Marzano Research
The coming school year won’t wait for busy leaders to “figure it out later.” Big priorities, planning meetings, urgent decisions, and group collaboration show up on day one.
These eight evidence-informed education leadership resources were developed by our team of researchers and school improvement experts and are ready to download now. Use them to support change, decision-making, healthy team dynamics, data use, goal-setting, and solutions that last.
1. Build Change Acumen Fast
You lead change daily, so sharpen how you read people’s needs. Check out What Does it Mean to be Good at Change?, then use our Anticipating People’s Needs During Change worksheet to map technical and adaptive demands across each phase. Identifying potential friction points early lets you respond thoughtfully and avoid scrambling.
2. Choose the Right Change Tactic
School improvement implementation is rarely simple, so you need a game plan with the highest likelihood of success. Read How Do You Eat a Whole Elephant? Three Options for Tackling a School Improvement Plan to explore panorama, pilot, and fractal routes. Download the Likelihood of Success of Three Tactics for Change for an at-a-glance matrix to pinpoint the best path forward and see how each tactic fares for topics such as MTSS, new assessments, PLCs, and co-teaching. Use it to select and back up your approach.
3. Use Intentional Decision-Making
Groups sometimes “take a drive to Abilene” and end up choosing something no one wants. With this Choosing a Decision-Making Method matrix, you can match consensus, vote, delegation, input, or a solo call to the situation. The resource helps you check urgency, impact, complexity, resources, risk, culture, and trust. Stating the method first cuts second guessing and speeds action.
4. Strengthen Team Listening Skills
Trust grows when people feel heard. Read Three Ways to Improve Your Listening Skills to tune your own practice, or bring our Building School Improvement Teams’ Capacity for Skillful Listening tool into PLCs or leadership teams. Prompts in the tool can help meeting leaders redirect an off-track discussion in real time.
5. Assess Group Dynamics
If a meeting’s energy drops the minute everyone sits down, group dynamics need attention. Use the Group Dynamics Assessment tool to identify common pain points and place the team on Tuckman’s curve. The tactic guide helps you address low energy, side tracks, dominators, and attendance issues. Recheck each quarter to track growth and adjust facilitation.
6. Lead Data Conversations with Confidence
Some districts and schools have more data than they know what to do with. If you’re seeking more clarity in using data to make decisions, get an introduction to our 5D Data Analysis Process: A Framework for Educational Decision Making. This straightforward protocol offers a blueprint for turning inquiry into action.
7. Set Outcome-Focused Goals
You get stronger results when you set outcome-focused goals. Download Outcomes Matter: Setting Goals to turn long-term aims into annual goals and short-term targets.
8. Plan for Sustainability Now
Waiting until the final stages of rollout or implementation of an initiative to think about sustainability is a recipe for unnecessary stress. Use this Developing a Sustainability Plan template to pick the factors you will address this year. Working a few factors at a time keeps it doable and embeds sustainability in daily routines so efforts can survive turnover and budget shifts.
Ready, Set…
As the school year gets rolling, these resources will help you move from idea to impact without missing a beat. Grab what you want to try and keep what’s useful. If you’re interested in deeper support such as facilitation, coaching, professional learning, or custom tools, take 30 seconds to fill out our contact form – one of our experts will reach out to chat about how we can co-develop research-backed solutions that make your job easier and help your school or district to thrive.
