Search
Member Login

The 15-Day Challenge: Providing the Deliberate Practice and Support Needed for Student Impact

By Joe Schroeder, Ph.D., Associate Executive Director, AWSA

For years, a common refrain of educators across Wisconsin has gone something like this:  “We are working harder than ever.  So why aren’t we seeing an impact on student learning proportional to all our effort?”  While several factors likely contribute to such a conundrum, the level of deliberate practice and ongoing support that leaders provide staff to effectively implement specific improvement aims can be a common shortcoming.  This article will discuss an approach called the 15-day Challenge (and provide some related examples) as a targeted effort that leaders can employ to address such dilemmas – and get more return on improvement efforts.

In 100-Day Leaders, Reeves and Eaker (2019) describe four generic stages for moving any improvement effort successfully through a school:

Level 1

We have the materials, but we have not yet begun implementation.

Level 2

We have trained the staff, but there is minimal implementation by only a few early adopters.

Level 3

We have achieved full implementation by more than 90 percent of the staff.

Level 4

We have achieved full implementation and have clear evidence of the effect on student results.

Most schools get stuck at Level 2, as they move on to something else once the next “big shiny thing” (i.e., new improvement idea) comes around to pursue.  However, some systems do sustain the focus and continue to move a given improvement effort through the stages, which is where the surprising findings occur.  Originally, Reeves and Eaker hypothesized that student learning would begin to positively increase as staff worked incrementally through the four stages.  However, years of such work with teams across our nation led them to understand that the relationship of adult implementation stage work to student learning gains is not linear.  In fact, “the impact on student achievement changed very little from Level 1 to level 2 to level 3…. Only at level 4, the highest level of implementation, does implementation have a significant impact on student results.“ (Reeves & Eaker, pp. 35-36).  Therefore, if we wish to deepen our impact on students, it is essential to focus on deliberate practice of what we say we are prioritizing and intentionally seek out its impact on students so that we can continue to hone these practice improvements further. 

We have found a similar set of findings over our ten years in working with SAIL Academy teams across Wisconsin.  For instance, when attempting to implement a key strategy across a school, we have frequently witnessed leaders fall into a common trap:  that “providing the initial PD” can serve as a viable substitute for the ongoing deliberate practice and support needed to develop the instructional skills at a level of mastery and frequency so that student learning can benefit.  Yes, leaders can easily fall prey to the hazardous notion that, “now that they know it, they just have to do it!”  But deep implementation of an important instructional approach across a school requires much more practice and support than what just the initial professional learning can provide.

The 15-Day Challenge bridges the adult knowing-doing gap with concrete efforts all faculty can take to begin deploying a set of common teaching practices, which a school is making a data-based priority.  By helping all teachers get underway in applying the improvement work via the 15-Day Challenge, the faculty can experience early success and get the momentum needed for long-term improvement efforts to take hold.  What follows are examples of the 15-Day Challenge, one which lays out specific steps for a team-based approach and the other for an individual teacher method.

Team Example – 15-Day Challenge For Each School Team/PLC:

  1. Determine what proficiency looks like for a given standard

  2. Write a common assessment to measure student mastery to that standard

  3. Teach the unit

  4. Administer and assess the common assessment

  5. Identify students who need additional time and support to master the standard AND which students learned the standard and are ready for extension

  6. Determine the most effective teacher practices to use for reteaching

  7. Share students for interventions and extensions

Individual Example – 15-Day Challenge for an Individual Teacher

  1. Implement an instructional approach that represents a new/nonroutine practice which is rooted in a key strategy of our school’s theory of action/improvement priorities.

  2. Determine key instructional periods that the approach will be used (e.g., minimum of once per day with a specific group of students or with the whole class)

  3. Determine what evidence can be used/collected to determine impact on the learner.

  4. Implement the routine/strategy, and monitor usage during lesson/activity

  5. Collect student work, observations, tracking sheets to determine impact.

  6. Share findings in your PLC or at the next staff meeting in small groups.

Regardless of the specific 15-day Challenge created, at the end of the three weeks, the aim is that faculty members can identify increases in the number of students successful, discuss what they did to achieve such gains, and then celebrate their collective efforts, with the readiness to hopefully then take on the 15-day challenge once again!  All in all, the 15-day challenge helps a faculty begin to actually do the improvement work rather than just learn or talk about it; provides a job-embedded context for applying the professional development they are learning; and finds a way within existing structures of the school to build the deliberate practice and ongoing support needed to build collective efficacy in the effort.  Might the 15-Day Challenge be an approach that could be of service for the benefit and growth of your staff and students, too?

 

References

DuFour, R., Dufour, R., Eaker R., Mattos, M., & Muhammad, A. (2021). Revisiting professional learning communities at work: Proven insights for sustained, substantive school improvement. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Fullan, M. & Kirtman, L. (2019). Coherent school leadership: Forging clarity from complexity. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. 

Reeves, D. & Eaker, R. (2019). 100-day leaders: Turning short-term wins into long-term success in schools. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.