Figure 1.6: Faculty- and student-generated lists of performance indicators.
The benefits of this process should be evident—all school community members, students, and staff have a clear and agreed-on set of valued outcomes and associated indicators. Even if students are not involved, the process of operationally defining outcomes and identifying performance indicators still brings a mission to life. The resulting lists of indicators serve as targets for teaching and learning, parameters for teachers’ assessments, and guides for students’ self-assessment of their growth in these important capacities. We explore this idea in greater detail in chapters 3 and 4.
Notes From the Field
Mission statements often derive from a collaborative writing session that focuses on how they read and whether they sound powerful. But missions are not mottos; they are the organization’s reason for being, and they clarify how it will set out to achieve those goals.
When writing a mission statement, we suggest avoiding flowery and inert language that evidence cannot observe or support. It is nice to say that your organization wants to “empower all students,” but what does that mean, and how will you know it has achieved success? We encourage the districts and schools we work with to focus on goal clarity within the mission and the supporting frameworks they will use to design and assess whether that learning is taking place.
Two questions that we often ask learning communities to help them avoid the pitfalls of an obscure or vague mission statement are:
1. “What does your mission statement look like?”
2. “How will you know that it is being achieved?”
When a district or school can answer these two questions with specificity, we know it has something it can act on and to which it can hold itself accountable.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we explored ways of engaging a school community in developing an informed view of the future and considering the implications for the modern learning that will prepare students for the opportunities and challenges they will encounter in their lives. We discussed ways of moving from a vision of a graduate to an actionable educational mission designed to achieve both disciplinary and transdisciplinary learning outcomes. We offered practical processes for agreeing on operational definitions and observable indicators of the outcomes we seek.
A compelling vision and mission for modern learning are necessary, but not sufficient. The sobering reality is that most districts and schools are not currently structured to achieve the modern learning outcomes that we have discussed. Existing systems need alignment with these outcomes so our staff and students can achieve them. In the next chapter, we explore two systemic frameworks for working backward from these stated outcomes to design the actions necessary to achieve them.
CHAPTER 2
From Mission to Action
How do we collaboratively plan backward from the mission to purposeful actions?
In the first chapter, we concentrated on clarifying our destination in terms of establishing a vision for the future and using that vision to determine a specific mission that identifies long-term learning outcomes—both within and across disciplines. Now it’s time to plan your journey. To support systemic planning, we recommend two interrelated and mutually supportive planning frameworks that can guide the movement from vision to mission to action: (1) Input-Output-Impact and (2) backward design.
The laser-like focus on student learning and essential student outcomes are what drew us to the I-O-I framework, as well as its alignment to the UbD framework.
—Lisa Elliot, Superintendent, School District of Greenfield
The focus of this chapter is on detailing both of these frameworks. We follow these with a sample case study that illustrates how you can apply a backward design framework toward developing and attaining an outcome focused on self-directed learning. As you read this content, bear in mind that you can utilize these frameworks at multiple organization levels, from district to school to department.
The Input-Output-Impact Framework
The I-O-I framework offers a simple but powerful mindset for focusing on the articulation of a vision and mission in terms of the important and measurable learning outcomes district or school desires for students. The I-O-I framework is essentially a way of focusing a district’s, school’s, or department’s resources and actions on the desired learning results articulated in its mission. This focus is important and often missing in school-improvement planning and implementation. Figure 2.1 presents a visual of the I-O-I framework.
Source: © 2015 by Greg Curtis. Used with permission.
Figure 2.1: The Input-Output-Impact framework.
The I-O-I framework and approach are deceptively simple, but their value lies in directing thinking and actions toward results (impacts), and not toward activities (inputs), such as training or resource allocations and curriculum revisions, or changes to report cards (outputs). In other words, it’s about facilitating intentional action to achieve learning goals rather than stopping at organizational actions.
When a school can clearly and simply articulate a set of targeted and compelling outcomes, then planning, implementing, and assessing progress take on a very different tone. Maintaining a continual focus on meaningful results helps sustain a district or school through the long and sometimes difficult journey toward the realization of its vision and the delivery of its mission. Shining a relentless spotlight on achieving learning outcomes through concrete evidence of success at achieving the mission, as opposed to focusing just on organizational inputs and outputs, changes how it acts on traditional strategic planning and measures of success. Thus, as a guide and as a strategic evaluation scaffold, the I-O-I framework enables educators to move from aspirational to intentional.
Maintaining an I-O-I framework can:
• Help make the vision and mission focused on students’ learning and make them concerned with true transformation of individual learners
• Create a common understanding of central goals for learning, which is key to engaging the community and sustaining support for systemic work
• Ensure that a district’s or school’s definition of success is anchored in student-learning outcomes based on its mission