Welcome back to Impacting the Classroom! In this episode, recorded live at InterAct 2024 in San Diego, we dive into CLASS® implementation strategies with Matt Owens, the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at Teachstone. Matt shares his journey from being an 8th-grade writing teacher to playing a pivotal role at Teachstone. We'll explore the newly developed, user-friendly CLASS Implementation Guide, designed to streamline class planning and evaluation, and how it aims to align classroom interactions with broader educational goals.
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Marnetta: Hello, everyone. It's me, Marnetta Larimer, your host of Impacting the Classroom, and we are live at InterAct 2024.
As always, we like to kick off the convo by asking what's happening in the classroom. Today, I'm being joined by my amazing co-worker, Matt Owens. Matt, you want to introduce yourself to our audience?
Matt: Sure, my name is Matt Owens. I'm the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at Teachstone. I started at Teachstone about 10 years ago, and I had come from being an 8th-grade writing teacher and then a 10th-grade English teacher. I came on to Teachstone as an instructional designer, and now I get to work on fun projects like the implementation guide we're going to talk about today.
Marnetta: I know. I'm so excited. I've heard a lot of buzz about it, so I can't wait to talk more about it and then hear what our audience has to say about it or what questions they might have for you.
As you've been tuning into our episodes this season, we've talked a lot about the implementation of different programs using CLASS from the grassroots, like in the beginning, but also some programs that have been using CLASS for longer periods of time. This ties into that. Again, it's great having you here, and I'm excited about this conversation.
Matt: Me too.
Marnetta: Let's start from the beginning. This is maybe a first episode for someone. They're like an implementation guide; what are you talking about? What is an implementation guide?
Matt: It's essentially, and don't make fun of me, but it's a guide for you as you either plan or evaluate your current CLASS implementation. The listeners of this podcast may have a variety of different roles. People in this room have a variety of different roles ranging from educators to even state-level leaders. This guide is to help you think about how you answer the question, what do I do with CLASS?
If you're already invested in the importance of interactions and you see CLASS as a helpful tool to help us talk about interactions in a consistent way and notice them in a way that allows us to make better decisions, then this answers how do you actually go about using that system? And it tries to make it really, really simple.
Our particular guide is a website that only has five pages. It tells you to do eight things. A lot of work went into making it that short. The initial drafts were much longer and much more complicated, so hopefully, it's something that makes your life easier if you're supporting a CLASS implementation.
Marnetta: I love that. I'm trying to figure out, I don't go to bed thinking about these things, who woke up and said, you know what? This would be a good idea. What made you think that this was something that we needed?
Matt: Honestly, I didn't come up with the idea. We had one. Teachstone was founded in 2008. There was an implementation guide that was published in 2009. Another one that came out in 2014. Then we've gone 10 years with our guidance on CLASS implementations really being distributed across really knowledgeable people like Marnetta, really knowledgeable people like those of you in the audience who have firsthand done the work of implementing CLASS, really great resources like this podcast, great blogs, great products, but it's never, or for the last 10 years, it hasn't been consolidated in one place.
There's been a desire both through requests from our partners in the field and just in an interest internally at Teachstone of consolidating it into a single spot that predates me. I just was lucky enough to get asked to do it. With a team at Teachstone and partners in the field, we partnered and made it happen.
Marnetta: That's wonderful. How many of you have attended and listened to some implementation discussions with Matt already during this time? A couple of hands. I see that. I think we've been talking over this conference about stories, the importance of those stories. Through those stories, the feedback that you've been getting, and hopefully that your people have contributed to, what did you learn?
Matt: So much. I always learn so much at InterAct. I think one thing I'll focus on—this is not everything—is the incredible value of alignment. CLASS is often something that people fall in love with, and they want to put it at the heart of everything that they do and that their system does. I think that in the strongest, most successful implementations, leaders are able to find ways to imbue everything that they do with focus on interactions and make that really practical for educators.
Even if you just think about it from the perspective of what do we expect of our educators, you think okay, they need to be competent in how to use a curriculum. They need to understand what our approach to behavior management is in this particular setting. They need to understand our approach to inclusion. They need to know who to go to for what. They need to approach some kind of continuing education requirements.
The list goes on, to the extent that as leaders, we can support educators and see how all of these efforts can be aligned. I didn't even mention the environment. How are you going to set up your classroom? How does that support interactions?
