Change is hard. If change were easy, all the world’s problems, like poverty, plant and animal extinction, racial injustice, climate change, and communicable diseases would be issues heard only in our history books. One would think, given all the headaches caused by these and other fixable or preventable problems, that getting people on board with change would be an easy sell, but the truth is that change is hard to bring about, even when people know why they, personally, need and can help bring about change.

Many have tried to tackle the idea of change and how to approach change in more successful ways. Joseph Granny’s book, Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change offers a great model that I used to create an Influencer Model for my project. This model helped me to spotlight key behaviors to change and sources of influence to tap into to create the change, but I still need to sort out how I will get my school on board with this plan.

Stage 1: Getting Clear

The change I am going to bring about is not as extreme as stopping climate change or saving the black rhino, but it is still a Wildly Important Goal. My WIG is for 100% of classroom teachers at Edgewood Elementary School to bring their students to the makerspace each week. This makerspace, outlined in my innovation plan, will address the need for more student-directed, collaborative learning opportunities in my school. In Covey’s Goal Setting Video (2012), both communication and accountability are underscored as being integral to the success of implementation of any project. I will communicate the goal clearly to my staff by providing a hands-on workshop during our back-to-school staff development in July, and we will then begin using collaborative documents to plan each group’s makerspace use and hold one another accountable for proper implementation of this program. As lead makerspace facilitator, I will be in charge of keeping the space stocked, co-planning makerspace experiences with teachers, and following up on all the collaborative documents to ensure that scheduling and planning is running smoothly.

Stage 2: Launch

Covey discusses the launch as being crucial to the continued commitment of all people involved (p.109). It should be an exciting time, and every person involved in the project should be focused and excited on the launch. The official launch of the Edgewood Makerspace Project will be a “Maker Day” during which the school will host an expo of local makers where students can interact with them, see things made locally and sold around the nation, and talk to makers about how they became inventors and producers of goods on their own. We will end the expo with an “unveiling” of the makerspace and some hands-on time for students to explore the space a little. This Maker Day will happen the first week of school, and by this point, teachers will have already planned the makerspace experiences for the first month of school, based on core and related arts learning objectives being covered in their classrooms. We will focus on “maker culture” learning /making experiences for the first two weeks of school, with student projects resulting in creating videos, artwork, and even music to reinforce maker culture throughout the year.

Stage 3: Adoption

After the launch, any project must be adopted by all those who are involved in it. This is the “make-or-break” time for any new venture. Either people take on this new idea and make it part of their new way of doing things, or they gradually slide back into the way they’ve always done them. I have seen so many great ideas fail at this point in my school system, but having started this project by using Joseph Grenny’s Six Sources of Influence (p. 28-34), it will be important to keep using those sources to keep our momentum throughout the life of the project.

Everybody wants to be part of a winning team. Covey recommends using a scoreboard to help everyone involved to see how the plan is progressing, easily spot areas where more effort could make a difference, and celebrate successes. My “scoreboard” will be in the form of a collaborative document that teachers will use for planning and reflecting on our makerspace activity, and also in rotating exhibits of great products made in our makerspace. Communicating our successes, plans to improve trouble spots, support those who struggle with the new plan, and showing off major wins will keep morale high and ensure that everyone works hard to ensure continued success. Improving morale overall will help lessen resistance from even the most reluctant team members.

Stage 4: Optimization

Once the project is in full swing, reflection is important to ensure that the project continues to grow and improve. In Covey’s book, this phase is called “optimization” (p.110). In Japan, there is a word for this — kaizen (改善). Many businesses use this term as a mantra to promote constant reflection and improvement; never settling for “good enough.” I will employ this idea throughout our makerspace team through short, weekly “WIG Meetings” and collaborative documents. We will check in with the scoreboards, discuss what’s working, plan changes for what isn’t, and quickly ensure that we’re all on the same page for the next week.

Stage 5: Habits

Both Covey and Grenny write about turning desired behaviors into habits to create continued success. I wrote about Grenny’s take on this in my last blog post. Covey takes this idea in a slightly different direction by focusing on combining accountability with shared ownership of the outcome, but I like that Covey spotlights the opportunity for continuous reflection and support for struggling team members.

The Four Disciplines of Execution

Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important

As an art teacher and a technology coach, I have spent the last few years of my teaching career trying to balance two wildly different roles. On one hand, I teach art, and I provide some of the only hands-on, creative instruction time that the students receive. On the other hand, I am a technology coach, and an Apple Distinguished Educator. While working with my district to better implement technology integration into student learning, I see just how far we have to go to implement the kind of learning with technology that leads to better student engagement, deeper understanding, and retention of knowledge. Weirdly enough, I am also learning that students DO get more of that kind of learning experience (oftentimes without technology) through the arts. So my goal as an educator of both teachers and students has been to promote creation of educational content over consumption of it, in all disciplines, and to boost technology as a creative tool in the arts programs. However, being a traveling art teacher and part-time technology coach means that my “whirlwind” is already pretty chaotic, making it difficult to affect any change in my organization on a large scale. My WIG, to launch a makerspace that will be facilitated by a team of teachers and utilized by all classroom teachers, will make it possible to implement this kind of learning in one entire school, even on days that I am not there teaching art.

