Step 5: Develop and implement intervention(s) as needed.

In Step 4 you collected and analyzed information related to your puzzlement and have drawn some conclusions about cultural influences on your puzzlement. You are now ready in Step 5 to develop and implement interventions based on these data and conclusions.

As you develop intervention(s) remember that they should be related to the cultural influences you found to be relevant to your puzzlement. Keeping this point in mind, you can consider a wide range of possible interventions, such as the following:

• Instructional strategies
• Student-centered strategies
• Curriculum
• Educator-student interactions
• Classroom culture
• Peer interactions in the classroom and school
• School culture or organization
• Home/school connections
• Parent or community involvement in classroom or school
• Community interventions

For some general guidance about developing and implementing action plans, see Mills (2003, pp. 118-137) and Stringer (2004, pp. 150-169, 172-180).

Remember, although educational change (whether at the level of individual educators, teams of educators, schoolwide, or the school and community) can be complicated and sometimes difficult, the potential benefits to your students are enormous. Information and skills you have developed in courses related to educational change (e.g., EDUC 615: Educational Change in the ASTL program at GMU) should be useful to you in Step 5.

Suggestions for writing

Memos can help you think about possible interventions related to the cultural influence(s) you found to be relevant to your puzzlement. For example, you might begin a memo by compiling notes about interventions ideas that previous research has used or shown to be effective in addressing the cultural influence(s) you identified as influencing your puzzlement. (You might list these under headings based on the bulleted list of possible interventions presented above.) You could then expand the memo by thinking about these possible interventions in relation to your own educational setting. You might write additional memos to plan your the implementation of the intervention(s) you decide to try.

As you draft the section of your report about how you developed and implemented your intervention(s), you could report how you decided which intervention(s) to do and discuss how they are related to the cultural influences you found to be influencing your puzzlement. Citing previous research or theory that linked the intervention and cultural influence is useful.

Suggestions related to your specific cultural focus

Books and articles (including previous CIP studies) that examined a puzzlement similar to yours or a cultural influence similar to one(s) you found relevant may provide suggestions for interventions. See the Tutorial on Using Resources in the CIP for guidance and specific suggestions for using such resources.

In addition to this Step 5 general page, you should carefully read the Step 5pages for the CIP question(s) associated with the cultural influences you are examining. The following linked pages provide ideas for gathering information related to each of the top level CIP questions listed in Step 3. At the end of these pages there are links for the subquestions (i.e., 5.2.1, 5.2.2, etc).

5.1	Your beliefs or values, or those of other educators seem to be contributing to the puzzlement.
5.2	The school's culture(s) seem to be contributing to the puzzlement.
5.3	Mismatches between a student's or group's culture(s) and the school's culture(s) seem to be contributing to the puzzlement.
5.4	Students' experiences and meanings seem to be contributing to the puzzlement.
5.5	Individual students' cultural "negotiations" seem to be contributing to the puzzlement.

Step 4-Gather Information | Step 6-Monitor Intervention(s)
Guide for Reading Step 4 and Step 5 Pages