I think one of the biggest things I've been learning, not just this week but over the course of the last year, is how valuable it is when leaders find ways to align these expectations for educators, so that when they do have their mandatory professional development, they see the ways in which it supports interactions or when they have any new expectation.
I think of it almost as a manager. If you're a manager and someone's reporting to you, you don't just want to say hey, can you do these seven things? But not show how they all are aligned to supporting your mission. The educator's mission is about the children in their classroom. The most proximate, most impactful thing that they do is interact with them and build those relationships.
To me, it's those stories where sometimes the boring technical work that happens, first starting with crosswalks and starting with let's look at the calendar of the year and where are all the moments where we're frankly putting pressure on educators to do things in a different way or to do things more often. How can that all be wrapped up in this focus on giving children the interactions that mean the most to them? Just being thoughtful about that, I think, are the stories that inspire me the most.
Marnetta: During your time here, did anyone share some new stories with you as they were experiencing the implementation guide?
Matt: Honestly, I was hoping for more. There's so much that happens at InterAct. I just have to honestly say people are on the move, so they're opening up the guide. We actually did a little test of the guide in our session earlier today. Individuals had five minutes to look at it
Marnetta: Oh, that's not a lot of time.
Matt: That's not a lot of time, but they tended to find it valuable. We rated a four out of five in terms of the average is I agree I've already found the guide valuable, but the stories take time.
One of the things I'm interested in that I hope this podcast elicits is more stories of the ways in which the guidance that we provide at Teachstone actually shows up in your context and in different scenarios, and in the face of different challenges because it's one thing to say we know implementations are more successful when blank is true. It's another thing to say, and here are the three things that make that difficult and here are some of our partners who have overcome those challenges. We have a story deficit right now.
Marnetta: Got you. You can't be at a deficit. For those of you who attended a session earlier with Matt, what did you find valuable? Who would like to share what they found valuable with the implementation guide? Yes.
Paula: I really think that it kind of went over the regional leaders, the site leaders at different levels, so you can really use the guide tool to what you really need and not have to sift through everything to find what's there. I love the links to all the resources too, especially if it's there.
Marnetta: Wonderful. One Stop Shop.
Matt: What's your name?
Paula: Paula.
Matt: Thank you, Paula. I wanted to give you the shout-out on the mic, but if you couldn't hear Paula, she just alluded to the fact that throughout the guide, we got feedback in December from our partners that it was sometimes difficult to understand which sections were most relevant to whom.
What we did is at the beginning of each of the sections, we have a table that really simply says, if you're working at the system level, here's how you should focus your attention during this section. If you're working regionally, here's how you should focus your attention. And if you're at the site level, with the understanding that some people have to take on multiple perspectives.
You might be in a community-based organization outside the context of a CLASS implementation where you are taking the initiative yourself, where you have to think systematically about your community organization, and you serve some of the site-level roles also. Thank you. There's so many great links to resources in the guide.
Marnetta: Really trying to simplify that implementation process and really make CLASS implementation accessible at all levels. Any other? Yes.
Speaker: What I was going to say is, I was initially thinking of an implementation guide. I thought this is somebody who knew going into the CLASS. [...] doing CLASS, it was so valuable. Whether you're new to it or you've been in it for a while, there was so much that you can pool from that information guide [...]
Matt: Yeah, thank you.
Marnetta: That's wonderful feedback.
Matt: I didn't know this was going to be an advertisement for the guide. Thank you all. One of the first things we encourage you to do if you're already implementing CLASS is evaluate your implementation using a tool that's linked to on the very first page of the guide. We just get your team together and you say, are we already doing this or do we need to do this? There's some guidance on how to go about that.
Marnetta: That's awesome. It was a lot of work, so I love that they're celebrating this work because it's doing what it's intended to do, and that's what we want. Yes, a little bit of advertisement. It's fine.
Back to stories. What were some of the common themes? You listed off a bunch of challenges, but what were some common themes that you were getting from the stories that you were being told?
Matt: Let me talk about something different. I think what I want to talk about was something unexpected when developing the guide, which was how important—this is going to sound obvious, so I'm admitting this is kind of a miss for me in my thinking prior to building the guide—the moment right before and right after a CLASS observation is for an educator.
This is again, I took for granted that educators were fully informed about why, when, and how they're going to be observed and that they know what that means, and that they're getting feedback afterwards. In the measure section of the guide, it was organized around focusing on interactions, measuring interactions, and then using that measurement data to improve.
