This week, we're talking about High-Leverage Practice #12: Systematically designing instruction toward a specific learning goal. And Chris, I'm excited to hear you talk about this one because you've hit it not just from the IEP and looking at the individual-specific needs that is that kid's learning goal, but you've also developed programs that, across all their day, their time, their activities, are hitting a ton of learning goals programmatically. So, for you and your practice, what does this look like?

You have to go into this with some level of intentionality; You just can't randomly start slapping things together. So program versus individual. It doesn't matter what you're doing in relation to that. You have to be intentional in your format. If you're looking at it from a programmatic perspective, you know that your program should not be a catch-all; there should be some reasonable clustering or grouping of students into your program. And when you have that, you're going to find those commonalities, those features, those needs.

Like, for example, if I'm working with self-contained programming that is working with individuals with ASD, maybe communication in nature, I'm going to be really very specific on the programmatic side. One of the collective things we're going to be looking at is communication. We're going to infuse that into that type of programming, and then we're going to set up our goals, and we're going to set up what we're going to do. How are we going to teach it? What tools can we use that come as part of that process? But you have to go in with some intentionality. You're going to have programs that are going to look at life skills, you're going to look at transition programs. You really have to be intentional in how you're going about it. You can't just grab a singular curriculum or singular tool and say, this is going to fix everything. Because let me tell you, if I had that one tool and I copyrighted it, I'd be a millionaire, maybe a billionaire. You know, it just doesn't exist. As much as people want you to believe that it does. The reality is it isn't.

And then at the individual, that more micro level, looking at the individual learner, it's the same thing whether you're doing groupings of students, whether you're looking at establishing specific goals for an individual, you still have to be intentional. You have to think about it. And when I go at it, whether it's programmatic or whether it's a person, I always think of it like backwards engineering. And when you think of backwards engineering, people often go into a scenario, and they know what they want to accomplish.

And you have to really think about it like a roadmap. And I've always said it, I can put a map down in front of somebody, and say, ‘hey, I need to go here,’ that's great. But if you don't know where you're at in that moment, turning left, turning right, going straight, half a mile, block, this off ramp, that off ramp, this street, it means nothing. So you have to have the big picture. You start with that backwards engineering. You look at those specific goals, whether it's programmatic goals, like what are we looking through our mission, our vision, of that program, or are we looking at that specific learner? What are we looking to accomplish? And even if you boil it down even further, what are we looking to accomplish with this student this year on this IEP? And so there's a lot of sequencing that goes into that. And you have to think about it. You have to be very intentional.

And oftentimes I see people who will pull a curriculum, and they'll say, this is what we're going to use. We're using this, and it's going to be the approach. Well, if you really break that curriculum down and you start looking at it, the sequence it takes might not necessarily be the best. Or even if you look at a state that has state learning standards, you might find that some of those align very well with state learning standards. And some of the materials might not even align with state learning standards. Or even more challenging is that there are notable gaps, which is almost invariably what you find. And so if you're looking at it from an individual perspective or a student perspective or a program perspective, the first suggestion I'd give you is be intentional. Be intentional and strategic.

The second thing I would tell you is that you need to know where you want to go. You have an idea, and that might change over time. Awesome. Be flexible. But think about it from a backward planning perspective, and then from there, you start digging into some of those sequences. And so programs can be their own thing. They can. And I'm going to talk a little bit about individual learners. Because I feel that when I'm working with a lot of teachers, they struggle heavily with individual learners. They say, well, I've got this student that's so different than this student. And I'm really trying to establish this goal with this student. And I'm trying to establish- and you've got 50 million things, and you might be able to sit down and look at it and say, okay, if you look at your students and you look at what you're looking to accomplish, you're looking to accomplish similar things with maybe three of them, and you might already have some tools at your disposal that are going to benefit you, but you only look at it when you look at those goals. And from those goals, you really want to make sure that they are sequenced with those lessons. What is the objective of this? Are we moving towards that goal? Or how is this teaching us either an underlying concept, a skill, a foundational skill, how are we going to be able to pivot and leverage this as we go to a bigger outcome, bigger goal? I feel like I’ve been talking a lot.

No, it’s okay. I asked you a really big question. Because when you're looking at that instruction, even programs are made up of individuals. And so, trying to figure out, okay, am I only focusing on the individual? Am I only focusing on the program? If I'm building a program, then what happens if my individuals change? Does my program need to change? You really cannot separate, in my opinion, you can't focus on one or the other. It is an absolute both-and, and I completely agree with you on the backwards planning, and like, where are you headed? Now, let's back that up through the grade levels and let's back that up through that individual. What is their long term outcome that they're trying to achieve, and are we backwards mapping all of those skills that are going to be needed so that they can actually get there?

And I also really appreciate that you're calling out that there is no one-trick wonder. As many publishers would want you to believe that they are the answer to whatever instructional challenge you may be experiencing, there is no one quick solution. It's knowing your people, know your individuals, know where they're going, know where you fit on that map of getting them there. And then that's the answer for what resources and materials you need. Because now your instruction is actually systematically fitted to who you have and what they need.

