The authors: Jim Knight, research associate, Center for Research on Learning. This article originally appeared in the October 2000 issue of Stratenotes, a newsletter for SIM Professional Developers.
Editor's note: Teacher-Guided Professional Development is a democratic approach for those interested in a teacher-centered, partnership-based approach to professional development. TGPD incorporates a number of "process structures," or procedures that groups can use to organize or complete activities. Articles in the March and April issues of Stratenotes (Vol. 8, No. 6 and No. 7) described two process structures--interviews and vignettes--that can help professional developers understand their audiences' needs before a workshop begins. This article describes a process structure--dynamic planning--that can be used to help workshop participants develop implementation plans during the workshop. Other process structures enable learning and problem solving.
Dynamic planning is an open-ended, intuitive, easy-to-use process structure that teachers can use to create detailed implementation plans. This activity gives teachers a way to sort out all the details they need to think through to implement initiatives, ranging from simple, such as planning to teach a single strategy, to complicated, such as schoolwide implementation of a strategic writing curriculum. Dynamic planning involves six simple steps: listing tasks, organizing task chronology, estimating time, naming task masters, using a Gantt chart, and identifying measures of success.
The goal of this step is to identify all the tasks that a group of teachers need to complete for an intervention to be implemented once they have decided on a goal they hope to achieve. To start, groups of teachers clear off and gather around a large table. This works best with no more than 15 participants in each group. Group members then discuss tasks they believe need to be completed. For example, teachers planning to teach the Sentence Writing Strategy might identify such tasks as photocopying worksheets, reading the manual, creating student folders, scheduling peer-observation and coaching, creating overhead transparencies, and so on.
As each task is identified, a participant writes it on an index card or a self-sticking note, then lays it on the table. Participants continue to brainstorm additional tasks in this way until, eventually, a large number of cards or notes blankets the table, and most tasks are identified.
The goal of this step is to refine the task list and put the list into a chronological order. Teachers sort the cards or notes in order from the task they think should be completed first to the task they think should be completed last. As they organize the tasks, teachers look for gaps (tasks they have forgotten to complete) or redundancies (tasks they have stated more than once). If they notice gaps, the teachers fill them by writing additional tasks on cards or notes. If they notice redundancies, they remove duplicated tasks or rewrite cards to simplify tasks. Tasks to be completed on the same day can be stacked. Eventually, teachers will have organized all tasks in order on the table, creating a detailed, organized action plan for everyone to see.
The goal of this step is to determine the date by which every task will be completed. Teachers write the dates when they think tasks should be completed on each card (on the upper-left corner, for example). Eventually, teachers will have estimated and recorded when each task will be completed.
Once completion dates have been identified, the group needs to identify individuals who will be responsible for ensuring that tasks are completed in a timely manner. These people, the task masters, need not do all of the work necessary to complete the tasks, but they are empowered to keep track of the group's progress toward completion of the tasks.
The results of this dynamic planning process can be simply recorded through the use of a Gantt chart. On the chart, a group member should list all of the tasks the group has identified, when the tasks will be completed, and who is responsible for ensuring each task is completed. A completed Gantt Chart provides a one-page summary of the group's plan of action.
Once a group of teachers has created a detailed implementation plan, a final step to consider is identifying measures of success. If group members identify exactly how they will know they have achieved their goals, they may be more focused and efficient in their efforts to achieve their goals than if they do not identify their measures of success.
Additionally, measures of success also can serve as the point of departure for follow-up sessions with teams of teachers. When a team has achieved its identified goal, the session can begin with a celebration of success, and the group can dive into another challenge with renewed momentum. When a team has not achieved its identified goal, the group can spend time brainstorming, problem solving, and strategizing to refine implementation plans to ensure that the measures of success are achieved after a second attempt at implementation.
Effective measures of success should have certain characteristics. First, they should be achievable. Group members need to think carefully about whether or not they have created a plan that will enable them to achieve their identified goal. To be sure, ambitious goals are great if they spur a team on to achieve at a level that has never been achieved before, but goals that are beyond the scope of an initiative may serve only to frustrate all participants when they are not achieved.
Second, measures of success need to be tied to a timeline. A timeline says exactly when a goal will be accomplished, and thus everyone in the group knows that their efforts are to focus on achieving the goal by the deadline. When there is no timeline, the chances of a goal being accomplished are diminished simply because the goal then becomes something that can be postponed indefinitely.
Third, measures of success need to be "measurable." When a group sets out to ensure that "all students are motivated," although their goal is admirable, the group's ability to know that they have achieved their goal is questionable. A measurable goal would be "By October 15, 90% of students will be able to write complete simple sentences."
Dynamic planning is an easy-to-use, powerful method that enables teachers to plan how they will implement interventions. Obviously, this process structure won't guarantee that teachers will use the learning strategies and content enhancement routines in which they are trained, but by giving teachers a way to organize their plans for implementation, you will make it easier for teachers to make the changes they intend to make.
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