1. Communities of Practice: The Human Side of Implementation Joanne Cashman, Ed. D. Director The Policymaker Partnership at The National Association of State Directors of Special Education

2. “Nothing is more validating and affirming than feeling understood. And the moment a person begins feeling understood, that person becomes far more open to influence and change.” Stephen Covey

3. Why Do We Need A New Way of Working? We have a ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ gap. We need to move promising strategies ‘to scale’. We have an ongoing need for security when undertaking change. Problems are complex and interrelated. We need to find a course of action within the complexity.

4. How Can We Find a Course of Action Within the Complexity of Current Issues? We need to be able to operate at the intersection of research, policy and practice. States as leverage points Stakeholders as partners Federal agencies as collaborators OSEP investments as resources OSEP and NASDSE as change leaders

5. Communities Can Be a Powerful New Strategy for Technical Assistance We are currently well positioned to: Conduct new research Publish research findings Collect and report implementation trends Disseminate topical Support discrete efforts Stimulate and inspire thinking We need to become well positioned to: Help implementers find meaning in research findings that will guide practice Help implementers create action initiatives bridging research and practice Support action initiatives distributed across states and locals Study and record the creation of new knowledge from ‘real practice’ that is grounded in research

6. Communities as a National TA Strategy Transactional Communities: Shaping and spreading effective practice Sharing Supporting Learning Often organized at the same level, same role, or same site Creating new knowledge across organizational boundaries Transformational Communities: Reframing policy, research and practice Learning how to move from ‘knowing’ to ‘doing’ Translating learnings to policy Encouraging investments that will move the work Most often cross-organization, cross-role, cross-site Recognizing the value of all the contributions to a more complete and effective approach Creating new relationships between policymakers, researchers and implementers

7. Levels of Influence, Learning and Community Building FEDERAL (e.g. OSEP TA Communities ) STATE (e.g. PA Cross-Stakeholder Transition Initiative ) LOCAL (e.g. Local-to-local networks within PA around projects and issues) SITE (e.g. Cross-stakeholder network around activities in one site) INDIVIDUAL (e.g. Peer-to-peer learning within the PA Community, role-alike or cross-role)

8. “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” James Thurber