Rationale
Your school has decided that adding a collaborative tool will benefit students. Great! How can this change be implemented without additional stress or challenges for staff and students? How can you minimize the challenges and overcome obstacles as they arise? This toolkit is intended to support the implementation of collaborative digital teaching platforms into a K to 12 school. Collaborative tools, by definition, require the participation of various stakeholders with varying degrees of experience and skills. Following Conway et al.’s definition of “systems-centred design” there requires a sensitivity to the dynamics within these systems. This toolkit guides leaders in aligning the organization's needs and vision with the stakeholders, processes, supports, responses to barriers, and the evaluation of outcomes. This toolkit reflects Cormier (2017) lessons that when working with public education, emphasis should be on trust, continuous improvement, decision making and digital citizenship. As leaders work through the change process it is important to recognize that the process is not linear and that there remains a need to be flexible in addressing obstacles as they arise.
A Word About Leadership
Leadership style is also important to developing ownership among the change participants. A transformational leadership style, “influenc[es] followers by empowering them to participate in the process of transforming the organization” (Appelbaum et al., 2015, p. 75). Clear models, guidance, patience, and respect are fundamental. The following checklist summarizes the five transformational leadership behaviours that are positively associated with subordinate resilience (Harland et al., 2004). The checklist is an example of a tool that can be developed or modified, especially when faced with challenging situations throughout the change process.
