Top 5 Reasons to Invest in Tracking Everyday Progress with your Team
June 27, 2024
By Kippy Smith
Schools face many barriers to continually tracking progress toward their big, bold goals: people often work in silos– even in collaborative school communities— and they lack efficient ways to gather real-time, school-wide evidence of growth. And yet, it matters… a lot! Here are the top 5 reasons to invest in collaboratively tracking progress day to day with your team:
#1: Traditional measures don’t help teams learn as they go.
It’s not a straight line to the transformative goals schools set. Educator teams need to try new things, iterate and learn as they go. But the traditional data points schools typically use to track their progress toward their big goals arrive too late or fail to capture the full story of what’s working (or not), making it hard for teams to learn and adjust along the way. (Even interim assessments or periodic surveys tend to capture only a point-in-time snapshot that doesn't always tell the fuller story.) Without a clear window into the day-to-day, lived experiences of teachers and students in classrooms, educator teams are left to learn retrospectively versus in real-time, which inhibits their responsiveness. The main purpose of tracking progress is to fuel team learning, creative energy, and next steps. Overall, traditional measures aren’t well suited to this purpose.
#2: It helps your team move in a coherent direction.
Educator teams routinely tell us they didn’t realize they lacked a common vision of quality & success until they started collaboratively tracking their everyday experiences and observations. Schools we work with at Small Wins Dashboard determine the “success signs” they want to see while journeying toward their long-range goals. The process helps them get crystal clear about what day-to-day growth toward the goals looks like- a critical step for ensuring the team has a shared picture of what they’re aiming for from day to day. This helps them better see the path between where they are and where they want their school and students to be.
Our school partners also define the “promising practices” they’ll use to work toward their big goals, and routinely share stories about their everyday experiences with these practices. This window into colleagues’ daily practice illuminates when a team is operating from a shared definition, and when it isn’t. Strategic plans and frameworks do a great job establishing shared language for educator practices- but not until teams exchange their day-to-day experiences does shared vision develop.
#3: It helps people develop critical habits for equitable student learning.
The Liberatory Design process* codifies two key habits people adopt when working to create equitable learning environments: noticing and reflecting. These practices are also central to capturing people’s lived experiences in classrooms as a way of tracking growth toward shared goals. When educators habitually notice and reflect, they pay closer attention to students and see them through fresh eyes. Educators become more aware of how their own actions influence others. These habits also help them generate creative solutions for complex challenges. Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s words are interestingly applicable: “It is on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way.”
* Liberatory Design is the result of a collaboration between Tania Anaissie, David Clifford, Susie Wise, and the National Equity Project [Victor Cary and Tom Malarkey].
#4: Because seeing is believing.
When people can clearly see the everyday effects of their efforts, they are more motivated and ultimately more productive. Research on The Power of Small Wins points to what the authors Amabile and Kramer call the Progress Principle: “The more frequently people experience a sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run” (Amabile & Kramer, 2011). Similarly, Donohoo and Hattie’s article on collective efficacy identifies the important role evidence plays in building a team’s belief in its collective ability to improve student outcomes: “The key is making the link between teachers' actions and student outcomes explicit, so that teachers understand that the factors behind student progress are within their collective sphere of influence” (Donohoo et al, 2018). Simply put: clearly seeing the connection between educator efforts and their effects nurtures a team’s belief in its capacity to affect change.
#5: How you track progress toward shared goals influences your culture.
The way a team goes about tracking progress toward its goals contributes not only to what the team ultimately accomplishes, but also to people’s mindset and to organizational culture. When everyone on the team contributes to evidence-gathering and sense-making, team members feel valued, empowered, and connected. When the focus includes what the team is learning in addition to how the team performed, team members worry less about “doing it right” and become more confident in their ability to problem-solve and create. Finally, when tracking shared progress becomes a central way of working together versus a stand-alone process, schools nurture a culture that supports continual, collective learning.
References:
Amabile, T. M., & Kramer, S. J. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard Business Review, 89(5). 70-80. https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins
Donohoo, J., Hattie, J., & Eells, R. (2018). The power of collective efficacy. Educational Leadership, 75(6), 40–44. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/the-power-of-collective-efficacy