This makerspace, will be facilitated by a Maker Squad of myself, the school technologist, gifted teacher, and two Title I teachers. I will work with the Maker Squad to determine our Lag Measures. Lag measures are the measurable, ultimate goal of a project. If our Lag Measure is happening, we know our makerspace is a success. I will suggest that our Lag Measure should be something like, “100% of classes will spend at least 30 minutes a week in the makerspace in addition to fine arts courses.” I anticipate that the Maker Squad will agree with this Lag Measure, or make minor changes to it. Then, we will create a chart to use as a scoreboard to show each classroom’s makerspace use. Throughout the year, the Maker Squad will celebrate the successes and support the strugglers as need be to ensure we reach that goal.

Discipline 2: Act on the Lead

In order to make this plan happen, we need to focus efforts on the lead measures that will move us closer to our goal. Lead measures are the catalysts that enact the changes we want. As a team, the Maker Squad will keep a close eye on the scoreboard to see what is working and what isn’t in getting all classes into the makerspace for at least 30 minutes a week. We will work with the strugglers to see what might be preventing them from taking classes to the makerspace, such as scheduling issues or pressure to spend that time on other initiatives with time quotas. We will work as a team with the teachers and the administration to find a solution such as trading makerspace time with another class, or finding another way to reach time quotas on other programs. We will also work with the classes who are doing great things in the makerspace to showcase their work and share how they are getting the most out of this space. We will meet as a team a few weeks after our launch at our first PLC meeting to see how the scheduling worked for the first couple weeks of school, and to start to identify potential issues and create our Lead Measures. We will also be using a collaborative planning document that will give teachers the ability to communicate with one another directly, as well as the Maker Squad, in order to stay focused in between meetings. That way, we can keep our meetings short and deal with many issues without having to call everyone together for a meeting. Our Lead Measures need to be predictive, influenceable, ongoing, quantifiable, and worth measuring. With these criteria in mind, we will be able to come up with Lead Measures that will be most effective at moving the scoreboard in the right direction.

Discipline 3: Create A Compelling Scoreboard

Teachers at this school are super competitive! Students are, as well. Scoreboards work very well to motivate both teachers and students at this school. The makerspace will have a very prominent spot right in the entrance of the school, with a big, glass wall to the school entrance and commons. Everyone who comes into our school will see our makerspace and this scoreboard, so it needs to be exciting! Our scoreboard will show our Wildly Important Goal, our lead and our lag measures. We will also have some space to showcase things created in the makerspace as additional inspiration for teachers and students to make the most of this space. Each time a class comes to the makerspace, they will be able to add a marker to the scoreboard, color coded to show the amount of time spent in the space. For instance, if a class came to the makerspace for a 40 minute slot, they would get a gold star. If a teacher brought a class in for only 30 minutes, they would get a red star. Each quarter, we would total up the time spent by each class in the makerspace, and the classes that met the goal would get a special makerspace activity to celebrate, like a collaborative makerspace with the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, or a special guest celebrity maker. Of course, photos of the events would be posted in the exhibit space and on the school website to encourage more participation.

Discipline 4: Create A Cadence of Accountability

If we’re going to make this makerspace happen, we’re going to have to hold each other accountable to keeping our plan moving along and not getting lost in the whirlwind. Because the elementary school day is so frenetic and teachers so beset with responsibilities, a weekly meeting would be impossible. We will need to depend on our collaborative planning document to get most of the planning done and save our meetings for a 20-minute chunk of our monthly PLC meetings. I think this will work as long as the Maker Squad makes an effort to check for activity on the collaborative document every day and follow up with teachers each week to ensure things are running smoothly. Since we will also see the teachers when they come to the makerspace, we will be able to see for ourselves how it’s going and add notes to the collaborative document to steer each group toward success. We also need to check in as a Maker Squad once a week for just a few minutes to go over the planning document and make a “to-do” list for the Maker Squad for the following week — keeping the space stocked with maker items, checking in on teachers who need support, sharing out ideas for makerspace opportunities, and getting out in front of any problems that may arise.

Influencer and 4DX

I have enjoyed learning about both the Influencer and 4DX models, and I like the way they work when used together. The Influencer model helped me to consider my plan through the psychology of making change, while the 4DX model took a more pragmatic approach. When used together, these models will help me to address all the working parts of this plan, from the cheerleaders to the nay-sayers, and even to the whirlwind that might pull us away from our goal. I have no doubt that if I employ these plans that I created using the Influencer and 4DX models, this makerspace will be a success and my students will benefit greatly from this creative learning goldmine!

References:

Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: the new science of leading change: 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Executive overview of the 4 disciplines of execution [Video file]. (2012, April 19). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/EZR2Ixm0QQE

McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012). The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. New York, NY: Free Press.