In Part 1 of my report on the Learning Forward preconference led by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Mike Murphy, I addressed their view of differentiation and of evaluating any major initiative. Part 2 focuses specifically on monitoring progress toward differentiation, with a bird’s eye view on how to assess, support and sustain teacher learning.
3 Views of Progress Toward Differentiation
In the last few hours of the session, both Tomlinson and Murphy worked to connect all the themes shared and developed during the day. To do so, they drew on research on organizational change and related it to providing differentiation to teachers so they can effectively provide it to students.
The presenters briefly recounted the three views of progress in any initiative: (1) The Far View (long-term), (2) the Near View, and (3) the Mid View.
1. The Far View
Calling upon the research of Matthew Miles, the author of Innovation in Education (1964), Tomlinson and Murphy pointed out that instructional leaders and school improvers needed to view schools as being both educational organizations and social institutions.
Because people are involved, Miles found, there are stages of predictable change: Initiation, Implementation, and Institutionalization. And, throughout those stages, there are ramifications for progress and for what we are assessing (who or what we think we are really affects assessment).
During the Initiative Phase, which is the launch, implementers should be looking at the condition of the work: What type of culture are we building? How are we communicating the work: Why are we doing this? What does it look like? How does it fit into the other things we are being asked to do?
Even during the implementation phase progress should be assessed. And that begins with deciding what should be assessed. Interestingly—at least to me—is the fact that most of the professional learning occurs during the implementation phase. Assessing progress needs to begin now…so you have to determine what you will be assessing.
Miles found that, for a school leader, the implementation phases comes with both good news and bad news. As people move from thinking about it to doing it, the good news is that people are actually doing it. The bad news is that, as people begin to move into the work, they experience difficulty or find out that it is not operating as smoothly, or taking more time, etc.
This is why ongoing assessment is important. As we track progress we can also surface what teachers need now. Every time we assess progress, we need to be ready to make mid-term adjustments in coaching and support.
Moving to the implementation and finally the institutionalization stage, Miles found major reform initiatives take seven years to achieve institutionalization. Unfortunately, oftentimes, when reaching the implementation dip, the innovation is abandoned. As a result this behavior reinforces the “this too will pass” mindset, while at the same time, burning out the early adopters.
Shifting to another thought leader, Tomlinson pointed to Michael Fullan, who found that when implementation gets hard, participants adopt a “false clarity” (e.g. “How is differentiation going? Just fine…”). This often results in inch-deep implementation of differentiation.
And even though Tomlinson thinks this behavior is “probably predictable,” we need to be able to assess to ascertain whether it is getting deeper over time by asking: “What does it look like in the classroom? And, by understanding that different teachers will be at different stages…and that’s okay.”
The challenge to reformers? Policymakers don’t often have the patience to wait for long-term results.
2. The Near View
The near view addresses affective changes. To effectively manage the near view, Murphy suggested two themes:
- Giving ourselves permission to assess emotional responses to the initiative
- Being prepared to respond to those emotional responses
Using the Concerns-Based Model (CBAM) developed by Shirley Hord is useful when responding to emotional concerns. More information about CBAM can be found here.
In short, during a change process, individuals usually go through seven stages featured in the graphic below. The first three stages (awareness, information, and personal) occur before the individual buys into the initiative and the concerns are largely more about the individual. Questions pondered during these stages are: What is it? How does it work? Why is it important? How will it affect me?
The fourth stage, management, is an important one, for this is when individuals begin to seek efficiency in implementation. Looking at the questions on the graphic, you see that each one deals with teacher actions. According to Murphy, “When you hear staff asking for help (efficiency), that is good news IF they can be supported.”
As the implementation of the initiative progress, you’ll begin to notice a pattern, by which people are falling into groups. According to the presenters, these patterns can begin to tell you what to do.
The One-Legged Interview
Tomlinson suggested a quick and easy way to gather feedback about how teachers are feeling about the change: Ask for feedback using a “One-legged Interview” that generally gives an accurate response.
A one-legged interview is just as it sounds: a conversation that you can have when you are standing on just one leg, which for most of us is about 90 seconds. The characteristics of the one-legged interview are that it is short, one-on-one, informal, cannot be written down, should be frequent, and enables pattern-finding.
Tomlinson provided an example of a question that prompts a one-legged interview: “Think about the work we are doing in differentiation this year, and how that is going for you. When you think about differentiation and your efforts to differentiate your classroom, what concerns you? What are you worried about?”
According to Tomlinson, the key to the one-legged interview is to assess progress by hearing about their worries and concerns and pushing for specificity. A follow-up question asking for more details should follow your initial question. being very specific. After the response, ask for more information. The most important aspect of the one-legged interview is that you don’t try to solve their problem, you just listen.
The one-legged interview is concluded by a promise about what will be done about what you’ve heard. Murphy suggested something like: “Thank you. I’ve heard you. I’m going to also ask other folks in the building and then use that feedback to figure out how we can provide better support.” You are not going to intervene in the moment and try to fix it.
3. The Mid-View
Moving up the CBAM “ladder,” Tomlinson noted it is important to continue to gather teacher perceptual information. To get data, teachers should be asked to describe how the use of the innovation—in this case differentiation—is working for them.
In this case, the CBAM model looks more at specific teacher actions:
Looking for Patterns
During classroom visits, patterns will begin to emerge, including the following:
- Preparing for the work (doing the work at all?)
- Mechanically implementing some ideas (low proficiency?)
- Routinely implementing some ideas (persistent experimentation)
- Refined, sophisticated teaching and learning (High proficiency)
To extend the example using differentiation, the observer should look for manageable patterns of student learning, including:
- Group of kids considerably confused
- Group of kids with some understanding, but some holes in learning
- Group of kids that need a lot of practice, but will get there
- Group of kids who really deeply understanding it
And, as the observer becomes more skilled, patterns can include the following:
- These kids have the skills, but they can’t explain it; the understanding is lacking
- Kids understand what they are doing and they can apply it, but they don’t have the academic vocabulary
Learning more
As a left this session, I felt like I had attended an innovation and differentiated instruction “boot camp,” led not by drill sergeants but by two very committed and very expert individuals. I’ve only been able to share a few highlights of their all-day session here. I recommend their 2015 ASCD book Leading for Differentiation: Growing Teachers Who Grow Kids as a practical resource to explore these ideas more deeply.
I also left their workshop with several new insights, the most important being practice what you preach. If we expect instructional leaders to be able to differentiate support for teachers, so that they can differentiate support for their students, those of us who are “leadership developers” need to do the same for those with whom we work. A virtuous cycle to be sure.
