Educational Change Processes

The process of educational change is diverse. It involves all components of the system to buy into the necessity for the change. The system is such that it incorporates so many different levels in the structure to accomplish the end task of teaching students in the class. Leadership making a system impactful change needs to coordinate and almost bring the whole vertical structure onto its side so that all levels are working collaboratively on a lateral plane to accomplish the change. This connects all the supervisory, administrative, support, and classroom teacher personal so that they directly establish their link to the front lines of change. This ownership of change brings individual accountability to the team for improvement and change. 

Reflection and evaluation of every component of the change needs to be monitored regular in order to make the changes early enough so that major landslides are avoided of people bailing from the mission. The coordinating team needs to be flexible enough to make changes on the fly that will steady the efforts to remain focused on the mission. So, this would required monitoring of the progress and efforts in order to determine effectiveness and better/best practices that would have more impact.

The process takes time in order to effectively have system wide changes that are institutionalized and grounded into regular practice. If the changes are given the necessary time to blossom into the desired outcome, the necessity will fizzle and motivation for change will sputter to a stall. The change needs to be supported by admin and support staff so that it becomes part of regular practice within the school/system. If it is done only on the individual level, there is such a limited chance that it will see its full bloom to impact change in the school and greater school system. This has more of a chance in changing the system as a whole through system support in planning and implementation with integration of community partners. 

Change involves almost everyone believing and motivated to take part in the vision guided by an advisory team. Even with everyone having a forum to input their ideas and build the vision, can the change still be effective and long lasting if there are still those that negate the efforts by holding on to what they perceive as the most effective environment/strategies/practices for teaching and learning?