The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Best practices, tips, and stories to help you be extraordinary in your classroom and beyond, featuring Curriculum Associates' Director of the Educator Community Sari Laberis.
The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Research is for Everyone with Kate Gasaway
Unlock the secrets to enhancing instructional programs with research-driven strategies and collaborative insights. Join us as we introduce our new co-host, Hayley Browning, who brings her rich experience as a former elementary school teacher and current role on the Educator Community team at Curriculum Associates. Together, we dive into a compelling discussion with Kate Gasaway, a Research Marketing Manager at Curriculum Associates, who sheds light on the crucial role of implementation fidelity in education. With her invaluable expertise, Kate highlights the significance of setting clear goals and understanding implementation guidelines to ensure success in the classroom.
Kate's innovative approach emphasizes the power of collaboration among teachers. By recognizing and leveraging the strengths of colleagues, educators can streamline their practices, adopting proven systems without reinventing the wheel. Learn how monitoring student progress and analyzing research-backed trends can lead to improved educational outcomes, benefiting both teachers and students. Don't miss out on this episode packed with actionable strategies and insights designed to transform your classroom experience.
Read Kate's blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog/implementation-fidelity-in-education
Follow us on Twitter: @CurriculumAssoc
Follow us on Instagram: @MyiReady
Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Hey everyone, welcome to the Extraordinary Educators podcast. I'm Sari and I'm Haley. Yes, we have a new co-host. I am so excited to share with you all that Haley Browning is going to be joining the podcast as your future host. So we are going to co-host a couple episodes and then Haley will be your host moving forward.
Speaker 1:So Haley is a colleague of mine at Curriculum Associates. She is on the educator community team. If you follow us on social or have ever gotten a DM or a like or a tweet back, that is Haley behind the scenes interacting with you all. She also helps run our extraordinary educator programs and this podcast, and so so much more. Haley is also a former elementary school teacher, and so she brings a wealth of knowledge, both what the educator understands and wants and also with building our communities at Curriculum Associates. So I am thrilled that you will get to learn from Haley and get to know her as well. So welcome Haley. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here, so happy to have you too. So for this episode, haley and I got a chance to chat with our amazing colleague, kate Gassaway, who is a research marketing manager, and so Kate talked to us all about research and what that means for you in the classroom.
Speaker 2:I thought this was a really powerful episode, especially talking about implementation fidelity. That's such a buzzword in education right now and she also really brings this idea of research is for everybody to the forefront. So really excited for you all to listen and we hope you enjoy our conversation with Kate.
Speaker 1:Welcome, kate. We are so excited to have you here today. Thank you, I'm glad to be here, of course. So in the blog that you authored, which we will link in the show notes for our listeners, you emphasize the importance of implementation fidelity. Can you share some strategies that our listeners could use, or examples of how teachers can improve their implementation of?
Speaker 3:instructional programs. I mean, I think the first thing is to make sure you know what the implementation guidelines are Like. Anything like knowing what your goal is is a very good place to start.
Speaker 2:That's really helpful. Kate, I know you also had mentioned specifically the importance of collaboration with colleagues. I would love to hear about some advice you could give to teachers to ensure that their collaboration is just as effective as possible.
Speaker 3:I think something that, as teachers and I'm a former educator myself that is not something we practice as often as maybe we could is noticing what other people do well, and so, like, I would just invite people to try to practice that first, like, what do you see that other people are doing well? Because that will let you know who to talk to and who to ask for help with different things. Remember, I had a teacher that I worked with who was just a stunning organizer. She had the best classroom organization system, and the collaboration I had with her over the years was amazing, even though we taught different grades in different subjects. And so I'd say, start with that. It'll not only help you understand who to talk to and where to start with different coworkers, but I think it'll also bleed over into other parts of your life in a really positive way. It did for me, for sure.
Speaker 1:So, so important. And I think, too, teachers are so busy Our listeners know that right and so just trying not to reinvent the wheel. So, in your example, you didn't have to reinvent these organizational strategies. You just replicated best practices from someone else in your building and likely anything that you're struggling with or have questions about, one of your colleagues is probably doing it well and you can probably learn from them. So find time to meet with them, observe them and then see if their systems can work for you. I love that, so thanks for sharing that, Kate. So in your blog, Kate, you mentioned how important it is to monitor student progress. Can you talk a little bit about the research? I feel like we always hear people say to do this, but what does the research actually say about its impact?
