How might you support your community in a change process?

Discussion 1: Scenarios for Change
Consider the need for educational change facing the Grand City community and how members of the task force have begun working toward meeting that need. You have reviewed the data reflecting demographics for the community and reflected on how the data should inform decisions regarding changes to your specialization. While changes may be welcomed by some members in the community, as a leader of change, you must also take into account why some members resist change. Perhaps the issues facing Grand City are similar or reflective of the needs of your own community. How might you support your community in a change process? How might you encourage change-resistant community members to work toward necessary change?
For this Discussion, you will use data to develop a specialization-specific scenario representing a need for change in your educational or community setting.
Note: You will develop the scenario in this Discussion for your colleagues to respond to and address the scenario from your perspective in Module 4 Discussion 2.
To prepare:
Review the assigned Fullan (2016) chapters for this module. Consider the processes and concepts regarding change and how educational leaders can support both.
In the City Hall location in Grand City, revisit the media of the task force’s opening meeting. Think about the issues addressed by the members represented and how communities strive to meet the educational requirements of their children/students and the needs of their members. Think about how the issues raised in the video and those by your colleagues thus far in the course resonate with your specialization in your own educational or community setting.
Select an issue that represents a need for change in your educational or community setting and involves, or has the potential to involve, your specialization area. Locate and review the existing data related to this issue. What is the data telling you about the issue and potential educational and/or community changes?
Note: If you are unable to determine an issue from your own educational setting or find data related to your issue, you can select an issue and review the data provided in Grand City.
Based on the data, develop a more detailed scenario of the issue for your Walden colleagues to respond to with evidence-based strategies for leading the change process.
Note: You may wish to base your scenario on a personal experience or on the information provided in Grand City.
By Day 3 of Week 7
Post a scenario description that explains:
The details of the issue, including the history of the problem, who is involved, and why the problem has occurred. Be sure to include specific reference to data to support your explanation.
How the issue presents a need for change within your specialization in your educational or community setting.
For this Discussion, and all scholarly writing in this course and throughout your program, you will be required to use APA style and provide reference citations.

Module 4: Applying Strategies for Change (Weeks 7 and 8)
Commitment to what should be changed often varies inversely with knowledge about how to work through a process of change. … promoters of change need to be committed and skilled in the change process as well as the change itself.
(Fullan, 2016, p. 83)
Educational changes can be challenging because of the many stakeholders who may be affected by the change. As you consider strategies for implementing and measuring the effectiveness of change, recognize that some individuals and groups may resist change and work to undermine it. As a leader in developing plans for educational change, consider how other leaders have been successful and what contributed to that success. Conversely, think about how some leaders have failed and the possible lack of knowledge in the change process that contributed to that failure.
In this module, you will create change scenarios related to your educational setting and based on available data. You will also continue to develop evaluation tools for a program in your specialization.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
Develop educational change scenarios
Analyze data for change
Apply evidence-based strategies for leading change processes
Develop program evaluation tools
Develop program evaluation action plans
Learning Resources
Required Readings
Fullan, M. (2016). The new meaning of educational change (5th ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Chapter 3, “Insights into the Change Process” (pp. 39–53)
Chapter 5, “Planning, Doing, and Coping with Change” (pp. 82–96)
Giancola, S. (2014). Evaluation matters: Getting the information you need from your evaluation. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oese/sst/evaluationmatters.pdf
Jayaratne, K. S. U. (2016). Tools for formative evaluation: Gathering the information necessary for program improvement. Journal of Extension, 54(1), 28. Retrieved from https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1930&context=joe
Henson, H. (2016). Data quality evaluation for program evaluators. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 21(1), 99-108. doi:10.3138/cjpe.261
Document: Action Plan Template 1 (Word document)
Document: Action Plan Template 2 (Word document)
Required Media
Grand City Community
Go to the Grand City Community and click into City Hall to review the following for this module:
Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2017a). Grand City opening task force meeting [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2016b). Grand City education and demographic data files [PDF]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

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