Managing educational change

1
Managing educational change

• The policy making is a change process
• The nature of educational change
• The factors that are likely to facilitate and/or
  inhabit change
• The changing school cultures
• The approaches to develop effective educational
  change

2
Self-reflection

• Why do you think policy making is a change
  process?
• List the forces that demand change at the school
  level.
• Why are teachers likely to resist change?
• What can be done to tackle these resistance?

3
The nature of planned change

• Change is a feature of all natural and human
  systems.
• Planned change concerns the processes whereby
  phenomena are transformed and their
  characteristics alter.
• The aspects of a social system including inputs,
  transformation process, outputs and includes
  feedback loops for control.
• Task Why do think schools are seen as social
  systems.

4
Getting reforms right what works and what
doesnt! (Fullan Miles, 1992)

• Change is learning
• Change is journey, not a blueprint
• Problems are our friends
• Change is resource hungry
• Change requires power to mane it
• Change is systematic
• All large-scale change is implemented locally

5
Planned educational change is

• about dealing with perceptions and feelings
• about people more than things
• about changing school cultures
• likely to cause conflict
• dynamic
• about process more than product

6
Planned educational change involves

• The content of such a change (concepts, skills,
  ideas and schools cultures)
• The process by which planned change occurs

7
Forces for organizational change

• External forces and internal forces
• Accountability
• Changing demographics
• Staff shortages
• Technological changes and educational explosion
• Processes and people
• Task List some of the pressures for change at
  your school level.

8
Resistance to change

• Uncertainty
• Concern over personal loss
• Group resistance
• Dependency
• Trust
• Awareness of weaknesses in the proposed change

9
Reducing resistance to change

• Education and communication
• Participation and involvement
• Facilitation and support
• Negotiation and agreement
• Support and cooperation
• Explicit and implicit coercion

10
Factors facilitating planned educational change

• Good management - sharing and caring
• Planning and support group
• The incentive system (positive reinforcement)
• Resource support
• Relevance and readiness
• Appropriate staff

11
Phases of planned change process

• Initiation
• Implementation
• Institutionalization/continuation/outcome

12
Stages of planned educational change process

• The unfreezing stage - Initiating and preparing
  the stakeholders.
• The changing stage - Implementing the plan.
• The re-freezing stage - institutionalizing the
  successful plans

13
Unfreezing Stage

• Situation analysis (relevance, resources)
• readiness of the main change agents and users
• empowerment

14
The change stage

• Maintaining a flexible and supportive attitude
• Establishing different channels to increase
  communication
• Provide appropriate training
• Factors and themes

15
Re-freezing stage

• Institutionalizing the plan
• Further developing the successful efforts and
  practices.

16
Change agents- why chosen?

• Integrity - trust
• Competence consulting, research, up-to-date,
  training, etc.
• TQM

17
Change agents - roles

• Hemophily alike and acceptance
• Empathy Understanding the feelings
• Linkage collaborative activities (togetherness)
• Proximity - closeness
• Structuring planning and organizing
• Capacity providing resources
• Openness willingness to hear, respond to and be
  influenced by one another.
• Reward rewarded for efforts
• Energy willing to work hard
• Synergy effect of the above on one another.

18
Educative role- change agents

• The perceptions and meanings of the clients are
  very important.
• Change is likely to be successful when the client
  are in control of the change process.
• Change agents should work themselves out of the
  job.
• Develop the confidence and skills of the clients
  until they are self-reliant.