan builds on existing strengths within the organization. ■ The plan addresses needs that interfere with learning. ■ The plan correlates needs to research-based strategies and/or promising practices to improve fundamental barriers to learning. ■ The plan sequences the implementation of strategies for maximum effectiveness. ■ The plan assesses the outcomes using supportive evidence. ■ The plan shows measurable success in achieving outcomes.

The Action Planning Spiral

Although the steps are laid out sequentially, it is not a linear process. In reality the living plan is more of a spiral that reengages earlier phases at higher and higher levels of functioning (see Figure 1.1). The team constantly evaluates progress along the way and makes course corrections as needed. It is helpful to view this process as a “virtuous teaching cycle” (Tichy & Cardwell, 2002). Team functioning improves, and the individual and collective capacity increase as the team learns to work together. As interventions are implemented, evaluated, and refined, the team gains confidence in its ability to create positive change successfully.

Figure 1.1. The Action Planning Spiral

The planning process takes on a life of its own and becomes an opportunity to create a true intentional learning organization. Members learn to rely on mastering the skills of change and improvement rather than on the development of a product. Relationship structures and linkages create shared learning and break down the barriers and isolation of closed systems. This is a hallmark of successful teams, successful leadership, and successful schools and learning environments.

Picture Success: The Steps of the Action Planning Spiral

1. Create a diverse, culturally representative school-community team.

2. Understand the foundation of research-based components of supportive learning environments.

3. Develop a shared vision and team process.

4. Conduct a data-based assessment of areas of strength and areas of need.

5. Write the action plan.

6. Engage in continuous assessment, evaluation, and improvement throughout every step of the process.

The Steps of the Action Planning Spiral

This book lays out an action planning process that begins with developing a diverse school community team. Specific recruitment strategies that are the core of creating diversity are covered in depth in Chapter 2. Innovative techniques for mapping the ecology of the community, methods for assessing and strengthening strategic linkages, and strategies for overcoming resistance are all included in this chapter. Many of these same techniques can be applied to any organizing effort designed to engage diverse representation from the school community or within the student body for broad-based student involvement initiatives.

This team then embarks on a journey of discovery in examining the specific components of environments that create a holistic picture of learning and student supports. The research foundation of supportive learning environments, presented in Chapter 3, provides a solid base for understanding and planning student-centered learning communities that enhance student achievement. The research is compiled into the seven key elements of supportive learning environments, which are then further delineated through indicators for success. This model establishes a clear picture, grounded in extensive research, of proven strategies, structures, policies, and practices that are interwoven to form effective and inclusive learner-centered environments.

The team now has a greater understanding of what it is attempting to create and can engage in a deliberate process of establishing a shared vision. In Chapter 4 multiple tools are explored in depth to allow members to access the creative brain when developing vision statements. Many of these same strategies can be applied to student learning as well. Sample vision statements from a wide variety of settings and industries are included to expand the conception of what is possible. Additional tools are provided that create structures and protocols for ensuring the safety and trust within the planning team.

Chapter 5 explains a data-based needs assessment process that allows the team to engage in reflective, honest discussions about the nature of the successes and areas for improvement within the school community. A conscious, thoughtful exploration of these issues occurs through a finely tuned process that focuses on strengths, builds on existing capacities, and accurately pinpoints areas of need. Predata discussions, based on guiding questions and sample worksheets, are crafted to engage the group in a highly structured design. Team members engage in individual, dyadic, small, and large group sharing of personal observations and hypotheses of causation, surfacing underlying assumptions, and generating questions before jumping to answers and solutions.

Expanding the range of multiple data sources available to the team is a key task for creating informed discussion and decision making. Additional information designed to capture quantitative as well as qualitative data is gathered in a variety of ways in the data collection phase. Sample student and parent surveys, a community resource mapping tool, and a sample checklist of expanded data sources are all included.

Now the team is ready to commit their plan to paper. Chapter 6 provides simple tools for developing a measurable results-based plan. Assessing assets and determining gaps helps the group to hone their focus and sequence their change efforts. Establishing priorities and then matching the prioritized needs to selected strategies (using the research-based components of a supportive learning environment form Chapter 3) allows the team to understand the dynamic nature of action planning. Rather than a static plan, this delicate process of matching needs illustrates that there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between problem and solution but rather a series of possible interventions that can address a multitude of areas.

The concept of a dynamic process is further enhanced through the focus on immediate, short- and long-term outcomes. Many of the deeper systemic changes require putting in place the building blocks of smaller incremental steps. This builds in another self-correcting evaluation mechanism for the team. The team can review the results, outcomes, outputs, and indicators to measure progress toward successful implementation. Using these results-based measures allows the team to formulate and sequence its plan incrementally, building on immediate short-term successes to develop the long-term outcomes that lead to lasting and sustainable impacts.

Delineating specific action steps, assigning these tasks to particular individuals, and demarcating timelines helps to clarify roles and responsibilities of team members and ensures progress and momentum in implementing the plan. This is the simplest part of the task because the team has now arrived at the point of readiness for action. The language of results-based planning is alive, active, and easily decipherable, and does not require expending enormous amounts of time and energy in the often-frustrating attempt to create minute, finite measures. Instead, the team can maintain its momentum and excitement as it readies for actual strategy implementation by developing a simple and succinct blueprint for action. The indicators and corresponding evidence of success provide clear and readily accessible tools and benchmarks to measure successful project implementation.

By committing the plan to paper, team members are also deepening their commitmen...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 An Overview of the Action Planning Process: How Do We Get to Where We are Going?
• 2 Creating a School/ Community Team: It Takes a Village
• 3 Examining Research-Based Elements of Supportive Learning Environments: Building the Foundation
• 4 Establishing a Common Vision: Build It and They Will Come
• 5 Conducting Data-Based Needs Assessment: Get Real!
• 6 Putting the Plan Together: Who's on First?
• 7 Continuous Assessment and Improvement: Are We There Yet?
• Additional References