In the measurement section, we really prioritize communicating with educators prior to their observation, and we provide a PDF called CLASS Measurement Overview for Educators, which you can use as a starting point, or if you need to, you can send it, because it does provide generic information, and then you can layer in more specifics about your particular setting and your particular CLASS data protocol.
Then what's really special is last year at InterAct, I was in a session. I was leading with my colleague and someone said, we developed a protocol for sharing feedback with educators and I really wish Teachstone had one. I said, I wish we did too. Now we do.
It's called the Collab Protocol. It's linked to in the section of the guide about sharing actionable data, and it's about having collaborative conversations with educators which is what we want. We want them to be a participant in the conversation where they're learning about their scores or just how they performed if they're not sharing scores.
It's an acronym for a five-step process. I think one theme is just how important the educators experience being evaluated. We can talk about CLASS as this amazing, powerful thing, and we all get to be here at InterAct, but most educators won't get to go to an event like this, and few of us have to get observed for four 20-minute cycles where someone's looking at what we do, writing down what we say, how we move, their expressions on our face. It's a pretty important moment for them. To make sure that we're holding and honoring what they're doing and what's happening in that moment is really important.
Some parts of the guide are about these really big ideas, like build and maintain your CLASS implementation team. It's practical, but it's also kind of a big theoretical thing. You never stop doing it because as people turn over, you want to bring people back in. It's a little bit about the culture on your leadership team.
Then there are other sections like these two where just get these moments right. It seems small because it's so specific, but it's big in terms of how educators will go on to experience professional development, will go on to experience coaching. What will they say about their experience with CLASS to other educators?
One big theme is let's take care of the educators who take care of our kids by making sure that immediately before and after, they're getting the information that they need in the context of a supportive relationship and collaborative discussions.
At least one week prior to getting observed, make sure you send them a communication and they have a chance to ask questions. Then what we're challenging everyone to do is within two weeks, make sure they have a collaborative conversation in which they get some feedback on their CLASS scores or their CLASS observation.
Marnetta: I think that's so important because there's a difference in creating buy-in that we're and we're doing this together as opposed to this is being done to you. When you implement something CLASS and it feels punitive because you're just going in. I don't know what's happening. I don't even know what's expected. How am I supposed to be successful? It's hard to shift that narrative, depending on how you begin the implementation.
If you want to have this wonderful, you know, because you've been in all the meetings, you've been courting your Teachstone rep. You have all those resources, but our educators are missing those spaces, so have to court them too and massage them. Hey, this is what this is. This is what it looks like. This is the benefit. They have to know the why and really appreciate it, and they get there, but just think about how arduous that journey is if we don't set them up for that success in the beginning.
It's really hard when you're doing formal observations, especially when you're building that database, you don't get to talk to him. I'm always running out the middle saying I can't tell you nothing, but it's great to have some type of because they want to know what happened. If we can't get feedback, tell them we're creating a baseline so we know where to start and build on that professional development that we need to move our systems forward.
That storytelling from a leader's perspective, why is that important?
Matt: Bridget's presentation was a reminder of how stories are how we create and communicate meaning. There's an opportunity (probably). Any time you are communicating an expectation to educators or creating a space in which you want them to leave stuff at the door and focus on the professional learning that's about to happen, there's an opportunity to use story to contextualize whatever's about to happen and why they should draw their attention away from the million other things they probably have going on, what's waiting for them at home, just day-to-day tasks. Nevermind whatever elevated stress that comes out of just doing the day-to-day work of being an educator.
Everyone's cortisol levels go up over the course of the day, as I understand it. Just part of how we wake up in the morning and all of that. But there's interesting research on when you're having effective interactions as measured by CLASS, as an educator, that increasing cortisol is moderated. It's lowered for educators and for children.
I think stories can help grab our attention in a way that tells someone why something's important doesn't always. I used to work on our content team and we would pilot new programs in sites around our office in Virginia. There was a scenario where we were piloting a new program, and the site leader was so invested in CLASS and had a really great understanding of why we do this and all that. But in the moment of getting her staff's attention, she said something along the lines of hey, pay attention—it was just very quick—you should pay attention because our funding is tied to this, which is a little short story in a way.
It's not just about using stories, but it's about choosing the story that's mostly to connect to what people are motivated by that does get away from some of the focus on negative consequences.
