Services
Program Evaluation & Assessment
Educational institutions and their stakeholders want to know whether programs are producing their intended effects.
Educators have a professional responsibility to appraise the quality of their school programs. Administrators want to know the worth and merit of programs whether for formative or summative purposes. To those ends, TransformEd Consulting uses systematic methods for collecting, analyzing, and using data and information to answer questions about projects, policies, and programs and to measure whether they positively affect student performance. Our methodical program evaluation approach answers questions episodically and thereby provides educational institutions with benchmarks to consider effectiveness and return on investment.
Needs assessments compare the current or existing status of an educational institution or its components with a set of conditions or desired outcomes to identify discrepancies between them—the difference between what is and what ought to be. A needs assessment provides a basis for setting objectives for program development. TransformEd Consulting’s assessments identify the context, establish baseline data, compare findings to desired outcomes, and identify gaps or unmet needs. Needs can be identified at various levels including the student, the community, or society at large.
Needs assessments often lead to either programmatic changes or the selection and introduction of a new program to achieve specific objectives. TransformEd Consulting helps educational institutions select aligned, evidence-based programs that would yield results that meet or surpass accountability or institutional goals. Included in our evaluation is whether the program is apt and implemented with fidelity and whether there are alternatives that are more effective or efficient toward improving academic performance.
Program evaluations and needs assessments can involve both qualitative methods such as case studies, focus groups, observations, and interviews as well as a multitude of quantitative statistical procedures.
Strategic Planning
The strategic goals an educational institution identifies sets the course for its decision-making and allocation of resources thereby increasing the likelihood of an improved accountability rating.
Strategic planning is an approach to steer an institution through an uncertain environment to assure it attains its educational mission. It is analytical—particularly given its analysis of the environment—yet it is iterative, where it seeks consensus by re-examining environmental inputs and organizational responses to ensure desired outcomes are achieved. In strategic planning, institutions are attempting to create their future rather than let the future happen to them.
With the support and guidance of TransformEd Consulting, educational institutions are better equipped to select programs that are aligned with their goals in relation to the environment in which they exist.
Our methods involve:
– Forecasting the political, economic, social, and technological, and competitive environment
– Recognizing institutional mandates and clarifying the institution’s mission and values
– Analyzing the institution’s strengths together with its environmental opportunities and threats
– Facilitating the identification and selection of actions the institution must take to proactively and effectively adapt to the forecasted environment
– Assisting organizing resources to implement those actions
TransformEd Consulting’s methods are collaborative and may be formal or informal. We emphasize a bias for action. The resultant strategic plan may comprise multiple years, thus it must be updated periodically. We provide our clients with feedback and support throughout the relationship, with emphasis on further ensuring improved student academic achievement.
Problem Solving & Decision-Making Support
TransformEd Consulting uses a systematic approach to solving problems which includes conducting authoritative primary and secondary research to effect root cause analysis
—the means by which problems are identified and ultimately solved—rather than simply addressing superficial symptoms. Focusing correction on root causes increases the likelihood of entirely preventing problem recurrence. Using a systematic approach can help institutions avoid some of the common pitfalls of ineffective problem solving, such as:
– Jumping to a conclusion before effectively analyzing all aspects of the problem
– Failing to gather critical data about the problem or the proposed solutions
– Working on problems that are not well-defined
– Failing to develop adequate rationale for a solution
– Failing to plan adequately how to implement and evaluate the recommended solution
Improved student academic achievement is a likely end result of a systematic approach to problem solving.
Using various decision-making tools that are designed to facilitate shared decision making, TransformEd Consulting will assist stakeholders to deliberate among relevant program attributes and then sort, rank, and choose programs that best lead to improved student academic performance. Decision-making tools are not intended to make the decision for institutions and stakeholders, but to bring differing viewpoints to the surface so they can be thoroughly explored and the resultant final decision sharpened. TransformEd Consulting will also assist administrators plan, implement, and manage the selected programs.
