Implementation is Everything: How to design for small, consistent habits that can create big change in education interventions

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

Adult behavior changes when we do little things again and again with success. The same is true in education.

We often think that large, positive outcomes are affected through drastic reform and herculean efforts. Instead, effective implementation often comes through answering a simpler question: “what are the smallest habits, which can be implemented daily in a manner that is deeply suited to local context? How can that these habits be repeated daily and built upon?” Consistent and incremental change seems, additionally, to be an essential component to whether large-scale change has positive outcomes (Angrist & Meager, 2023).

At One World and Chemonics, we work with local partners to understand the strategic objectives and then to simplify them into concrete, daily actions, and organizational habits. By providing real examples from a wide array of contexts – teacher reform programs in Tajikistan, literacy intervention programs in the Dominican Republic, designing for group instruction in India, and remedial reading activities in Rwanda – and offering opportunities for participants to share their own experiences, we will facilitate opportunities for peer-to-peer, practice-based learning.

In this session, we will review and frame the shared examples using the Plan-Train-Coach-Monitor framework and then take a deep dive into implementation design. We will work with participants as they design their own implementation plan using the Plan-Train-Coach-Monitor process for successful implementation. We will help participants break down large implementation goals into actionable habits by designing backwards.

Participants will engage with each step of the framework and be supported to ask the essential questions for contextualization:

Plan: who will be involved, for how long, what dosage, what materials to prepare etc.

Train: who needs to be skilled up and by whom, how do we contextualize relevant training, what frequency?

Coach: how do we continually capacitate those in charge to succeed?

Monitor: What small continuous adjustments can help solve problems or make the intervention more effective?

By the end of the session, participants will leave with a draft which they can use to run through an implementation sequence, as well as a working understanding of how to create contextualized implementation plans.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Pre-Conference Workshop

Chair

• Melanie Smuts, One World Network of Schools

Workshop Organizer

• Prakrithy Pradeepkumar, Chemonics International

Presenting author

• Audrey Spencer, Chemonics International