FROM FUZZINESS TO FOCUS

One of the explicit outcomes of the Coaching School Results process is the support of school administrators in identifying goals for their schools and districts. The CSR coach supports, assists, and enables principals and superintendents to clarify their thinking and specify directions toward which their organizations should move. This is no easy job, but is the necessary first step. When the goal is clarified, then comes the challenge of creating a shared vision of what the goal will look like when it is implemented in the district and/or schools.

For decades, getting clear on just what the new goal, and its program, process, or innovation that will lead to the goal has been quite haphazard, poorly described and fuzzy. Is it any wonder that efforts to change and improve schools have not lead to significant results with great frequency? Practitioners typically lack clarity about what the innovation is at its introduction and subsequently what it should look like during implementation. Such a lack of definition leaves intended teachers and administrators with little understanding of the demands or requirements of the innovation and with impoverished mental images of what it should look like if it has been implemented in a high quality way.

School change researchers and practitioners recognized this dilemma, studied the issue, and rose to the challenge of how to define new curriculum, instructional strategies, and other innovations that would support administrators and teachers in reaching specified goals. A tool was created to precisely define or describe what a new program or practice, be it curricular, instructional, or policy changes, might be. This tool became known as the Innovation Configuration Map (IC Map) (Hall & Hord, 2006), that, as suggested, guides implementers in reliably moving new practices into schools and classrooms. It also provides clear pathways to increasing staff effectiveness.

The CSR coach assists the administrator in specifying the rudiments or a “frame” of what one would see if goal-oriented activities are taken by educators in the school. Rich detail is not generated at this time, for the wise coach and administrator understand that providing the opportunity for the staff to contribute to the vision of the change will increase their motivation to become a part of implementing it.

The IC Map has been used by many schools and districts in order to describe a new program intended to reach a district or school goal. The IC Map also sets expectations for implementers, but suggests that high quality implementation will not happen over night, thus, participants will move along a continuum from less desirable practice to ideal practice, with the help of facilitators and coaches.

The CSR coach will remain available for the positional leader of the school (principal) or district (superintendent), to guide conversation about the progress being made toward real change. The IC Map is a tool that can be used by the CSR coach, by the principal and superintendent to check implementation, and by teachers to track their progress toward reaching their specified goals.

Shirley M. Hord, Ph. D., CSR Board Member
Scholar Emerita, Southwest Educational Development Laboratory
Austin, Texas

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