Re: Week 4 Discussion Forum: Benefits of HPT

by Laurie White - Sunday, 20 September 2015, 2:43 PM

While reviewing the materials and the assignment, I reflected on ways that HPT might benefit my
organization, a public elementary school. Visiting the International Society for Performance
Improvement website, hoping to find an quick correlation between public K-12 education and the
use of human performance technology, I instead found that the majority of their work is done
within business industry and consulting, and only 10% in academia. This isnt to say there isnt a
need for human performance improvement in elementary education; there is clearly a need. Since
HPI is often tied to an improvement in the bottom line profits of a company, making the
connection to public K-12 education may seem a bit of a stretch, but one I think should be
explored.
If HPI is a movement whos straightforward mission is to achieve, through people, increasingly
successful accomplishments, directly tied to organizational goals, that are valued by all
stakeholders, including those who perform, their managers, their peers, the organization as a
whole, shareholders, customers, regulatory agencies and even society itself, then certainly there
is a place for it in public education. We as a society are all stakeholders in the success, or failure,
of public education in our society.
Though we may not label it HPI, nor have we hired a performance technologist to help change
or improve performance at our school, we are currently in the beginning stages of implementing a
program to do just that; improve human performance. We call it PRIDE Time (PRIDE being an
acronym for our school motto: Practice you personal best; Respect others and myself; Include
everyone; Demonstrate a positive attitude, Embrace our education.)
We began with a review of our strategic plan, determining through data analysis, that we have a
need to provide our students with additional support systems to enhance their learning. Through
evaluation, we established both short-term and long-term, measurable goals. Next came
consideration of change management. We knew we were looking at changing each teachers
current daily teaching plan, and we needed his or her acceptance to make the program work. In
an effort to demonstrate the benefits of this type of change, lead teachers from each grade visited
two sites that had implemented a similar program. The result of these visits generated more
interested amongst the leader teachers who then returned to share what they learned with their
teams.
Through performance analysis, we looked at data to determine the needs of the students. This
helped identify performance gaps, or gaps in providing each student with the instructional support
for their current performance level. We found we have students that need support to bring them
up to their grade level in reading, writing, or math. We have students that need additional support
in English language development. We have students that are working at grade level in all areas,
but will benefit from grade level support to strengthen their skills. We have students that have
mastered all basic level skills and need enrichment in math, science, or language arts.
Though we are currently targeting instructional interventions as a result of our cause analysis, we
see that there is also a need to provide incentive interventions for some students. We are also in
the process of acquiring additional technology (i.e., wireless network, iPads, computers, and
smart boards), which may offer teachers and students alike a way to be more efficient and

effective. These acquisitions will take time, and will likely require a review/evaluation of our
strategic plan once in place.
As part of the analysis, design, development and production cycle weve considered many
aspects. How do we best use the resources, both human and physical, to bring out the desired
change in student performance? What additional funding might be needed, and available, to make
this implementation possible? What is a reasonable time frame for implementation? How will we
evaluate whether the program is achieving the desired results? How often to we need to review
the progress being made. What empirical data can we use to assist our evaluation efforts?
We determined that all school personnel will participate in the program, both certificated and
non-certificated. This will reduce the ratio of adults to students in areas that will need more oneon-one interaction to ensure success. Teachers and other staff members have collaborated to
determine subject/grade level each will instruct. Every room, including the library and
multipurpose room, will be put to use to create small class size environments. Credentialed
teachers have been hired to work as specialists during the PRIDE time teaching window.
We designed PRIDE time to take place during the first 40 minutes of school on MondayThursday of each week during the PRIDE time sessions. Each session will last 7 weeks, and we
will have 3 sessions this year. There will be a short window of time between each session to
review and make changes as the needs arise.
We are a couple of weeks away from implementation as our first PRIDE time window is
scheduled to begin in mid October. We began exploring the need for change a year ago.
Though we have attempted to be systemic in our approach throughout this process, we would
certainly benefit from engaging a performance technologist. Some of the benefits would include:
someone on the outside able to see the areas of needed change we may be missing from the
inside; someone whose focus would solely be on the strategic impact model, not the
responsibilities of teaching their current class, or handling all aspects required of a school
principal; someone to analyze the current human resources to put them to the best possible use.
These are just a few examples of the benefits a performance technologist might bring to this
process.
Resources:
International Society for Performance Improvement. (2015). Where do we work? Retrieved from
(website) http://www.ispi.org/content.aspx?id=1708
Molenda, Michael, & Pershing, James A.. The strategic impact model: An integrative approach
to performance improvement and instructional systems design. TechTrends, Volume 48, Number
2, (26-32).
Stolovitch, H.D. (2012) The Development and evolution of human performance improvement.
Reiser, R.A., & Dempsey, J.V. (Eds.). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology,
(3rd ed.) (135-146). Boston: Pearson.