Leading by Doing

Introduction

Leading by doing takes an unwavering and visible commitment to an intentional, continuous improvement process where leadership is distributed and teachers lead instructional improvement efforts.

This blog is dedicated to a team of teachers and district leaders from Madison County Schools in the Commonwealth of Kentucky who provide educators with evidence that the quality of teachers’ instructional practice is one of the most powerful influences on students’ achievement (Hattie, 2009). Using a practice-based approach to improving mathematics outcomes, Madison’s teachers in two schools (one elementary and one middle) collaborated with administration and coaches to leverage their instructional practice data for improvement. Everyone believed this effort would continuously improve teacher practice and give all students the skills to engage in mathematical thinking and improve mathematics outcomes. Promising results arise when comparing the first elementary school that participated in this process with a non-participating elementary school.

When comparing two Madison elementary schools (one Transformation Zone (TZ) and one non-TZ) from 2016-17 to 2018-19 using Kentucky State Assessment Scores for mathematics, the percentage of 3rd-5th grade students with a disability and IEP in the Proficient and Distinguished category  • Increased from 27% to 39% in participating TZ school.  • Decreased from 33% to 15% in non-participating TZ school (see the Supplemental Document for a complete description of the analyses and further results).

The Problem to Solve

Yet, “The problem is most districts don’t have the time or resources to develop all the systems and measures needed to use an innovation effectively.” To solve this problem, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) partnered with educators in schools, districts, regional agencies, and universities to develop a quality standard for effective mathematics instruction, training, and coaching support. Educators co-created, used, and tested all supports in their unique settings with their selected programs and practices. 

Then, in 2015, Madison County Schools and three other districts in Kentucky agreed to participate in Kentucky’s first iteration of its Transformation Zone (TZ). Teachers, coaches, and administrators committed to using and testing the systems of support in their schools so they could make modifications as needed to ensure they were teachable, learnable, doable, and easily assessed in practice. The Transformation Zone (TZ) included small rural, medium suburban, and a large urban district. The diversity of size, geographic location, and student population resulted in a representative slice of the state’s districts and would allow any district in the state to see how they could replicate the processes in their unique context. As a Transformation Zone (TZ) district, Madison had access to all the support systems developed by Kentucky educators, as well as intensive coaching support from the State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices (SISEP) Center, the state’s implementation specialists, and coaches from their Regional Education Agency.

The HOW Behind the Results

As we all know, improved outcomes only come after educators’ unwavering and intentional efforts to use a continuous improvement process. Yet, the details are always in the how, woven into the Formula for Success – it is Kentucky’s secret sauce with three key ingredients used in Madison County’s participating schools.

Effective Practice: A Quality Standard for Mathematics Instruction Co-created by Educators

A quality standard for mathematics is the first key ingredient in Kentucky’s secret sauce. Using the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 2000) eight mathematical teaching practices, a team of Kentucky educators defined the core components of quality mathematics instruction so it was easily observed and measured in the classroom. All participating staff (teachers and administrators) agreed on what effective mathematics instruction looked like in practice while honoring the individual styles of teachers. Any district could use their chosen math practice and align it with NCTM. In Madison, they used the Math Design Collaborative.

Then, Kentucky experts in training and coaching replicated the process used to develop a quality standard for mathematics and co-created standards of practice for training and coaching so they could be used, observed, and measured in practice at the local level. The final step was to make all the data usable by teams at every level of the system – because we cannot improve what we do not measure. So, the Kentucky Department of Education committed to designing and maintaining a data dashboard so teams could use implementation and outcome data in continuous improvement cycles. The data dashboard allows teams to enter and store training, coaching, fidelity, capacity, and outcome data for use in real-time during their monthly meetings (e.g., teacher, school, district) or quarterly meetings (e.g., region and state). Kentucky’s Data Dashboard demonstration website is available to the general public.  

