Where Do I Start with Change?

Higher education organizations are complex systems with many interacting subsystems. In order to create sustainable change, it is necessary to understand and align these subsystems. Read more on the ASCN blog (Charles Henderson, What is systemic change?)

All systems organize individual pieces into some sort of interrelated whole. Put simply, systemic change occurs when change reaches all or most parts of a system, thus affecting the general behavior of the entire system. However, systemic change is often difficult to envision, let alone encourage, because people generally find it easier to focus on the parts than on the systems that connect those pieces. Read more on the ASCN blog (Mark Connolly, What does systemic change mean to you?)

The Accelerating Systemic Change in STEM Undergraduate Education (ASCN) Network was set up to accelerate change at program and institution levels, and to improve STEM education nationally. Underlying all of these efforts is the question of how to think about change itself and how to launch, expand, and then sustain and adapt a large-scale change effort in the context of our college and university environments. Much of the literature on change has been developed through the study of change efforts in business settings (e.g., Kotter 1996, Heifetz and Linsky 2002). While approaches like these offer a number of useful insights into the nature of change itself and effective ways to think about and lead a change effort, they are based on the culture, approaches to leadership, and working relationships that characterize a business environment. Read more on the ASCN blog (Judith Ramaley, Change as a Scholarly Act)

Change theories include theoretical and empirically-grounded knowledge about how change occurs. Change theory is important to change efforts because it represents generalized knowledge beyond any one project. Relevant theories come from diverse fields and it is a challenge for change agents and change researchers to identify and understand the complexity and breadth of this literature. Join the conversation about change theories with our Guiding Theories Working Group.

More resources:

• Daniel Reinholz, Tessa Andrews: Change theory and theory of change: what's the difference anyway?
  • Dan and Tessa are co-leaders of the ASCN Guiding Theories Working Group
• Stephanie Chasteen, Kate White: How an external evaluator helps clients develop theories of change

Anybody can be a change leader. If you are creating, facilitating, or advocating for change in STEM education, at any level of the higher education system, you are a change leader. Change leaders may be either formal or informal leaders -- graduate students, faculty members, education leaders, department chairs, professional developers, administrators, etc.

To effectively lead change, think carefully about what type of change you are trying to accomplish, and how you might accomplish this. Who else do you need to involve? What do you need to learn? What might the barriers be? What data might support your planning?

There are many professional development opportunities for change leaders that could be relevant, such as training for teaching excellence, leadership, and facilitation.

Read more and explore resources about leading change.

Those supporting change leaders often have skills, connections, and/or authority that can be valuable to the change leader. Supports can be within the institution, from chairs and administrators, teaching and learning center staff, or other faculty. Outside the institution, professional organizations and other support networks can be critical.

To support a change leader, one thing you can do is to help them to develop the competencies that they need to lead change. What professional development might they need and how can they get it? How can you help them identify resources, barriers, and institutional context? How can you help them to access or collect relevant data?

Another thing that you can do to support change leaders is to champion their efforts. Make their work visible within and across departments, celebrate their efforts, and reward them as possible. You may act as a valuable liaison to other stakeholders, including those in positions of authority, translating the change leader's efforts to appropriate language.

Overall, try to empower the change leader in their own efforts, and help them to develop their own change leader capacities.

Professional development resources for supporters of change leaders include leadership and facilitation training, training in organizational change, as well as involvement with organizations for professional developers (such as POD).

Read more and explore resources about supporting change.

Have you wanted to change something at your institution, but weren't sure how to actually get to your goal from where you are now? Have you tried to make change happen, but found that your actions did not achieve the results you were hoping for? Change projects often fail because change agents do not fully understand the system that they are trying to change and do not have a clearly articulated change plan. Planning for effective and sustainable change is difficult and many change initiatives fail to reach their goals.

The Change Dashboard is a visual planning and communication tool to help you develop a successful change plan. The Dashboard can be used to plan a change project, present ideas to others, and track progress during a change initiative. It is meant for change agents and teams working in higher education. The main purpose of the Dashboard is to understand and create alignment between the different aspects of your change initiative. Using the Dashboard with your team can lead to a better understanding of your project and more successful change. Read more about the Dashboard on our blog or in the Change Dashboard module on our site.

Have you ever felt as if you were faced with an impossible decision regarding allocation of funding or resources? In higher education we are often called upon to improve educational outcomes with scarce institutional resources. We are asked to make difficult fiscal decisions without the tools we need to determine the possible fiscal and moral implications of supporting new initiatives and projects. If you have wondered whether it is possible to make modest changes that have a great impact, while also saving money and resources, the answer is yes.

The ASCN Costs, Benefits, and Demonstrating Impact Working Group created this resource list to share tools and examples that can help with evidence-based fiscal decision making. Read more and explore resources.

More resources:

• Critical Resources for Demonstrating Impact
• Archie Holmes: How Do We Convince Administrators that Program Assessment is Worth the Effort?

The ASCN Costs, Benefits, and Demonstrating Impact Working Group created a resource list to share tools and examples that can help with evidence-based fiscal decision making. Read more and explore resources.

Resources:

• Critical Resources for Demonstrating Impact
• David Bressoud, How can we help change leaders understand how measurement and data can be used?

The ASCN working group for Aligning Faculty Work with Systemic Change has put together a critical resources list on this topic. The purpose of this working group is to promote development of institutional cultures where continuous improvement of teaching is expected, valued, assessed, and rewarded at various stages of a faculty member's career. The working group will achieve its purpose by illuminating the policies and practices employed in the current higher education landscape that effectively evaluate and reward the three aspects of faculty work: teaching, scholarship, and service. Explore the list of Critical Resources for Aligning Faculty Work with Systemic Change on our site.

More resources:

• This group has held informal discussions on topics such as Promoting Equity and Inclusion in Teaching Practices and Evaluation and Evaluating Teaching During a Pandemic.
• Webinar: Transforming the Conversation about Teaching Evaluation in Higher Education: Thoughts from the National Academies' Roundtable on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education
• Webinar: Envisioning the Future of STEM Education: The National Academies' Roundtable on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education
• Webinar: Spreading Evidence-Based Instructional Practices: Leveraging Peer Observation for Institutional Change

Resources:

• Learning Spaces Working Group

Resources:

• Learning Spaces Working Group