Longitudinal Data Analysis
Longitudinal data analysis investigates changes in participants over time and is essential to measuring performance.
Prospective longitudinal research is a design that involves repeated observations of the same phenomena over a period. Retrospective longitudinal research uses existing data such as previous standardized test performance to observe change. Data are collected at different time-points to study change or explore statistical relationships among various phenomena. Such studies provide an essential platform to consider student growth and/or program effectiveness in meeting or surpassing accountability goals.
In our longitudinal studies, we observe the performance of a selected panel of the same individuals or a cohort of a specific population over an agreed period probing for improved performance. TransformEd Consulting can also conduct trend studies where persons representing the same population are sampled at each data-collection time-point.
Organizational Development & Leadership Coaching
Organizational development offers a prescription for improving the goodness-of-fit between an individual and the organization and between the organization and its environment. It is a systematic diagnosis of an organization, the development of a strategic plan to improve effectiveness, and the mobilization of resources to execute that plan.
Organizational development focuses holistically on the organization and its constituent sub-groups. It is a planned and sustained effort that deliberately seeks to enhance performance practices in order to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. Organizational development is the applied domain of organizational psychology and sociology and is necessary at every organizational level. A competitive organization facilitates the learning of all its members and is continuously transforming itself.
An organization that is not moving forward is falling behind.
There are a variety of approaches to organizational development including consultation, coaching, communities of practice or professional learning communities, mentoring, reflective practice and supervision, and technical assistance. Regardless of the approach used, organizational development works best as an ongoing process of implementing effective organizational change.
TransformEd Consulting has positively transformed organizations. By aligning educational institutions’ missions with their changing landscapes and by effectively applying organizational change theories, TransformEd Consulting has successfully affected institutions’ norms and values. This includes shaping the attitudes and beliefs that influence institutions’ collective behavior and culture regarding student academic achievement.
TransformEd Consulting can also be an external change agent that gets institutional members involved in solving institutional problems. Our strengths are both theoretical and practical knowledge of human behavior and knowledge of change intervention techniques.
Our goal is improved student academic achievement.
Leadership Coaching
On a different level, TransformEd Consulting’s coaching assists educational leaders in setting goals, seeking solutions to overcome barriers, learning new skills, and implementing effective choices. Coaching is a form of organizational development and change in which a coach supports a client in achieving specific institutional goals. Coaches help leaders develop presence, enhance thinking, address conflict, and build teams. Coaches use a range of thought-provoking communication skills such as restatements, listening, questioning, and clarifying to expand clients’ awareness. A general aim of coaching is to achieve excellence. Studies suggest that coaching has a positive effect on institutional performance. Through its coaching processes, TransformEd Consulting helps leaders move to higher levels of functioning and thereby meet their professional potential.
Unconscious (Implicit) Bias Training
As part of its organizational development service, TransformEd Consulting offers personally facilitated, well-versed, non-threatening unconscious (implicit) bias training exposing unintentional, deeply ingrained stereotypes and blind spots. The service includes assessments, tools, and real-situation interactive exercises and discussions to unmask and adjust patterns of thinking and doing. Also proffered are single and multiple sessions, metrics, and follow-up.
On-Site Technical Assistance
Whether your needs are for developing and coordinating educational policies, conducting in-service training, or aligning curricula, TransformEd Consulting has the expertise to help you realize improved student academic achievement and enjoy the standing from meeting and/or surpassing accountability systems’ mandated goals:
– Program and/or initiative implementation and management
– Building professional learning communities
– Leadership capacity building
– Community relations
– Market research
– Survey research
– Grant writing
Program Implementation and Administration
Program
Implementation and administration is a practice of directing institutional endeavors with the intention of improving the institution’s performance. TransformEd Consulting will assist administrators to plan, implement, and administer programs by overseeing, facilitating problem-solving, and providing decision-making support to implementation activities to ensure critical benchmarks are met.