You're right. It's aligned. I've always said it. We are in the human industry. And it does me no good to teach you what I think is great. It does you all the good for me to teach you the things that you need to learn, given where you're at and where you're looking to go. Same thing with the program. And I see that sometimes there are shifts, there are challenges on both sides. People say, okay, we've got this program, it's established, we've got the ideals of what we're doing, we've got a mission, we've got our vision, we're all moving towards these things. And how do I do it?

And I'll use the example that I brought up before, self-contained programming. People often look at the curriculum to solve everything for them. If I just use this, it's going to get me where I need to go. And as we established before, that can't be further from the truth. The reality of it is, you need to have some other helpful tools. You might be utilizing things that are not part of that curriculum. You might be making your own graphic organizers, or you might be concept mapping and trying to draw those connections. Using a graphic organizer for a kid, if they're visually oriented, and mapping out those concepts of how they're actually connected. So I can tell you one thing that I have learned greatly is: You can teach somebody a skill, but if they don't understand or see how that skill connects to other skills as a pivotal skill, or it's connected to the greater necessity of things as we're going on a progression, you can see that there is less level of investment in it.

You might look at advancement organizers. How are we going to teach the progression of this skill set? And each of those, we have to set goals for. Goals for our system, goals for our students, goals for even our individual objectives. You see that students will have an IEP. You can't write all the goals in the world, but what you can do is you can take the ones that are the most important, given where the student is at. It's the same thing for your program. You can establish a million goals for a program, but you have to start with the most important and bite off the things that you can chew and make sure you're not biting so much off that you end up choking on it and burning yourself out. You have to be very specific and strategic.

Well, so walk me through that. I mean, when we're talking about low-incidence populations, there's a lot. There are a lot of different things. I mean, my background is more with the EBD crew. We're juggling the intervention as well as the grade level instruction, as well as the social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health. But you're juggling a ton of these things in the low-incidence population if you're looking at workplace and independent living and all of these outcomes.

So how am I supposed to prioritize? Okay, I might have resources for this, but I see a student needing that, or I've got some family who's advocating for this or an outside service provider who says, I'm not doing enough of that. Like, how do I actually know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing?

So, a couple of questions mixed in there, but I'll start with your first one. Your third word in there is actually what I would point out. You said, “How do I?" The reality of it is, anytime you're working to establish all of those, it cannot be an I. It cannot be an I. And I see, teachers put it solely on their shoulders, and they want their students to succeed so vehemently, they want their program to be so effective that the district puts the program on its shoulders, or the teachers put their students on their shoulders. And the reality of it is that a teacher has a team around them, just like that program has a district around it. And just like that district has a community around it, and you can keep making those circles bigger and bigger. But the reality of it is, it sounds cheesy, man ‘Team,’ right? Together, Everyone Achieves More, and it is the way you have to go.

When I would be working with teachers, and they would be really struggling. A lot of times, people get burned out, out. They feel like they're burning the candle at both ends with a blowtorch, and it is slowly accelerating, and then it's off to this fast burn run. And then all of a sudden, they're spent, they have nothing left to give. And I've seen one of the common denominators that comes up over and over is how much we put on our individual shoulders. So what I would take you back to is that question. How do I know? I would say, well, you should be a part of it, but you shouldn't be all of it. You have a team. If you have a child in a self-contained setting, I'm sure that there is a social worker, a speech pathologist, and an occupational therapist.

You can't be an expert in everything, but you can work well with others, and they bring their lens in, and collectively, when we all take a bite, we can go through a big meal. That would be the first thing I'm going to tell you. Whether it's a student, whether it's a program. You have to look at those concentric rings around you, the things that you're touching. From there, you're going to collaborate. 90% of the work for success comes by way of others. For a student, whether that other fill in the void, it's the parent, it's the teams working with them, it's the paras, it's the teacher, it's all of those people around. Even the principal has skin in that game. They're all there. So it should never be an I. That's number one. 

And number two, if you ever find yourself bearing the burden of all of it, then it's time to go out and recruit those people who do have skin in the game. Same thing when you're looking at programs. One of the things that I see is that programs can be designed really well, and districts have ample resources. Districts have ample resources, and they run them out as if they are the only entity in the universe. But I can tell you this, your transition program will only be strengthened if you are working and lobbying and identifying out in the community, those things that you yourself will not be able to teach in your own walls.

It's the same thing when you have a self-contained program. Your goal is to work yourself out of a job And I've asked many, many, many special education, self-contained teachers, how are you interfacing with general education teachers? And sometimes I get the very blunt truth. ‘I don't.’ Great. Awesome. How can we do this? Because inclusion is a thing. And opportunities are a thing. And if we really want to work ourselves out of that job, then we want to find success in a variety of environments, not just one.

