A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Systemic Reform: Perspectives on Personalizing Education - September 1994

Practices: Need, Complexity, Clarity, Quality, Practicality

The qualities of innovation itself make a difference to successful change. The best practices are classroom-friendly, well-defined, practical, and relevant to teachers' needs and interests. Portfolios have been adopted widely because they have most of these qualities. Teachers like to feel that any new practice has clear benefits for them and for their students. Practices that are too similar to or too different from conventional approaches present problems of implementation because teachers either do not clearly distinguish what is new or feel a sense of loss or resentment in being asked to change from what they perceive as successful current practice.

Need and Complexity

The one-teacher/one-classroom innovations of the 1970s and 1980s were frequently devel- oped from the perspective of technical rationality (Miles, 1992). Innovations were developed because they were in some way technically better than current practice and would presumably lead to better results. This decision about better results was seldom the decision of the implementing teacher. Some teachers did develop and market innovations that worked for them, such as the Programs that work of the National Diffusion Network. Initially, the movement toward technical rationality led to an insistence on innovation quality, fidelity of implementation, and to a search for 'teacher-proofness' (Miles, 1992, 9). In other words, a technically good innovation should be able to be introduced anywhere with the same results. This turned out not to be so, and that circumstance launched much of the research on implementation as we know it currently.

On the contrary, it turned out that many innovations are high on cost, low on fit, and involve "false clarity" (i.e., they appear easy to implement, but actually involve more effort or change than people anticipate (Fullan, 1991, 70) or are superficially interpreted). Practical changes are those that address salient needs, fit well into real teacher situations, are focused, and include concrete how-to-do-it possibilities (Mortimore, et al., 1988). Huberman (1983) describes a number of factors that affect innovation implementability and attractiveness to teachers, including:

Given the classroom press of teachers for immediacy and concreteness, innovations have to be accessible and beneficial for teachers and students in both an immediate and long-term way. Change does not always equal progress, especially if it is not practical for teachers or systems.

Clarity, Quality, and Practicality

Two elements of practices that affect clarity and quality of implementation are size and the complexity issue described above. According to several large studies of implementation, the larger the scope of change and the more personally demanding it is, the greater the chance for success (Crandall, Eiseman, & Louis, 1986; Fullan, 1991). Although size and complexity may initially deter a potential adopter, in the longer term the greater the teacher effort and energy expended in implementing a new practice, the greater the potential outcome. Small innovations often do not succeed in the long run because they are not perceived to be worth the effort or because teachers cannot distinguish the innovation clearly enough from other practices. On the other hand, innovations that are too large require too much of the organization as a whole and frequently result in distortion or partial implementation to make them manageable. In essence, "the greatest success is likely to occur when the size of the change is large enough to require noticeable, sustained effort, but not so massive that typical users find it necessary to adopt a coping strategy that seriously distorts the change" (Crandall, et al., 1986, 26). In short, innovations must be practical.

One way to improve clarity in innovation use and to reduce the potential of distortion employs the concept of Innovation Configurations (Heck, Stiegelbauer, Hall, & Loucks, 1981) or Practice Profiles (Loucks & Crandall, 1981). This method outlines (1) core components of the change developers believe is required if desired results are to be obtained and (2) related components which enhance the operation of core components or increase the likelihood of achieving desired goals. It also lays out implementation requirements and the necessary resources, such as user knowledge and skills, or materials and equipment, which may be required to implement the change. A profile checklist also can be used to explain the innovation to users and to design strategies addressed to support specific components. Profiles also may help evaluate the fit between the innovation and the teacher and the school more accurately, allowing the school to adapt components, as necessary, or determine what adaptations are likely to affect goal outcomes. Assessing implementation requirements is critical to ensuring that the resources necessary to implementation are in place and whether the system is ready to give the support demanded by the innovation (Crandall, et al., 1986).


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