Over this past year, the Ed Prep Team led a CAP Implementation Support cohort of nine diverse organizations to work collaboratively on improving the quality and ease of implementation. To encourage applications for our upcoming CAP Calibration Training Workshop Series - applications are open until July 30 - we are sharing some of the participants’ reflections on the value of being part of the first cohort.

“Learning about the ways that organizations are training Supervising Practitioners was very beneficial to us,” says Michelle LeBlanc of Curry College. “Especially in terms of the ways people are using technology and communicating – it solidified to me that organizations are being innovative.”

“It was a great opportunity for us to have hands-on support,” says Doris Van Gorder of Cambridge College. “We could really develop a shared vision about what our goal is for this whole process. Also, it was an opportunity to see what other folks were doing and share resources. [ESE staff Claire Abbott and Shannon Clancy] were extremely respectful of our feedback – they really wanted to understand any challenges that we had so that they could provide support around those challenges.”

“One thing that was really helpful was seeing how other programs were backwards-planning and integrating CAP into pre-practicum work,” says Sandy Berkowitz of Westfield State. “We had already started to do that too, but it was interesting to hear how people were approaching it. Everyone involved was extremely helpful, articulate and working really, really hard. It was nice to have a support network with the same goals.”

Feedback from the cohort led ESE to develop statewide resources, such as:

• Quick Reference Guide: The CAP Rubric 
• Quick Reference Guide: The CAP Triad
• Quick Reference Guide: CAP Data Collection
• Implementation Brief: Backwards Mapping CAP (forthcoming)
• CAP Training Modules for Supervising Practitioners (forthcoming)

“The facilitators and their protocols sparked us and set the stage for us to have meaningful collaborative sessions,” says Van Gorder. “[ESE] led activities that made us think. We got to give input. It was a very comfortable dialog, like, ‘Listen, we’re all in this together. We want to get better in MA and empower you so that we all get better and the end result is that we have strong teachers in the classroom.’ That message was clear.”

Every participant began the year with organization-specific goals. For example, Cambridge and Curry were both seeking concrete methods for improving Supervising Practitioner training.

“We were already [visiting and training] each of our Supervising Practitioners and we had a bi-weekly newsletter,” says LeBlanc. “But other organizations had taken those same ideas and created Youtube videos. The videos are quick, efficient, and supervisors don’t have to come to campus - they get you around the logistical challenges. So, we now how have a suite of our own videos. We added videos of young teachers and asked for commentary. We know from our stakeholder surveys that people appreciate them.”

“The ‘train the trainer,’ conversations were helpful,” says Van Gorder. “Organizations shared how they collaborated and trained their Program Supervisors to support their Supervising Practitioners; they shared how they customized their approach for their particular circumstances.”

Participants finished the year with clear next steps for their work and a community to lean on.

“I appreciate being brought together,” says LeBlanc. “It cultivated relationships across organizations and established a community that all of our work has been trying to do. We saw that at the CAP Summer Institute, too - organizations are starting to see that we’re all in this together.”

“I have to say, on a one to ten scale, this was ten plus!” says Van Gorder. “I would recommend it to every organization. It was a really good use of our time and helped us move forward and dig in deeper.”

If this sounds like a great experience for you and your organization, you’re in luck! Please apply for our second CAP Implementation Cohort experience which will focus on a series of calibration activities for you and up to 25 individuals from your organization. Applications close on Sunday, July 30. We can support teams from 20 organizations. We look forward to continuing this work with you!