THE VIVA (VISION IDEA VOICE ACTION) PROJECTAuthoritative, Authentic Public Policy Directly from Classroom Teachers

Building a System that Drives Effective Teaching & Student Learning

The VIVA Project seeks to bridge the gap between policy and practice by building online platforms where classroom teachers collaborate to provide specific input on policy issues.

VIVA Project based on a few simple principles: Classroom teachers need & want systemic policy

solutions that support highly effective teaching Education policy at every level must link to instructional

practice Policy needs to be created from the classroom out and

from the context in Translation from technical practice to system incentives

is often incomplete

VIVA Project is a One of A Kind Tool to Gather Unvarnished, Authoritative Input from Teachers

Proprietary web-enabled platform Deliberative conversation Actionable solutions Unit of change—federal & state Create the incentives that enable effective

implementation at district & classroom Put students at the center of policy, through

their teachers www.vivateachers.org

New York Demonstration Project: VIVA Teachers & State Teacher Evaluation

70 ordinary classroom teachers accomplished more than an entire 50 person task force created by state legislation

Why? They want more respect for their profession & know evaluation is a lynchpin

They shared their hard-earned expertise to think deeply together about what would be meaningful evaluation that makes them better teachers

They deliberated about implementation hurdles and carefully balanced the perfect and the practical

New York Teachers’ Created a Roadmap for Regulations

Specific Recommendations

A Detailed Report Written by Classroom Teachers

Overview of How the Dialogue with Teachers Operates

Identify goal Frame discussion & build web platform Recruit teachers (3 tactics)

Reach existing teacher networks Recruit new targets with e-mail lists Collaborate with Influencers in the Social Sphere to recruit

teachers (ORBIT) Moderate deliberative conversation—generate creative

ideas Form representative task force to capture creativity of the

group and create a specific actionable plan Share action plan with public/policy maker Activate participants to support implementation

Two Possible Approaches for Illinois Option 1:Have teachers create new policy

and place it at systems level Option 2: Engage in deliberative

conversation to identify a frame of reference that will obtains teacher buy-in & ownership for long term implementation

Added Tool: Elements of the methodology create leadership opportunities from communication strategies & can be used as a stand-alone approach

Quantifying Influence in the Public Debate

The ORBIT Report®  is considered the most rigorous, in-depth and insightful analysis of mainstream and social media

Analyzes specific measurable facts and statistics about various websites (in multiple languages)

Applies a proprietary algorithm to identify the extent to which discussion on a website impacts a brand, issue or organization

The five specific factors which underlie the ORBIT™ methodology:

On-site Engagement - Depth of engagement of visitors on a given website; Reach - The number of people who are likely to confront information about

a subject; Bias - The extent to which the perspective of a website helps or hurts the

general goals of an organization; Influence - The degree to which a website’s perspective is picked up and

linked to in dialogues and discussion on other websites; Topical Frequency - The regularity with which a topic is discussed

The Message & Medium is Quantified Approximately 5000 Sites Scanned Daily

Following Topics Over Time and Across Platforms and Quantify Impact by Volume and Influence

Suggested Next Steps

Determine outcome sought Strategic communications program Deliberative discussion to identify evaluation

elements or process from Illinois teachers Reflective conversation to obtain feedback on

possible evaluation elements from Illinois teachers

Meet with VIVA leadership to receive detailed briefing on ORBIT & review project proposal

Have strategy session with VIVA leadership Questions: eevans@vivateachers.org