Question

Reflect on various change efforts that occurred in your organisation (or department). How would you quantify them as first-order or second-order change, or both? Justify your answer with detail illustrations/examples of the change efforts.

1000 words with APA citation

Answer 1

A system is able to change in two ways: Individual parameters change in a continuous manner but the structure of the system does not alter; this is known as "first-order change.

With first-order change, the ends of the system remain the same – it’s the means of producing those results that change. What you seek, what you avoid, the way you see the world, and your values remain the same.

The system changes qualitatively and in a discontinuous manner; this is known as "second-order change."

Second-order change is often described as ‘transformational’, ‘revolutionary’, ‘radical’, ‘disruptive’, or ‘discontinuous’. It involves seeing the world in a different way, challenging assumptions, and working from a new and different worldview.

Inevitably it involves new ways of doing things, changing values and goals, and probably structural change in the organisation as well. This can be quite scary to most people, especially where changes are imposed from above or outside, and you don’t have any input to them.

I will give a small case which would clear the defination.

The driving force of contemporary reform efforts is the need to redefine the quantity and quality of student learning. Since reform efforts began, researchers have conducted a number of studies to describe the nature of the changes being made in the schools and to identify the impact of those changes on student learning. Currently, the body of research and consistent findings are enlightening, and show an emerging coherent picture of successful reform. Goodman (1995) wrote about “change without difference,” and identified top-down, technical, ameliorative responses as first order changes. School systems have implemented numerous first order changes. Examples of these include changes in school and administrative structures, schedules and class sizes. First order changes have extended to the classroom level as well. Teachers have been trained in an abundance of specific instructional strategies such as writing lesson objectives on the board, managing cooperative learning groups, and asking higher-order thinking questions. These efforts are usually accompanied by teacher skepticism, subversion, and questions such as, “Why are we doing this?” This is a valid question – decades of reform have passed and students are still not meeting achievement goals. In many schools, so much attention is directed to outward changes that the fundamental reasons for change are ignored. Recalling Michaels (1988) once again, “The clear message of reform is that we need to examine our basic philosophical beliefs about teaching, learning, the nature of human beings, and the kinds of environments that maximize growth for teachers and students alike” (p. 3). Changes that bring meaningful and lasting reform to the school and classroom alter the underlying philosophical beliefs driving practice, and are described by Goodman (1995) as second order changes. In their book on school restructuring, Ellis and Fouts (1994) argue that second order changes are required in order for educational reforms to be accomplished and sustained over the long term. According to Fouts (2003): There is evidence that one of the reasons schools remain unchanged is that the reforms or changes have been superficial in nature and/or arbitrary in their adoption. Teachers and schools often went through the motions of adopting the new practices, but the changes were neither deep nor long-lasting. In other words, the outward manifestations of the changes were present, but the ideas or philosophy behind the changes were either not understood, misunderstood, or rejected. Consequently, any substantive change in the classroom experience or school culture failed to take root. The illusion of change is created through a variety of activities, but the qualitative experience for students in the classroom remains unchanged when the ideas driving daily practice remain unchanged. In the educational reform research work of Baker (1998), Fouts, Stuen, Anderson, and Parnell (2000), Mork (1998), and Van Slyke (1998), schools were asked to identify the focus of their improvement efforts. Many schools focused on cosmetic first order changes, while others shifted their philosophical understandings about the nature of teaching and learning and experienced second order changes. The research revealed that schools have significantly better chances for achievement gains when, rather than focusing on implementing specific strategies, their improvement efforts addressed basic concepts of how students should be taught and collaborative culture in the school and classroom. Second order changes in successful schools incorporate three factors: (1) a fundamental change in ideas about and actions toward student achievement, (2) instructional enhancement focused on refining pedagogy, and (3) collaborative support that replaces a culture of isolation with one of extensive partnership (Baker, 1998). When strategies are outward manifestations of underlying philosophies, deep change in school culture and in classroom teaching and learning can occur. The examples shown in Figure 1 are changes that appear frequently in research around school reform. When educators adopt new ideas about instruction (second order changes), they might select strategies (first order changes) to put those ideas into practice. Together, first and second order changes help provide a qualitatively different experience for students and raise achievement. First Order Changes and Corresponding Second Order Changes First Order Change (strategies) Smaller class Site-based councils Ninety-minute teaching blocks Small Learning Communities Teaching teams with common planning ⇒ ⇒ ⇒ ⇒ ⇒ Second Order Change (philosophies) Changing relationships and teaching philosophies Collaborative ownership Extended teaching and learning opportunities New interactions/relationships Coordinated focused curriculum & instruction Hope this clears the answer. If it helped you understand Please give a thumbs up. !