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Start Small

Turn your idea into reality by piloting a solution


Key Objectives

  • Turn your solution into a prototype that you can pilot on a small scale to test its effectiveness

  • Reflect on data and observations from your pilot to learn more about your problem and determine if and how your solution should be scaled across your district

    A line with numbers 1, 2, 3. Number 3 is larger with green shapes around it.


Overview

It’s time to turn your idea into reality and see what kind of impact it can have.

As you test and evaluate your solution, it will be important to ask whether your solution:

  • Advances equity, such that more students receive what they need to achieve their potential

  • Advances resiliency, such that your system is better able to adapt to the changing needs of individual students and the world around them

This section will help you turn a great idea into a concrete, tested solution to learn from and potentially scale.

What does your idea look like "in action,” and how will you test it? In this step, you will turn your idea into a prototype (or testable solution). You’ll then plan and execute a pilot to understand the prototype’s impact with a small group of students and teachers.

Reflect

As you start these activities, ask yourself:

  • In what ways does our prototype align (or not align) with our stakeholders’ needs?

  • How can we describe our solution so that it’s clear for others to implement it?

  • How can we test our solution on a small scale to see if it actually advances equity and resiliency?

Implement

Complete the following activities:

Explore

Here are a few highlighted examples of equity and resiliency in action from Strategy Lab school systems that have completed the activities above. For more examples, explore the strategies themselves.

How did your pilot go, and what did you learn from it? It’s finally time to determine whether your solution addressed your problem and led to more equitable, resilient teaching and learning. In this step, you will evaluate your pilot and plan to iterate based on what you’ve learned.

Reflect

As you start these activities, ask yourself:

  • What went well in our pilot, and what didn’t go as well? How do we know?

  • Should our solution be implemented more broadly? How do we know?

  • What have we learned through this design process that should inform how we work in the future?

Implement

Complete the following activities:

Explore

Here are a few highlighted examples of equity and resiliency in action from Strategy Lab school systems that have completed the activities above. For more examples, explore the strategies themselves.

How has equity shown up in this section, and is your solution actually leading to more equitable outcomes? To understand whether your solution met its goals, it is vital to analyze it based on the original problem as identified by the stakeholders who experience it. Often, ideas have unintentional outcomes and consequences; looking critically at these will help us understand whether our solution reinforces existing or creates new inequities, as well. In this step, you will reflect on the ways that your design team has – or has not – lived out your commitment to equity through the real work completed in your pilot.

EXPLORE GUIDES

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