Starting Big or Starting Small: Theories for Creating Classroom Change Across the School

System

Suzanne Donovan, SERP InstituteMike Sorum, Fort Worth ISD

Nancy Vye, University Washington

Gap between design and implementation

• Poor program conceptualization (Supovitz and Weinbaum, 2008)

• Unforeseen challenges brought by the local environment or individual actors (McLaughlin, 1987),

• Inconsistent implementation across sites (Berends, Bodilly, & Kirby, 2002),

• Changes in district and state context (Datnow, 2005)• Adaptation to the design itself (McLaughlin, 1976;

Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan, 2002; Supovitz and Weinbaum, 2008).

Framing Questions

• At what point did you decide that you had something that you wanted to do at scale in a district?

• What is your implicit or explicit theory for achieving change throughout a district?

• What level did you start at and why?• How did the level that you started at lead to

different challenges in trying to achieve change throughout a district?