Marnetta: Thank you for that. For those of you in the audience, some of you said you've already started implementing CLASS, when you look at the implementation guide, did you look at it and say, ah, I missed this piece during my implementation? Anyone? Everyone was like no.
Matt: They only have five minutes with it.
Marnetta: But they do. They're like no, we didn't have enough time with it. What pieces of the puzzle in your experience have leaders been missing?
Matt: Well, I think it varies. I think everything in the guide we have observed in the field done exceptionally well. With what the guy does it puts it all in one place for someone who's just getting started or who wants to evaluate.
I think it will vary from location to location. I think that sometimes it's hard to make the case for resourcing coaching. There's a whole section in the guide around coaching. We know that evidence-based coaching changes teaching practice, and that can be a thing that's difficult to resource. Even individuals that know that may not have the resources to make it happen.
Then another thing is I think investing in all stakeholders is something that requires a level of intentionality, and that intentionality requires time. Hopefully, the guide makes that step easier and so far as it offers a list of benefits for children, educators, directors, regional leaders, site-level leaders, and then funders and policymakers just to show how a CLASS implementation can support at all these different levels.
But yeah, I think it varies. I think that's why the evaluation tool is helpful so that people can orient themselves to whichever part of the guide is most helpful for them.
Marnetta: One of the things I enjoyed about the guide—there are lots of things I liked—first of all, anytime you embed resources into a document that I don't have to go search in different places, that always makes my heart happy. But also it's not just how to do it, but also here's some challenges, some common challenges and how to get around them.
Let's talk about some of those. What are some of the challenges that come up when programs are trying to implement CLASS or scale CLASS and the impact on that quality?
Matt: One thing we talk about is initiative fatigue and how there can be a perception, particularly early in implementations that are like oh, this is just another thing coming down the line. We got to get through this because something else will come in next year.
I had a brief stint as an administrator and I was getting trained on a tool in Tennessee, an observation tool for secondary. I was told, as I went to the training by my other administrators, you need to learn how to do this, but don't get too attached because there'll be something different in a year.
There's this learned kind of almost like it totally makes sense as a safety mechanism if I'm not going to invest too much in something. I think that the way around that is to focus on integrated implementations where your curricular PD includes considerations of when implementing this curriculum, how can it support interactions, that your considerations of classroom setup at the beginning of the year account for how different classroom setup might make behavior management more challenging or easier, and how your setup of the classroom can support, as we heard this morning, children's sense of belonging in their space if they see themselves represented.
To the extent you can focus on integration, I think it communicates a level of thoughtfulness that this is an intentional implementation and it's sticking around. It's not just the next thing to proceed your next thing.
Marnetta: That makes a big deal. My investment is going to be less if I know from top that you're not committed, but you're also showing me you're not committed to it. That's a challenge. For those of you out in the audience, what are some challenges you've had in implementation? It's a safe space.
Tanya: I'm Tanya Tomas, and sometimes, with the staff turnover that we've had over the past year, getting that training in for people that just get hired. They're expected to do all this stuff with very little training.
Marnetta: Turnover affects the outcome. You've done all this investment, you've done the training, they've attended the classes. You've done the feedback, you've done the coaching, and now you're starting over.
Tanya: Exactly.
Marnetta: I could see that as being really challenging. I also want to know what have you done to mitigate that challenge?
Tanya: We started doing an onboarding process where we're waiting for their background checks and all of that to come back because they obviously can't be with children until everything's crossed and dotted. During that process, we call it onboarding, so we're doing CLASS training. We're doing all the other training Head Start has to have for people that first come on.
Marnetta: Taking that waiting period. We're not just going to sit around and wait. Let's get you prepared.
Tanya: Exactly. That's what we've done.
Marnetta: Wonderful. Any other challenges with implementation? Thank you, Tanya. All right.
Matt: I actually want to talk about onboarding for a second because you're not alone. It came up this morning, and it comes up in every client partnership that we have that there are high rates of turnover. I think that having a really strong onboarding program is exactly right.
We're working with one large client right now to adapt the walkthroughs that they have their new educators conduct such that they're already beginning to use a CLASS lens.
They're not certified observers, but the rubric that they're given, we've worked with the client to modify such that it leverages the language of the interactions dimensions guide. They're already getting practice looking at to what extent the educator is noticing emotional needs. That's a question that I, at least when I was starting as an educator, wasn't asked.
