Design the outcome you want

After all the content training + shifts to research-backed, Tier 1 curriculum, this small district still wasn’t seeing the results that they wanted to see. Instructional practices and student mastery were not changing at scale. 

In order to be able to generate solutions, the Department of Curriculum & Instruction team in this district had to look at this problem differently. 

This difference required a paradigm shift. 

And I had to facilitate it. 

How do I get a team of overextended administrators with a million and one priorities to slow down, and focus on just one thing? How do I get this team to channel their energy + resources towards this one thing? 

Show them how this one thing connects to all of their other concerns and competing priorities. 

How do I do this without being condescending or presumptuous? 

Create a space that allows them to confront this one thing.

While centering their knowledge about their own school district? 

Set up a structure that requires them to choose AND create that one thing.

While creating buy-in? 

Get input from all key stakeholders while vigorously addressing conflicting ideas and any dissent. 

At Equitable Outcomes, we call this process the “Design It” phase of our work. With space to think deeply and holistically about seemingly intractable, recurring issues, we help leaders identify a root cause that makes many competing priorities seem like busy work. When applied to this district, the curriculum team was able to see that in order to sustainably change instructional practices and systemically create access to grade level content, that instructional leadership and all of its components had to be the center of any and all efforts towards progress. 
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What outcome do you want to see with your principals, instructional coaches, and teachers? What shifts would applying “Design It” require? What aspect of this shift excites you (or makes you a little bit anxious!)? Talk it out with a work bae or drop it in the comments and let me know!