Effective Implementation: Distributed Leadership of Teachers and Teams

Distributed leadership is the second key ingredient in Kentucky’s secret sauce. It results in higher levels of collaboration and engagement when leadership responsibilities are shared, and the authority to make decisions spans every level of an organization (Spillane, 2012). In Madison, teachers were viewed as leaders, so they naturally developed ownership through a scalable and sustainable process. Coaches and administrators collected instructional walkthrough data, and teachers were the first to use the aggregate data to monitor their progress. They used data from the Math Design Collaborative Fidelity Walkthrough Tool to set schoolwide goals for instructional improvement. Simultaneously, they collected data using the Observation Tool for Instructional Supports and Systems (OTISS; Fixsen et al., 2020), which is grounded in Hattie’s research (2009). Again, all walkthrough data was viewed in aggregate. It was not used for teacher evaluation. Instead, the data was used to determine what was missing in the system to support continuous improvement of teachers’ mathematics instruction. Teachers analyzed the aggregate walkthrough data monthly and identified their instructional goals for improvement. Then, they identified the training and coaching support they required. Teachers used best practice instruction videos to study effective instructional practices using lesson study methodology (Murata, 2011).

This graph displays OTISS data and demonstrates teachers’ instructional practice improvement over four months. Teachers used the data in aggregate to continuously strengthen their instructional practice. It was the commitment of the teachers, those closest to the students, who co-led and co-created solutions for their instructional improvement in their monthly team meetings.

Enabling Context: Linked Implementation Teams Lead Systems Improvement

An Enabling Context is the third key ingredient in Kentucky’s secret sauce. Madison teachers, school coaches, a school administrator, and a district administrator worked side-by-side at monthly Building Implementation Team meetings for two years. They also received the support of a regional coach skilled at systems and instructional coaching. Their regional coaches were the critical link between the Kentucky Department of Education and the district. The goal of the regional coach was to develop the capacity of the district and school team to use implementation data (capacity, fidelity, training, and coaching) to support teachers’ effective use of mathematics practices in the classroom so that they could reduce the variability of support available to teachers from classroom to classroom and school to school.

The words of Margaret Wheatley ring true in Madison County Schools and Kentucky’s Transformation Zone districts when we consider all they can accomplish:

“In this exquisitely connected world, 

it is never a question of critical mass, 

it is always about critical connections.”

Replicating a Proven Process in Your Organization

In this blog post, Madison County Schools and educators in Kentucky’s Transformation Zone provide a national model for districts to replicate in their unique context. Kentucky educators documented their implementation journey throughout the process with the Kentucky Department of Education’s steadfast support. They make public the tools, resources, and reflections of educators so anyone focused on continuous improvement and ready to distribute the leadership of teams at every level of their system can replicate their process. To share their implementation Journey, educators in Kentucky embrace the notion that there is a Formula for Success, and they bring it to life in four Kentucky publications.

Kentucky Mathematics Toolkit to Support Students with Disabilities	Kentucky’s How To Guide	Accomplishing Effective and Durable Change	Improved Mathematics Outcomes

Resources

Brief

• Brief: Leading by Doing: A Practice-Based Approach to Improving Mathematics Outcomes 
• Supplemental Analysis (complete description of the analyses and results)
• Webinar Recording

Kentucky Lightning Talks

• Scaling District Exploration: Kentucky Valley Ed Coop and SERTAC
• State Implementation Team: KDE 
• Low-Performing to Rising Star: JCPS and Greater Louisville Ed. Coop SERTAC

References

Fixsen, D. L., Ward, C. S., Ryan Jackson, K., & Chaparro, E. (2020). Observation Tool for Instructional Supports and Systems (OTISS): Walk through and observation form. State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center, National Implementation Research Network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2014). Principles to actions: Ensuring mathematical success for all. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Murata, A. (2011). Introduction: Conceptual overview of lesson study. In A. Hart, L. C. Alston, & A. S. Murata (Eds.), Lesson Study Research and Practice in Mathematics Education (pp. 13-24). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9941-9_1 

Ryan Jackson, K., Fixsen, D., Ward, C., Waldroup, A., & Sullivan, V. (2018). Accomplishing  effective and durable change to support improved student outcomes [White Paper]. National  Implementation Research Network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Ryan Jackson, K, Ward, C., Waldroup, A, Sullivan, V., & Craig, A. (2020). Co-creation of  Kentucky’s usable innovation process: A how-to-guide. Chapel Hill, NC: National Implementation  Research Network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Ryan Jackson, K. R., Ward, C., Smolkowski, K., & Gau, J. (2021). Improved mathematics  outcomes using active implementation: Kentucky’s effective and durable change. State  Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center.

Spillane, J. P. (2005, June). Distributed leadership. In The educational forum (Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 143-150). Taylor & Francis Group.