Episode 25: Implementation Science and The Strategic Plan

Michael McSheehan and I continue our conversation and get into why implementation science can assist with influencing change in the school setting, and the importance of implementing a strategic plan that involves all the correct stakeholders.

Transcript

Arthur: This is the Inclusion Think Tank Podcast brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, NJCIE, where we talk about inclusive education, why it works, and how to make it happen.

On this episode I welcome back to the podcast, my guest, Michael McSheehan. Today we continue our conversation and get into why implementation science can assist with influencing change in the school setting, and the importance of implementing a strategic plan that involves all the correct stakeholders.

Arthur: So to switch gears a little bit, you and I had some pre-conversations about recording this and topics to discuss.

And one of the things that we discussed is implementation science. So can you share with us what implementation of science is, how it is used to create change in schools, and why you feel it is important in the sustainability of inclusion?

Michael I'm going to geek out again. Here we go.

Arthur: Great.

Michael: I love me some implementation science. So basically, implementation science is a study of change. It's a study of change with a focus on how we adopt, integrate really effective practices and policies.

And it's a field of science in health care and education, in community change. It's in public health. It's really spreading all over. There is a huge strand of it focused solely in the field of education.

Right. Implementation science is a method of improvement that really focuses on how education changes are carried out. Right. With attention to all the local variables that come to bear within a school or district.

All we know, all the dynamics and culture that builds over time in a school or district. Putting that in the context of state and professional priorities, in the context of the broader society or culture that we live in. Regional influences.

Michael: So it's a method of improvement that focuses on effective practices and acknowledges the context, their influences and how to navigate to get things fully implemented, fully used so that children can benefit. There's a lot of educational practices that kind of get partially put in place, sort of put in place, and others that get up and running, and then, our principal left, our superintendent changed, and so now we don't do that anymore. Right. Practices that just get abandoned.

And so what implementation science helps us do is to really look at what's going to work, to get to a place where we can get that full implementation in the full benefit from our practice and have it just become that second-order deep change like this is just how we do it now versus this is a special initiative that we're trying out. Like there's a long distance between beginning to try it out and actually having it just be how we do school.

Arthur: I’ve heard in my conversations I've doing this podcast, I've heard a lot of people say, that like an inclusive education is not just something, not a one-time thing. It's not just something that we are trying out, it is something that you have to do over time, and keep going at it and like you said, then it just becomes, it's what we do. It's what we're doing. And it's not an initiative to meet something, a goal, or something like that.

So it's just really just becomes part of the whole environment, the school environment. And that's really, really cool. I was really interested in that. And so I'm glad that you wanted to talk about that. So thank you.

Michael: Yeah, one of the big contributing forces in implementation science is this idea of braiding and coherence. So teachers experience a flood of initiatives flying at them Monday through Friday, and they're expected to just like put it all together and make it happen in my class.

And what implementation science brings is a set of tools and methods for school and district leaders and community leaders to engage and look carefully at all the different things that are going on and find ways to braid those together and put them into a coherent framework.

I’m working with the district not far from my hometown right now, and we just did a little inventory. Like, let me know how many different initiatives are underway right now and what they intend to accomplish and who's working with you on those different initiatives, and are they fully in place yet.

And they came back in their inventory. They had 43 different initiatives across five schools. It's a lot. That's too much. So how do we braid all of those different initiatives together, some of which have really similar aims?

Michael: So you're working on competency-based education, multi-tiered system of support, universal design for learning, competency-based grading and reporting. You have this vision of what's called Portrait of a Learner. You have all these things that really have some common destinations.

Can we break them down to their core elements? Put it into a framework that's understandable and usable for teachers on Monday, such that they're not always completely overwhelmed, and that when they hear of practice, they know where it fits into the broader framework.

And that will help leaders also better target and focus resources so that they're not just sending a bunch of people off to various conferences. I mean, I love coming to an institute that's focused on these issues.

I love doing trainings and workshops. But those only get you to an awareness level. There's still a huge gap between that initiative to awareness and being able to do it in your classroom. So if we really care about teachers and all the things that are on the administrator's plates, We can draw from some of the tools and practices in implementation science to make things not only more efficient but more effective.

All right. I could geek out about this all day long. If there is a particular aspect of this you want me to drill down into. I am happy to do so.

Arthur: I think what you said is all great. And, it's so important that we share this. And like you said, going from the awareness piece of going to workshops and conferences and all of that, to learn about and educate yourself about it.

But to actually put that work to use for the things that you've learned to use and implement them, that’s a whole different ballgame and can really take some, some time to do, and, so it's necessary to get that awareness and education piece, but to put it in action is the real important part.

Michael: Yeah, right. Like, I think I can't remember his name. He's one of the big leaders in the field of implementation science, and I'm drawing a blank on his name because I'm horrible with nouns, but it will come to me. His line is kids do not benefit from interventions that they do not experience.

Arthur: Wow.

