Phases of Change

During a three-day symposium to launch a Sense of Place curriculum development project, 24 teachers and intermediate unit representatives discussed change efforts and the stages typical of change efforts. The teachers were charged with going back to their schools and collaborating with colleagues in developing the Sense of Place project. To document their progress, they completed the following "Cycle of Change" chart. This particular example was contributed by Mike Macklin, a teacher at Maquoketa Community Middle School, Maquoketa, Iowa. He completed the chart for the first three stages of the change process (introduction, adoption, and orientation), but did not fill out the chart for the last three stages (implementation, spread, and institutionalization), because he and his colleagues had not yet reached those stages.

LIFE CYCLE OF CHANGE

STAGE	INDICATORS	INITIATED/ COMPLETED	COMMENTS
INTRODUCTION	Identify administrative personnel involved	Fall 94	Principal Board of Education
	Present concept	Fall 94	Board of Ed. aware of project
	Approval to proceed	Fall 94	Pricipal OK'd project in Spring 94 Board of Ed. aware of project in Fall 94
ADOPTION	Identify potential participants	Spring 1994	Students w/ aid of ISU extension specialist defined sense of place
	Present concept	Fall 94	Students drew up mission statement
	Go/no go?	Go	Wanted to interview members of community to ok go
ORIENTATION	Meet with participants to flesh out concept	Oct. 94 Dec. 94	Interview 30 community members asking for vision and views on partnering with students
	Outline goals, procedures for the project	Dec. 94	Analyized data, decided to bring whole community together with instead of connecting with disjointed groups
	Define responsibilities	Jan. 95	Students decided to take on responsibilites of planning for CHARRETTE
	Go/no go?	Go
IMPLEMENT / ADAPT	Develop project strategies	Jan. 95	Wrote grant (COMSERVE) which became roadmap for next year activities
	Define resource, procedures	Feb. 95	Apply for grant, develop a series of video tapes
	Conduct discussions with students/ community	Spring 95	Set up focus meeting with community members
	Evaluate	Summer 1995	If 50% of community members have made a commitment to CHARRETTE we will make plans to proceed at full strength
	Adapt	Summer 1995	Comments from community members will be gathered and taken into consideration
SPREAD	Expand scope of activities	Spring 1996	Involvement of Representational community members in full-fledged retreat
	Expand disciplines involved
	Expand to additional classes
	Expand to other schools
INSTITUTIONAL- IZATION	Sense of Place is embedded in curriculum
	All teachers routinely use community as reference point for instruction

Artifact used with permission from:
Mike Macklin
Maquoketa Community Middle School
Maquoketa, Iowa
(319) 652-4956