Speaker 3:Research is all about measured progress, so that's the foundation of absolutely everything our research team does is what can we actually see in terms of progress for students? And then, taking that data, what can we learn from the trends in the progress that we see? Trying to think of ways that we can glean insight from the data we get, from things like the iReady Diagnostic, and see what it can tell us about how we are serving all the different aspects of the populations that use our products or not, and how we can improve that. So I would say that, as someone who works with scientists and researchers all the time, I'm a really firm believer in monitoring what progress you see so you can learn from it and improve, because that's really the goal. Like, what is the point of any data if it's not to improve outcomes for students?
Speaker 1:Right exactly. You're not just assessing and getting data for the sake of doing it right. You have to then use it to inform something, whether it's you know your instruction, how you group your students, whatever that is. Are there any parts of recent research that you feel like would be helpful to share with our listeners, either findings or interesting data, or what the research is saying?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we've recently published a series of papers that look at the difference between student outcomes where students use personalized instruction with fidelity and those who don't.
Speaker 3:And that's the only real variable in that group is like did you meet this criteria for fidelity or did you not?
Speaker 3:And so even that, even that small single variable, we're seeing a significant positive difference in the students who meet that criteria and it's something that's really interesting, not just because of the results on that single measure. Interesting not just because of the results on that single measure, but also because of what it means for the things that we can't measure yet or that we didn't measure for these studies. So, like, when we see a student in a classroom where we have implementation fidelity, we know that it's not just that that student has, you know, 30 minutes a week or 18 weeks a year and a 70% pass rate, but there's all these other great things that are happening in the classroom that are supporting that student success. So what I think is really interesting in this latest research is not just the result that we see, but also, like, if you are someone who is seeing implementation fidelity among your students, that is a blinking red light that says look at all these great things that are also happening here, so maybe it should be a blinking green light in this case.
Speaker 2:That's really powerful. Kate, I'm curious for our listeners could you just give a really quick overview of what exactly implementation fidelity means? I feel like that's a big buzzword that we keep hearing about and mentioning, obviously in this episode, but I want to ensure that everybody understands and about and mentioning obviously in this episode, but I want to ensure that everybody understands and has a clear mindset of what that definition is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so implementation fidelity is delivering programs as they were designed and recommended. So we have guidance for how to implement our products that we publish to support teachers using our products. Closely related is the field of implementation science that studies how implementation impacts or related to the success of different curriculums, and that's really, really fascinating because it's not just about the guidelines that publishers put out but also how well aligned different products are with different communities. So implementation science will also consider does this work for everyone? Does this work in every place? If not, where are we seeing differences in groups? Super helpful.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Kate. Before we close out, is there anything else that you think our listeners would find helpful as it pertains to research and implementation and best practices?
Speaker 3:I'm a really big believer that science is for everybody and a really big believer in the scientific method and like what it can do for us, and so I would say, take some time to read something that you might not read usually. Push yourself outside that and see if it resonates with you, see if it raises questions for you, because I think that's really, really exciting when we start to push our boundaries and see what's new.
Speaker 1:Have you read anything recently that you would recommend, or do you have a go-to place where you find things that are sort of outside of your comfort zone?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. Do I take my own advice? We have a Slack channel of what are we reading and my co-workers, who are much more well-read than I am much more varied post things there, and that's where I go to to see things I wouldn't normally come across.
Speaker 1:It's hard, it definitely takes muscle memory. I know when I try to read these things I have to read a sentence or paragraph multiple times and slow down, um, but it's a good practice. It's almost like learning another language, right, um, and kind of translating it for myself. So really appreciate you sharing that. That's, that's great advice. Thank you again for being here, kate, and for sharing all of your expertise with us and our listeners. We appreciate you. Thanks for having me Get inspired by following us on social media and please tag us in your posts on X at Curriculum Asoce and on Instagram at my Eye Ready.
Speaker 1:If you have feedback about the podcast, a topic of interest or if you want to be a guest, email extraordinaryeducators at cainccom. Please subscribe where you listen to podcasts and if you'd like to help more educators, just like you, join the conversation and please leave a review. Remember, be you be true, be extraordinary. The Extraordinary Educators podcast is produced by Curriculum Associates, editing by Shane Lowe, social media by Atsiti Hannon, guest booking by Sari Labaris and production by Haley Browning. This podcast is copyrighted materials and intellectual property of Curriculum Associates.