Michael: Right. Like, if we don't get the actual instructional practice as it's intended for kids, we can't expect them to benefit from it.

And it seems like it's painfully obvious, right? Like, my car does not benefit from a car wash it does not go through, right? That seems kind of obvious, but we keep thinking we're doing the car wash. Like, we're not really just, like spraying the water into the air near the car, but not like actually doing the thing that we intended to do.

I want to go back because part of your question I think was why is implementation science so important for the sustainability of our work in inclusive education? And I don't know that I completely answered you and I really want to.

I started to go there and I didn't bring it back around. It's this focus on braiding that's important to sustain the work in inclusive education. Right? Because if you see kind of inclusion as an initiative, as a siloed effort, separate from how we're designing curriculum, right?

Michael: If we're doing understanding by design and curriculum or universal design for learning and curriculum, but we're not talking about equity issues for kids with significant disabilities, then that's not getting infused and it's still one step away. Like I stopped do my inclusion work while I'm doing my UBD work, while I'm doing my grading and reporting work, and that's not helpful.

Teachers need us to look at all the initiatives we have underway and administrators need us to work with them to say, okay, where does consideration for students with significant disabilities being in general education classrooms come into all of these different initiatives?

Michael: So what will quality curriculum design look like when it considers this population of learners? What will screening as part of your MTSS framework, What will screening or progress monitoring need to look like in order to include this population of learners with the most extensive support needs?

What will grading and reporting need to look like? I see districts that have these report card systems that in no way, shape or form could be used, as is to report on students with complex support needs who take alternate assessments.

Because altering assessment doesn't mean you're doing alternate curriculum, right? You're still working on the same standards, but it's not tied back through the reporting system. So the braiding piece of implementation science, I think, could really reduce the effort, and increase the sustainability of inclusive education because we can be braiding things in as we go.

I told you I can geek out on this for a long time Arthur, really, I could’ve done an hour just on that.

Arthur: I love it, though.

It's great information to have because it all makes sense. It all makes sense in the way that you're explaining it. It's in a way that everybody can understand why and how it can make sense so easily, and just with a little bit of effort from everybody, it can all be done.

Michael: Yeah, well, a little bit of effort and a long-term plan.

Arthur: Yes. Yes.

Michael: People think we're going to get this done in a year or two, no, we need to help manage your expectations. Not going to happen in just a year or two. It’s going to take five.

Arthur: Yes. That's a great segway into our next question, actually, of strategic planning.

Can you share with us why it is important to create a strategic plan that engages the correct stakeholders for an inclusive education goal?

Michael: Wow. I love that you ask such light questions. That's great. So take that in two parts, because I was kind of already speaking to the strategic planning part. Right? Like you want to create a plan so that you can manage your workloads so that you don't have 43 initiatives underway across your five schools.

So you want to create a strategic plan that says, here's how we're going to bring coherence to all of the work that we're doing. You want to create a strategic plan that maps out and acknowledges that implementation, and getting stuff in place happens in stages of work, and you want your plan to be developmentally responsive to where people are in their implementation effort.

Early on, people are asking, Well, why should we do this and should we do this, and if we do this, what will that involve? What are the roles and responsibilities? Right? And then you get into doing it. And when you get to that, that part of it, people are going to want to know, like, what are all the support structures for doing this work?

What is job-embedded coaching? What are the meeting structures? What are the data systems? What policies have to change now that we're doing this work? And then you're moving forward again to say right now, if we want to sustain this and fully integrate this, we're going to make sure it's completely braided with other work.

What's our long-term funding for the various elements of this work? So a strategic plan helps you communicate thoughtfully and honestly the nature of the work, and coherence for that work to be doable over time.

Michael: The latter part of your question, engages all the correct stakeholders and I would say, well, all the stakeholders are the correct ones. Let’s get them all in there in some way. And this would be going back to your first question, some things that are changed in the way that we approach the work.

And in terms of engaging stakeholders in this changing process around inclusive education. We used to take an approach that was very directed. Here's what you have to do. Here's how you do it. We provide the training and the coaching and the job-embedded tools, and you go do it.

And this kind of change is not going to happen with a very technical approach, because it's not a technical problem. A technical problem is discrete and bounded. You can see it and name it and say, Oh, four teachers who don't know how to do this thing, we can provide training and coaching. If it's known and you can see the solutions, it’s a technical problem. This idea of really engaging as equal members, students with significant disabilities in our public schools, that’s what we call an adaptive problem.

Michael: It’s messy. There are all kinds of isms floating around with that one. There are all kinds of challenges to our system floating around with that one. And if you bring in outsiders who are just going to tell you how to do it, it's not going to change.

So you've got to engage the internal stakeholders in your system, your staff, your administrators, your board, community members, families, and the students themselves all need to be engaged so that they own the problem.

