Overview
Continuous, sustainable systems-level change requires edtech leaders to strategically chart a path from where they currently are to where they want to be. Using the EdTech Systems Guide developed in partnership between The Learning Accelerator (TLA) and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Office of Educational Technology (MA DESE OET) as the goalpost toward which edtech leaders should strive, this EdTech Systems Improvement Workbook provides edtech leaders with a step-by-step process for designing and implementing measurable improvement efforts that translate vision into action.
Before You Begin: Understanding Improvement Processes All improvement processes essentially follow a similar pathway (outlined here) where you: 
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Part 1: Determine Your Needs and Set Your Goals
Activities 1-3 in the EdTech Systems Improvement Workbook help you determine why addressing the challenge(s) you have identified will lead to systems-level improvement, who will be affected by the implementation of a solution, and what improvement looks like in your context.
Activity #1: Answer Three Essential Questions to Guide Improvement
Estimated Time: 10 minutes
This activity prompts you to answer essential questions that should guide the design of any improvement effort:
What specific problem or challenge are we trying to solve? What evidence do we have to show it is a problem?
What change might we introduce, and why is it important?
Who will this change affect?
How will we know if the change leads to an improvement?
Activity #2: Identify Key Stakeholders for Your Solution
Estimated Time: 15 minutes
Every school system, school, classroom, and student has a unique context and culture. In this activity, you will identify the stakeholders who could influence whether or not the solution you want to introduce will lead to your desired outcomes. Further, you will want to specifically gather input from all stakeholders who will be impacted by the implementation of this solution.
Activity #3: Determine What Improvement Looks Like
Estimated Time: 30 minutes
For this activity, you will imagine your solution has been an incredible success, think about how this new state is different from your current state, and specify what has improved and the observable effects that will confirm your solution’s success. What does success look like?
Part 2: Design Your Solution
Activities 4-5 in the EdTech Systems Improvement Workbook build on the why, who, and what you identified above to determine how you will implement your solutions. These activities will support you in designing a logic model to guide the design of your solution and a measurement plan to help you track its impact.
Activity #4: Design the Logic of Your Solution
Estimated Time: 45 minutes
In this activity, you will backwards-map a logic model to visualize the relationships between your goals, and the resources and activities you will use to accomplish these goals. Creating a logic model gives you and anyone supporting your work a common frame of reference for designing, implementing, measuring, and communicating about your solution.
Activity #5: Develop Your Data-Collection Plan
Estimated time: Ongoing
The goal of any improvement process is for your solution to have a desired impact in addressing a specific challenge. To understand the impact of your solution, you will need to capture, analyze, and synthesize data throughout your improvement process. Data can be collected quantitatively (as numbers), qualitatively (as observations or stories), or both. This activity will help you design a data-collection plan to gather evidence throughout the implementation of your solution using a variety of measurement tools.
Part 3: Determine the Impact of Your Solution and Next Steps
Activity 6 in the EdTech Systems Improvement Workbook helps you organize the data you collect throughout your solution’s implementation, supporting you in synthesizing what you learn about its impact.
Activity #6: Chart Your Journey
Estimated Time: Ongoing
This activity provides space for you to document observations before, during, and after you implement your solution. This data will help you understand the impact of your solution and can inform choices to redesign or scale your solution over time. When completed, this activity will help you to tell the story of how your work addressed the challenge you identified, using data.
This strategy is a part of TLA's Driving EdTech Systems series, which accompanies the EdTech Systems Guide developed in partnership with MA DESE OET. Explore the full guide to find additional strategies, insights, and resources.