To ask questions that then prompt them to do the effortful thinking and try to notice. First of all, you need to notice that the child is exhibiting an emotional need, and then you're asking, did the educator notice it? Then the follow-up, of course, is to what extent did they respond? Was their response effective? Now through a series of three questions, you began to cultivate the CLASS lens, as we would call it. But they don't need to know the language of CLASS to answer those three questions.
Then they can have a conversation. They do these in pairs with a coach or a training and curriculum specialist. Then they have a conversation about what they saw in that classroom. They're doing that after having gone through an introductory CLASS training. Then that leads into it.
I think having flexible onboarding that doesn't rely on group cohorts because people are coming in all the time is really essential, particularly in this moment of so much turnover and so many new hires.
Marneta: Thank you so much for that. How do you hope that this implementation guide will change how leaders think about implementation?
Matt: Well, it's similar to your last question. I think it will change different people differently. I don't know where they're starting, but I hope that it helps them feel less overwhelmed by the idea of a CLASS implementation and more like they know how to either initiate a new team focused on their implementation, even if it is just at their particular region or their particular site.
I hope they feel their jobs are easier and that something that maybe they've felt committed to and excited about, that it's easier to take some next steps around that. That's why the test earlier was just, you have only five minutes because I know how busy people are. That's why the guide is as short as it is. That's why it's organized the way it is. That's why it can get on your phone.
I just really hope it makes the work easier because at Teachstone, everything we do is about interactions, and that's the heart of what you all do. But there's also so much else you're accountable to that we didn't want to do something that was overwhelming or challenging.
Marnetta: Beautiful. If someone started this podcast and they're like I'm just going to skip to the end, what would be the one thing you'd want to leave everyone with?
Matt: The one thing, implement.teachstone.com. Honestly, the guide is the one thing. I was asked a question this morning I didn't know the answer to, but I knew it was in the guide. I thought I knew the answer, but I wasn't sure, so I played dumb. I was like I don't know, let me check for you. Then it was in the guide, so I was happy about that.
I really think, and I'm going to give a list, this is our best effort to consolidate a lot of complex things for audiences that work across a lot of contexts, so please try it out. Please give us feedback. Please share your stories because the thing that the guide does not have today, it will have tomorrow.
It's 2024, April 3rd. If you're listening to this in the future, maybe it does, but what we want to do is add in a really rich tapestry of stories and examples that very quickly communicate in this context or in this scenario, here's how this guidance was taken up effectively to remove any sense of this isn't for me.
We really believe all this guidance. We've tested it with lots of different users who've said yes, we can do this in our context. We want to make it easier for people to see themselves in the guide and see that this can be applied creatively across all contexts.
Marnetta: Wonderful. All right. Does anyone have any questions for our guest here?
Matt: Or for Marnetta.
Marnetta: Or for me?
Matt: The truth is most of them are here for you.
Marnetta: Whatever. Do you have any questions for Matt or myself? And it doesn't have to specifically be an implementation.
Matt: Yeah, it can be anything.
TJ: I have a question. My name is TJ Stewart. I don't have a question. I did write down a story. I'm super interested and excited to look into the implementation guide because everything you're saying today was really resonating with me. Getting from a compliance mindset more to quality and I think for our implementation issue, that's where we were at. When you said it's tied to funding, that hit me because that's what we've heard for years, especially in the Head Start world.
Really digging into well, yes, but we really are doing this because this is the heart and soul of our program. We really want to have high-quality interactions with children. That's where we are at right now in our conversation, in our journey. I'm really excited to have some additional resources to combat that a little bit. Yes, it's tied to that. However, that shouldn't be our go-to. Our go-to should be this is what we want for children.
Matt: Yes, and the federal government is using it in a very particular way that serves a function, and we can use it to create a continuous improvement cycle right here.
TJ: Absolutely.
Matt: Their protocol is two cycles and a sampling of classrooms. If you really want to set it up such that every teacher is getting rich feedback, you want more cycles than you want to observe in every classroom. There's a way in a Head Start setting to have a really beautiful application of CLASS in addition to what Head Start Federal monitoring is going to do. I'm so happy that you feel that way.
TJ: We're not all the way there yet, but now we're doing infant and toddler as well. We've pushed it enough that they value it enough for us to have it for our infant toddler because that's not required yet.
Marnetta: Wonderful, thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you so much, Matt, for joining us. Let's give him a hand. All right, and that's a wrap.