The kind of tagline phrase is called psychological ownership, where individuals see and recognize that there is a problem that they want to change, that there's a more preferred, more desirable future. And they then generate the solutions for that work. Now, of course, you can go visit some places and see some elements of the work that are common that could be helpful locally, but the local group really needs to figure out exactly what it's going to look like in our context if it's going to sustain over time.

So engaging the stakeholders, all of them, with the information that they need, right?

Probably not every family wants to hear the ins and outs of implementation, science or the change process. As much as I would love to have coffee with them and tell them all about implementation science, but you do need to have a district leadership team or a district implementation team who is building their capacity with things like implementation science so that they can thoughtfully lead the change process.

Michael: So different stakeholders may have at different times, different pieces of communication that there that are most important for them to know about and act on. But you want them all engaged in the change process so we can manage everybody's expectations and get there.

Arthur: I like what you said that they're all the correct stakeholders because it isn't just the teachers that are involved in this process. It's like you said, it's the community, it’s all the staff and the faculty of the schools that are involved in making these changes. And that's something so important to mention.

So to conclude our conversation, just one last question for you, and that is what schools or states, what you choose as examples that show great inclusive education and why?

Michael: Short answer first. None. And it's not that there aren't good people doing good things in schools, in states across this country, because there are lots of amazing things happening. You can go to websites like SwiftSchools.org, The Swift Education Center.

You can go tiescenter.com. The Time. Instruction. I can't remember all their letters Engagement and Supports. Tiescenter.org and the swiftschools.org And you'll see lots of examples.

I was part of the Swift Education Center for what, five, six, seven years? You'll see videos from schools in Maryland and Oregon and Mississippi. All doing great stuff. And I want to be really careful that there are schools each doing great stuff, but maybe not one school has everything that you would want to know or see around inclusive education.

And you can't just look at one school and how they do it and neatly import that to your school. And I was referring to this earlier. Like, you can go to different states and schools and see particular elements that are very strongly in place in different schools, and you can see common threads of staffing arrangements and service delivery models and school-wide schedules and curriculum design approaches that are common across these. And yet they're slightly different in each context.

Michael: And that's part of what helps them sustain that element, it's been tailored to the context. So I wouldn't say kind of in a status report, you can go here to see a great conclusion because that may not be how it's going to look like in your school.

All those all those different elements are definitely integrated, but they're also compensatory. They're playing out in different ways. I know it's not a popular answer. Like, I've been asked this before, like, can you send us a list of great inclusive schools?

And in part I also say none, because I've had enough experience now to have worked with some schools that were doing amazing things and people found out they were doing amazing things, and then everybody started to move there and visit there and look there, and eventually the system imploded because of all the pressure.

When you see families who are like, no, I want my kid included, I'm moving to this town. Well, when you do so, now it's a different population. Right.

Michael: I saw a high school get built as an inclusive high school, structurally, physically and programmatically. And within a few years, they had trailers of where students and teachers were working in trailers because everybody just moved there and it was too much, too much.

Michael: So I'm really hesitant to do that.

Arthur: I think you definitely answered the question because it's what works in one district might not work in your district. So you can take pieces of something that you see, something that you like that's working, but you also have to tailor it to your specific needs at your school and your district and your students.

Michael: I hope it’s helpful.

It’s not always a pleasant answer to hear. But I want to be honest from my perspective.

Arthur: Right, right. And I think for me, I always say, I have spinal bifida, and if you've meet me, you've met one person with spinal bifida because the next person you meet might not have to use a wheelchair, might not have to use crutches like I do. It looks different for everybody.

And I think the same can be applied to inclusive education. It has to be tailored to your community, to what your student's needs are.

And what works over in this town might not translate and work too well in your town. So again, we can all look at different places and see things that we like and things that we want to incorporate and include and implement in our district but, it has to be tailored and structured in a way that works for us.

Michael: Yep. I strongly agree. Absolutely. Common elements, but when they come together, it's going to look a little different over here.

Think about it as like a mosaic. Like this tile is going to be bigger in your town, then that tile will be in the other town. Then going to have a ripple effect out.

Or think about it as a kaleidoscope. Like certain colors are going to come together in your town that are not going to come together in that place that you’ve visited. It's just not going to look that obviously replicable.

Arthur: Wow. Two great examples of the mosaic. And if you're like, wow, And that's so true. That's so true. It will look different in every place, every person that looks at it from their perspective and from their vantage point, looks different. So. Wow.

Michael, this conversation has been just great. I've really enjoyed speaking with you and having you share your story and your knowledge about the world of inclusion and the changes and work that you and your team are doing to make changes in the world of inclusive education. So thank you for your time today and we will be in touch soon.

Michael: Thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you so much, Arthur.

Arthur: Oh, you're welcome. And have a good day.

Michael: Okay. Bye bye.

Arthur: We thank you for listening to this episode of the Inclusion Think Tank Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, NJCIE. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. And don’t forget to follow us on social media, @NJCIE. Until next time.