Activity Directions: Planning Instructional Supports

For more information about how to use this activity to support developing plans to support instructional practices, see Action Overview: Plan Instructional Supports.

Objective: Participants will develop effective process, fidelity, and outcome goal statements. 

Time

60 - 90 minutes 

Preparation

1. It is necessary to have selected at least one effective instructional practice for implementation. To do that, complete the Instructional Practices strategy in the Getting Started section prior to this action. 
2. Ensure each participant has access to the following: 
   1. Understanding Effective Educational Goals reading handout
   2. The organization’s current goals 
   3. The Shared Focus for Instruction that was developed in Creating a Shared Focus for Instruction
   4. Data on current instructional practices. See Instruction Practices: Examine Current Practices. 
   5. Components or descriptions of the selected instructional practices. See Instruction Practices: Effective Practices
3. Facilitators should review the reading.

Directions

1. Establish the purpose of this meeting: To write effective sets of goal statements that include process, fidelity, and outcome goals. These goals will guide the team’s work in supporting implementation of effective instructional practices.
2. Have participants read the handout Understanding Effective Educational Goals. After reading, facilitate a discussion using this question:
   1. Has your thinking about effective goals changed or been validated after this reading this guidance? If so, how? 
3. Review the organization’s current goals guiding continuous improvement of instruction (unless starting from scratch, then skip this step.) Analyze them using the following questions as prompts:
   1. Do our current goals include process, fidelity, and outcome goals? If not, which type(s) are we missing?
   2. How might we articulate goals differently to better convey specific (and strategic), measurable, attainable, results-based, and time-bound efforts? (consider data regarding current instructional practices and components of the selected instructional practices for reference.)
   3. Do they align with our Shared Focus for Instruction? If so, how? If not, what is misaligned?
4. Use the guidance from Understanding Effective Educational Goals and the team’s analysis of current goals to either revise or draft new process, fidelity, and outcome goals. 
   1. Use the following to help define the current state and where you would like to be:
      • The Shared Focus for Instruction that was developed in Creating a Shared Focus for Instruction
      • Data on current instructional practices
      • Components or descriptions of the selected instructional practices
5. Use the questions in Step 3 to review what the team has drafted for goals.
6. Record the three types of goals in the Action Plan Template. 
7. Extension: So that the team can determine whether it reaches its goals, use the Planning for a Decision-Support Data System activity to identify necessary data and plan for its collection, analysis, and use.