If you are initiating school change, consider using the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) as a guide through the process. CBAM offers tools and techniques that enable leaders to gauge staff concerns and program use in order to give each person the necessary supports to ensure success. Taking Charge of Change is a readable introduction to this method of predicting teacher behavior during a change process.

Taking Charge of Change is written for working educators—whether they are in a school district's central office or the principal's office or the classroom—who are responsible for leading a new program. Educators recognize their own school district in the fictional Springdale School District these authors invented to make CBAM concepts concrete.

About the CBAM

The CBAM is a conceptual framework that describes, explains, and predicts probable teacher behaviors in the change process. The three principal diagnostic dimensions of the CBAM are:

1. Stages of Concern — Seven different reactions that educators experience when they are implementing a new program
2. Levels of Use — Behaviors educators develop as they become more familiar with and more skilled in using an innovation
3. Innovation Configurations — Different ways in which teachers adapt innovations to their unique situations

While there are many models of school change processes available to education leaders and researchers, the CBAM is among the most respected. Refined through years of research and testing, the CBAM and related tools help school leaders plan school change by providing instruction in procedures. Learn more about CBAM >>

Taking Charge of Change is available as a free PDF download (2006) or for purchase (revised version, 2014).