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6. Developing an Action Plan
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Decide On An Instructional Strategy
  • Clarify the Scope of Your Plan. 
         “The scope of the plan your team develops will depend on the unit of improvement the team seeks to address" (Boudett, et al.,
           2013, p. 135).
  • Brainstorm Solutions to the Problem
  • Select a Solution to Implement.  Consider feasibility of strategy and likely impact.
 
Agree On What Your Plan Will Look Like in Classrooms
  • Develop a Common Vision for Implementation.  Establish implementation Indicators.
  • Lay Out the Theory Behind Your Solution
          “If teachers understand and agree how the action plan should address the problem of practice, they are more likely to implement
          the action plan and be able to adapt it to meet student’s needs"
(Boudett, et al., 2013, p. 143).
 
Put the Plan in Writing
Be clear about what the tasks are, who is going to do them, and when they are going to be accomplished.
An action plan has two types of tasks:
  • Instructional strategies teachers will use in classrooms
  • Professional development activities designed to support teacher’s implementation of strategies
  • Assign Responsibilities and Time Frames 
​          "Writing down what you and your colleagues agree to accomplish and when is an important step in developing the internal   
           accountability that allows you to hold one another responsible for following through on your actions and creates a shared 
          written history that your school can refer to over time"
(Boudett, et al., 2013, p. 144).
  •  Plan How to Support Teachers in Their New Work
 
ACE Habits of Mind.  “Putting names and due dates right on the action plan is a good way of making it clear who is involved an exactly what they are responsible for. . . we call this “making commitments" (Boudett, et al., 2013, p. 149).
7.  Planning to Assess Progress
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Goal:  develop an assessment plan as a complement to your action plan.  Plan to assess the extent to which your action plan improved student achievement.
Assessment plans address:
  •     What assessments will be used to measure progress?
  •     When will each type of assessment data be collected?
  •     Who is responsible for collecting and keeping track of the data?
  •     How will the data be shared among faculty and administrators?
  •     What are the goals for student improvement and proficiency?
 
Choose Assessments to Measure Progress
Begin by categorizing data by three time frames: short term (collected daily or weekly from students’ work and classroom interactions), medium-term (gathered systematically within a school, grade, or department at periodic intervals during the year), long-term (gathered annually [state wide tests]).
  • Planning to Use Short-Term Data.  Teachers have primary responsibility for keeping track of this information, and schools and districts can support the effort by making available data tracking systems that are easy to use.
                Looking at Classwork and Homework
                Observing Students’ Participation
                Asking Students About Their Learning
  • Planning to Use Medium-Term Data
               Using Benchmark or Interim Assessments
               Using In-House Assessments
          Four challenges to developing assessments:
               Each version must measure the same skills
               Difficulty levels should be consistent from one version to the next
               Tests must be administered under standardized conditions
               Consistent scoring system must be established
  • Planning to Use Long-Term Data
 
Set Student Learning Goals
  • Improvement Goals and Proficiency Goals.  goals for short, medium and long terms should include both improvement and proficiency goals. 
          improvement goal:  a  target for students’ growth on a given assessment within a specified period of time.  For example, to have all students
          improve their scores by 25 percent on the district mathematics interim assessments between September and May.

          proficiency goal:  a target for how many students will achieve a level of performance that is considered reasonable and appropriate for students
          in their grade within a specified period of time.  For example, 90 percent of a school’s tenth graders to perform at or above grade level on a
          district math assessment by the end of the school year.  

          Creating these two types of goals keeps schools focused on two distinct and important objective—growth and competence.

  • The Goldilocks Problem.  Just like Goldilocks who tried different beds before finding the right one, schools face difficulty of setting goals that are either too hard or too easy.
​          “. . . maintain the perspective that what matters most is not meeting a particular target but constantly self-assessing to determine
          what is working and what can be done better to meet all students’ learning needs"
(Boudett, et al., 2013, p. 165).
8.  Acting and Assessing
Students should prepare for adult life by studying subjects that suit their talents, passions, and aspirations" (Wiggins, 2011, p. 33).
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Plus/Delta Protocol
Purpose.  For a group to assess what went well in a meeting or training session and think about what they want to change.
Preparation
  • Takes about 10 minutes.
  • Materials:  index cards (one per participant).
  • Draw two-column chart on chart paper.  Write a + sign above the left column and a delta above the right column.
Steps
  1. 2 minutes.  Review objectives and activities of meeting.  Say: "A powerful aspect of the ACE Habits of Mind is gathering feedback about teamwork and using it to improve teamwork.
  2. 2 minutes.  Participants copy T chart on their index cards.  They think about what went well in the meeting and write answers under plus column.
  3. 2 minutes.  Participants think about what they would like to change about the meeting and write answers under delta column on their index cards.
  4. 2 minutes.  Volunteers share pluses and responses are written on chart paper.
  5. 2 minutes.  Ask for deltas and write them on chart.  Collect all index cards at end of protocol.
The action plan can be thought of as an experiment, a form of action research in which a school tests its theories of how instructional strategies lead to student learning.

Are We All On The Same Page? 
Bring the action plan alive! 
  • Communicate the Action Plan Clearly
  • Integrate the Action Plan into Ongoing School Work
  • Use Teams for Support and Internal Accountability

Are We Doing What We Said We’d Do?
  • Visit Classrooms Frequently
  • Promote Consistency Rather Than Conformity
  • Adapt Professional Development Plans to Meet Ongoing Needs That Emerge from the Work
 
Are Our Students Learning More?
  • Regularly Check in with Teachers About Learning Outcomes
  • Help Teachers See the Big Picture.  Has the data been explored completely?  Has the many other indicators of student learning been analyzed?
  • Be Honest in Evaluating What Is and Is Not Working
 
Where Do We Go From Here?
  • Celebrate Success
  • Revisit your Criteria and “Raise the Bar”
  • Plan How to Keep the Work Fresh and Ongoing
          “The improvement cycle curves back on itself for a reason:  once you get to the “end,” you continue back around the cycle, but
          each time you use it at a higher level and apply it to a more complex problem of student learning"
(Boudett, et al., 2013, p. 188).
 
ACE Habits of Mind.  "The single most important insight is:  every time you have a meeting or hold a professional development session, set aside five minutes at the end for participants to provide specific, descriptive feedback about how it went" (Boudett, et al., 2013, p. 189). 
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