Developing a Plan

Video Transcription

Hi, my name is Ashley. And today's lesson is titled developing a plan. In today's lesson, we will discuss what's involved in the planning stage of the PDSA cycle. We'll also discuss how you determine the areas you want to improve. We'll identify the components of the plan, and then discuss how all of this information can be applied.

What is involved in the plan stage of PDSA? Planning is the first stage of the PDSA cycle. In this stage, the coach and teacher work together to determine an area of focus. They design a plan to address the issues that have been observed. Goals and outcomes may already be determined for teachers who are going through a corrective process.

How do you determine what to improve? Before you can plan strategies, you must determine what needs to be improved. It's best to have collaborative discussions about improvements with your coach to determine that areas of focus for professional development. It will also be helpful to reflect on areas that are challenging and areas where growth may be needed.

Analyze student data to get an idea of how students are performing. This may give insight on where improvements need to be made. Also consider school and district goals, as well as future school initiatives that may be relevant to the teacher. Once the coach and teacher have determined what needs to be improved, the planning process can continue and an approach to address the problem can be chosen.

What are the components of the plan? There are five components that are part of the plan. The first is background description. This is the section that gives an explanation of the problem that needs improvement.

The next component are goals. Goals explain what the teacher is working towards. There may be one or several goals that can be used.

Benchmarks are steps toward achieving the goal. These are indicators that let you know that the strategies are working.

Outcomes are the result of the goals. Outcomes are usually student achievement scores. They should be concrete and measurable because they determine success of the goals.

The last component of the plan are the strategies. These are specific actions that will take place to achieve the goal. These actions include alterations to the plan, information about the timeline, resources, techniques, and even the individuals who will be involved in implementing the strategies.

Let's take a look at these five components, again, as we apply it to an actual situation. Mrs. Luther is a fourth grade math teacher. Mrs. Luther and her coach sit down to discuss the progress of her students. They come to the conclusion that students are not grasping the math content and the whole group setting like they had hoped. Their goal is to implement math workshops to increase student achievement and understanding.

Benchmarks are steps toward the goal. They let the teacher and coach know if progress is being made. The coach and Mrs. Luther will look for increased assessment scores and increased student confidence to determine if they are on their way to meet the goal.

Next are the outcomes. These are the intended results of the goal. Students will have a better understanding of math concepts, and students will perform better on assessments with their new understanding.

Finally, here are the strategies that will be implemented to reach the goal. There will be small group math instruction, reinforcement opportunities through games, and students will have daily homework review to review old and new content on a daily basis. Once the strategies are in place, hopefully benchmarks can be reached along the way, leading up to the completion of the goal.

Let's recap what we have discussed in today's lesson. In the planning stage, the coach and the teacher determine an area of focus and design a plan to address the issues. To determine what to improve, a collaborative discussion between the teacher and coach needs to take place. Student data should be analyzed, and reflection should also occur to see what areas need improvement.

We discussed the five components of the plan-- background description, goals, benchmarks, outcomes, and strategies. Lastly, we looked at how all of those components can be applied to making improvements.

Use the information from this tutorial to develop your own plan. Now it's your turn to apply what you've learned in this video. The Additional Resources section will be super helpful. This section is designed to help you discover useful ways to apply what you've learned here. Each link includes a brief description so you can easily target the resources you want.