Date of Submission

8-8-2020

Document Type

DiP

Degree

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

Keywords

building teacher capacities, organizational change, PDSA, student ownership, informed prescription, continuous improvement

Abstract

Bound Yet Free Christian School is an organization committed to a growth mindset. The school’s Board of Directors invests in school improvement efforts, making use of external evaluations and encouraging professional development. Building on the previous external evaluations of the organization, two of the local school board’s resulting initiatives are explicitly addressed in this Organizational Improvement Plan. Making academic success a priority while building teacher capacities in intelligent, evidence-based pedagogies are the goals. A specific focus on assisting student development of responsibility and ownership for their learning is the focal point for improving student learning. This plan seeks to outline a detailed strategy for building teacher capacities in evidence-based practices for improving student responsibility and independence. Such pedagogies include sharing learning goals, metacognitive strategies, assessment for and as learning, and academic press, focusing on the co-responsibility of teachers and students to create and protect a conducive learning environment. Using a Christian servant leadership paradigm, where love serves as the supreme ethic, and with the goal of establishing a culture for continuous improvement, this plan seeks to make use of an 8-step organizational approach to change and then complement that approach with the implementation of a Plan-Do-Study-Act process. In order to initiate this change, the problem of practice, namely, the poor development of ownership and responsibility for learning among many BYFCS students, demonstrates the necessity for creating a sense of urgency among stakeholders. Communication of this plan with stakeholders takes a one-sided messaging approach, providing an evidence-based rationale for its necessity. Various elements of the plan are shared with parents, Board members, staff, and students in order to create a uniform understanding for the vision of change. Particular attention is given to the important role of building a guiding coalition among the teachers to receive initial feedback on the plan, to develop clarity of goals, to maintain focused attention on those goals, and to help ensure the momentum for continuous improvement.

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