The Norris School District utilizes a design model where all members are learners and leaders exercising voice in creating relevant, powerful practices to support the educational model.  The professional learning team engages continual reflection to identify challenges and assess the distance between the current reality and vision.

At different stages throughout the design process, members with varying roles enter the conversation to evaluate the visibility of the vision from their unique lens to assess whether the practice will allow for:

• Learner Agency

• Socially Embedded Learning

• Open Walled Learning

• Personalized, Relevant Contextualized Application

• Competency-Based Progression across Four Dimensions

The design process gives the team an opportunity to engage members at the right point to build deep understanding prior to and during implementation. While there are defined steps, this process is not always linear.  Teams fluctuate back and forth between the levels as they implement, learn, reflect and revise their practices to meet the needs of the learners they are currently engaging with.  

 Step 1: Define and Document:  This step starts with a very small group that identifies the WHY—in order to outline the objectives—and the HOW—to create the deliverables and success criteria. Design challenges can originate from a barrier or the current state or opportunities to realize the next best place of the vision.

Step 2: Communicate and Internalize:  In this step, the goal is to communicate the promising practice widely and include more people in the design conversation to refine and further develop the WHAT—how the vision will become a reality.

During this step the team takes advantage of using the multiple level of inputs strategy.  These levels of input could include Directors, Specialists, Coaches, Learners, and Extended Community Members. The team at Norris continuously iterates during this step as different team members join the conversation to build and challenge the current design thinking. This step is emphasized because communication is critical in the implementation process. It gives the learning team a chance to communicate the practice widely among all stakeholders—providing the opportunity for everyone to internalize the process. Engaging all five levels of input builds agency across all levels of the organization.

Step 3: Visible Change in Practice:  This step is where all stakeholders will start to see a visible change in practice. Through the design process, everyone at Norris is encouraged to take risks and push the limits of what is possible as we begin interactions that change lives through the power of learning.

Step 4: Responsive Teaching and Learning:  In the final step, the primary goal of the learning team is to shift from the initial promising practice to an enduring practice that will become the fiber of who we are and what we do. Taking time to reflect and iterate through this process helps ensure our work does not become a fad and trail off when the next promising practice is developed.

The practices that originate through the design process are first referred to as PROMISING PRACTICES.  Promising practices are identified during the first step of the design process when multiple levels of input are solicitated. The design is referred to as a promising practice because the team believes it demonstrates promise to reduce a barrier or create opportunity to close the gap between vision and reality.

As the design moves toward implementation the hope is to transform the promising practice to become a Responsive Enduring Practice.  Responsive enduring practices are practices that have become a part of the fiber of the learning ecosystem. They are enduring because throughout the process all members of the learning team have had the opportunity to internalize and understand the why.  Everyone has the Opportunity to Design (OTD) or envision the possibility the practice brings.  They have had the Opportunity to Learn (OTL) and internalize the practice so that they can communicate the why and how of the practice.  Everyone has had the Opportunity to Respond (OTR) and can explain how the practice relates to the Norris vision and their personal practice. Finally, everyone has had the Opportunity to Practice (OTP) and be coached to consistently use the practice to empower learners.  Everyone can share and give examples of its effectiveness. Deep engagement with this process ensures commitment to the practices.  Through opportunities to design, learn, respond and practice with effective coaching, we can ensure that the practices are enduring and do not become a fad.

Practitioners continuously reflect on their practices and their use across the ecosystem. Barriers may arise or new opportunity may present itself.  The team continues to iterate and evolve each practice to respond to the needs of learners, the development of other practices, and opportunity to further close the gap between reality and vision.