And so I go back to, we were talking about goals. You have to have boots on the ground. You've got to have that observational piece. You have to look at those sequences that you're looking at. You have to have some of those tools. You have to look at what would be beneficial given the strengths and the yet to be established skills in this child. And how can I leverage those strengths to bootstrap some of those things have yet to be established? How can I leverage the strengths of this program and others around us to pull that program together to things that I myself can't do?

But you look at the goals, you look at your sequencing, you reverse engineer it, and you go to a clear path. And here's the funny part. Whether it's working with a student, whether it's working with a program, whether it's a district, or whatever you're doing, I love that aha moment where people realize, number one, four is better than two and two is better than you. And we've been working in this direction. We're either further down the field than we thought, or we need to course correct. But now they have all these tools for course correction. And that's not even talking about the pacing, it's not talking about specific things in the individual students' perspectives, but it's purposeful. Purposeful in teaching. Purposeful in setup and design.

And then purposeful with our tools. A teacher will never be able to establish every single tool. They're never going to have all the tools in the tool belt. But what I would encourage every educator to do is to identify three or four good tools and learn how to adapt them for a variety of individuals. It may or may not work, but it's like texting and driving when you have too many choices, right? It allows you to be kind of crummy at two different things at the same time.

And so narrowing that down and getting that, and then slowly developing yourself as a lifelong learner is another piece that's really important. We want to be explicit, make those connections, connections between our lessons, connections between our program and the community. We want to check the progress with our students and be willing to be flexible and adapt.

Thank you for basically shouting from the rooftops how important that no one person can do all of this. And yes, like that is something that in your practice and my practice, we are constantly telling people, ‘okay, where's your sweet spot?’ Great, let's do that. Now, what are those things you're gonna have to learn along the way? Cool, we can learn those too. But you don't have to learn everything. You don't have to do everything.

You gotta know your people and have those connections. And if that's within your classroom, within your building, within your district, within your community. And quite honestly, there are a lot of opportunities in just national networking with different resource sharing and organizations. There are all kinds of people, organizations, resources out there that so often someone will see a High-Leverage Practice like this that says instruction. Oh, well, that's teaching. Teachers teach. And then this entire topic, right? But then this whole topic does sit on the shoulders of the teacher. And then it's like, well, I'm a specialist, I don't do that. That's teaching. That's a teacher's job. And so you get this division that can happen sometimes. And I've walked teams through that. But that's why I just like ‘Go for it! Soapbox!’ Because what you're saying is so true that no one person, regardless of title, will ever accomplish all of the things that it takes to truly provide systematically designed instruction that's going to hit the individual-specific learning goal and the learning goals of that program in which the individual is placed. So no, no apologies necessary. That is amazing.

And the other thing I would tell people is not to give up on what you come out with at the end of a year, with a student, might not be what you were anticipating. It might be more, might be not as much, but you came out better than what you did. Same thing with your programs. If you're going to look at your program, measure that progress, but recognize that progress is relative.

And I know that people will say, ‘Oh, well, it's different with an IEP because it's a contractual obligation that you're going to get to a certain point with a student in a skill set in a certain time in a timely fashion, be systematic and measurable, attainable, blah, blah, blah.’ I can give all the other fun things, but the reality of it is, when you're working in that space, whether it's student-specific, whether it's program development, there are only three ways it's going to go. I'm going to be very honest with you. You can be the force pushing as hard as you can, head down, shoving that person forward to make progress, that program to make progress, that district to be making those connections and expanding. You can be shoving as hard as you want. You can be in front of them, you can tie a rope around, you can pull it along, drag it. You're going to get to this point come heck or high water. But we're going to get there, and I'll drag you kicking and screaming if I have to.

Or you can walk alongside that person, that program, that district. And when you have those goals, it is okay that sometimes we have to revise them. Sometimes we have to course correct, sometimes we have to change, and sometimes we're just going so darn fast we're moving that marker as we're going. And you feel like you're building the plane while you're flying it. But you have to know your people, you have to know your students. And I know that this is going to sound crazy, but you also have to know and recognize what burnout starts to look like. Because if you find yourself seeing those early signs, a high probability that whatever sphere you're working in, you are the one pushing, you are the one pulling. And over time, you might be the person who gets burned out as well. And in today's day and age, I think we need as many people as we can get because they're motivated, they want to do right. It's never a profession we're going to get rich in, but we'll be rich in love and heart.

Thank you so much for just wearing your passion on your sleeve and championing everyone who is still sitting in education. It is hard right now. There's a lot of unknowns, and there is a lot of uncertainty around just education, and especially individuals who struggle in their learning. So thank you for reminding them. Like, you need to care for yourself so that you can care for your students, and you cannot do any of that by yourself. You yourself need community. You need people around you who can help support the student.

It's all of these things, which I just love that we start the conversation talking about systematically designing instruction, and then we start hitting burnout and team lead and all these different moving pieces. Because it is that complex, it is that heavy, and that's just the real story around. It's not just like, well, here's how you follow your scope and sequence and pull your curriculum. And it's really just so much more than that. So thank you for making sure that we covered that this week. But, yes, thank you so much for taking your time and having this conversation with me. I really, really thank you for it.

No, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.