Only once you have a realistic view of where you are at right now can you know where to go next. You have already outlined your vision and priorities (Step 1) and established where you are now (Steps 2 and 3). Taking action after making conclusions from the data collected is the logical next step for school improvement. Translating data into information that informs action is the only way to make sure that the effort you have put into data collection and analysis is not wasted. Clear action plans are also inspirational - if the data leads to action, students, teachers, and parents will have a better understanding of their role in the education process.
This is the moment when all of the hard work you've put into analyzing the student-centered problem comes together with the problem of practice and needs to be transformed into instructional decisions. From there, together as a team, you'll choose an instructional strategy to incorporate into your daily work, agreeing on what the plan will look like in classrooms. Putting the plan in writing with a clear target and trajectory will help you to share responsibility, plan in the necessary time for change to happen and create success criteria around which to give feedback and adjust your work as needed.
It is key that you maintain that the 'Norms of collaboration' you established in the beginning of the process are still relevant and are being respected. As you move to taking action, the way your team communicates and works together will be vital to making sure you are on track and making this goal a priority for planning your work.
Based on the conclusions made in the previous step about the problem you are trying to solve, before you get to creating the action plan, you need to come to unified decisions on the changes that need to be made. The most effective data teams take improvement actions focused on instruction, the curriculum (e.g. creating more coherence), and assessment (implementing more formative assessment). This means taking into account the student-centered problem and the problem of practice and coming up with possible strategies or methods that can be implemented to improve the situation.
Deciding on improvement actions involves putting together various pieces of knowledge to assess, what changes will be the most effective for solving your problem. You must take the conclusions made in the previous cycle stages and consider the context and different aspects of practice of teaching. This includes, for example:
content knowledge (of the subject);
general pedagogical knowledge;
curriculum knowledge (of the subject);
knowledge of learners and their characteristics.
By putting together different aspects of the teaching practice, a more holistic and considered solution can present itself, that will take into account the current state of the problem ('Where are we?') and the goal you have set for yourself and your students ('Where are we going?').
Before deciding on improvement actions, together with your team reflect upon and discuss the questions provided in the worksheet.
While brainstorming and thinking about the possible actions or strategies to address the root cause of the problem, think of the characteristics of successful actions that you have come across in other projects. For your actions to be successful, these are the feasibility of implementation criteria that you need to meet:
administrative support;
teacher support;
trained staff;
available training;
available funding;
available resources;
time to plan and monitor.
Together with your team discuss and write the potential actions in the provided worksheet.
Together with you team discuss and select your actions in the provided worksheet.
Remember that the improvement actions should be unified and strategic.
It is important to understand and decide on different stakeholders within the school system who will come together to support and ensure that purposeful actions can take place. In your action plan involve people whose participation in the change process you wish to see, for instance, your colleagues, students, and students' parents.
First, make sure that there are clearly assigned responsibilities to manage the actions that follow. You should have a clear idea of the team that will be leading change and improvement for your priority. As you decide on roles and responsibilities, you should discuss the norms of collaboration and set expectations for those taking on a task.
Secondly, keep everyone informed and gather feedback about your plans. This helps ensure that you have not missed anything important and lets other plans their workload. This also increases the sense of ownership and support for you school improvement project.
Finally, make sure that the actions affect your school and school system throughout, including students and teachers. If your priority is linked with learning, make sure all actions have a clear impact on practices in classroom.
An action plan is a timeline that specifies the actions, deadlines, resources, and people responsible for the tasks in order to achieve your goal.
Together with your team discuss and write your action plan in the provided worksheet.
To make sure you are still moving towards your goal, you need to divide the work up into time periods, outlining what will happen and how often. If you want to carve the change project into smaller steps, try identifying some short-term, medium-term, and long-term milestones
Examples of different time periods, milestones, and deadlines have been provided in this material.
Additionally, write a monitoring plan that describes what and how will be monitored and evaluated along the way as the action plan is being implemented in order to regularly check if the actions lead towards the set goal.
Together with your team discuss and answer the questions provided in the worksheet.
School leadership teams need to have a clear vision and play a cheerleader role in the school, making sure to reiterate the importance of the goal, and keeping everyone accountable and stepping in to support when needed. School leaders should not make the assumption that just because there is a plan and everyone seems to be on board, that work will happen automatically. Checking in continuously, but especially in the beginning, is key, and solving problems early and vigorously will keep you on the road to success. Especially if this is your first time going through the data-driven decision making cycle, keep in mind the need to be flexible and to adapt strategies for your situation, your teachers, your students, your school's context.
When thinking about the action plan, be aware of any professional development support that your teachers might need for implementing the changes. This can be support to fill in knowledge gaps in pedagogical knowledge (new methods or strategies to help support learners), content specific support, or general support to organize work - clearing out time to allow teachers to work collaboratively, organizing ways to share resources, etc. that will help alleviate some of the possible stressors teachers could face when starting something new.
Teachers need to be ready to pull all the stops, including linking data with: content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, curriculum knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of learners and their characteristics, knowledge of educational contexts, knowledge of educational ends, purposes and values. This is when teachers need to put their know-how into action, by taking into account all of the information available to them and continuously making an effort to check in with colleagues to share information and get feedback in the process.
Teachers need to take into account their day to day work when coming to a decision about the best instructional change for them. This includes considering their personal teaching style, the subject they teach and the students they work with. At the decision making stage it is key that teachers are open about any concerns they may have, especially if these concerns might affect the ways the leadership team plans support for teachers.
After implementing the action plan, please visit the next section to find out how you can continue your work on school improvement priorities by using the DATADRIVE cycle: