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This article presents a case study of Kelly, a third-grade teacher enrolled in a literacy leadership course within a Master of Reading program. In this course, practicing teachers completed an assignment in which they implemented a literacy coaching cycle with a colleague, video-recorded their interaction, and conducted critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the interaction. The authors explore how engaging in CDA influenced Kelly's enactment of professional identities as she prepared to be a literacy leader.

Data presented in this article are taken from a larger study of four white, middle-class teachers enrolled in the course. Data sources included the students' final paper and semistructured interviews. The researchers used qualitative coding methods to analyze all data sources, identify prominent themes, and select Kelly as a focal participant for further analysis.

Findings indicate that Kelly's confidence as a literacy leader grew after participating in the coaching cycle and conducting CDA. Through CDA, Kelly explored how prominent discourses of teaching and learning, particularly those relating to novice and expert status, influenced Kelly in-the-moment coaching interactions.

Previous literacy coaching research suggests that literacy coaches need professional learning opportunities that support a deep understanding of coaching stances and discursive moves to effectively support teachers. The current study suggests that CDA may be one promising method for engaging literacy coaches in such work because it allows coaches to gain understandings about how discourses of teaching and learning function within coaching interactions.

The purpose of the study was to provide an example of instructional coaching for inservice teachers within the context of community-engaged scholarship (CEP), involving professional learning communities (PLCs). This study seeks to encourage policymakers to allocate budgets for instructional coaches, as well as resources for schools.

An exploratory case study design was used to examine the factors that contributed to the partnership and how the PLC sessions impacted the inservice teachers' practices. Data sources included interviews, focus groups, written reflections, observations of grade-level teachers' meetings and administrative meetings.

The study uncovered important factors that impacted the community-engaged partnership (CEP) positively, such as partners having a unified agenda, a common focus on the school's needs and an understanding of the culture of the school. Principals are the gatekeepers in such partnerships.

This study yielded the description of a model of instructional coaching within a CEP that other universities around the world could replicate. The limitations of this study include the length of the study and the time frame in which the PLC content was planned. The study was conducted over 1 year to limited funding. The instructional coach developed the PLC content during the ongoing academic year and that impacted the teachers' initial perceptions and their commitment to the PLCs.

This study offers a new coaching model for CEPs that focuses on closing the gap between theory and practice by integrating PLCs, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and face-to-face visual support.

Literacy coaches can play a valuable role in the improvement of student learning outcomes. The authors’ purpose is to describe their time use, student learning, and principals’ understanding leading to advocacy for development of literacy coach effectiveness measures.

By analyzing four related studies, the authors use quantitative and qualitative methods to develop five themes and the need for measures of effectiveness. Areas of role and use of time, principals’ understanding, and need for empirical, rather than perceptual research are explored.

Findings on the relationship of use of time and student reading outcomes, and perceptions of impediments and enhancements to impact on effectiveness are discussed and lead to the identification of the need for effectiveness measures.

Limitations include the singular US region where the four studies were conducted and the small samples. The four studies did not use precisely the same methods so this is an additional limitation. Further research in various regions and with larger samples are needed to draw definitive conclusions.

Greater understanding of the context of literacy coaches, including understanding by principals, may lead to measurement. This measurement will inform principals and school directors on literacy coaches’ roles which may increase fidelity of the implementation of the position with the original intent. There has not been an accountability system for literacy coaches related to improved student learning, making this concept important to professionalization of literacy coach position.

Given that available research on the value of literacy coach positions is perceptual, rather than based on student outcome data, the need for development of effectiveness measures may result in greater fidelity of implementation of the position. Resulting role clarification and the extent to which implementation of literacy coaches can be expected to improve student achievement is a contribution.

In the USA, school districts are funding mathematics coaching positions to provide school-level support to teachers. The purpose of this paper is to survey school personnel whose job responsibilities included mathematics coaching in order to examine their job responsibilities and what they felt that their job responsibilities should be.

In all, 67 elementary school mathematics coaches completed a survey that included 30 aspects of the job of elementary school mathematics leaders.

Quantitative analyses indicated that there were statistically significant differences between their actual roles and their preferred roles on 24 of the 30 items. This means that coaches reported that the aspects of their current role did not align to what they thought their job should be.

The findings indicate a need to collect further information in a longitudinal study, potentially from a combination of surveys, interviews, and observations, about elementary mathematics coaches’ job responsibilities and the impact that coaches have on both teachers and students.

The findings indicate a need for school leaders, mathematics leaders (coaches), and classroom teachers to work together to utilize mathematics leaders more effectively so as to best support teachers’ instruction and students’ learning.

While some research has been published on literacy coaching, the research base on mathematics coaching is scant. This study contributes to the knowledge base about the roles and duties of coaches in elementary school settings.

This two-year study illuminates the experiences of technology coaches (digital learning coaches [DL] and science technology engineering and mathematics/literacy coaches [STEM/L]) as they engaged in their own professional learning (PL) facilitated by a faculty researcher.

Technology coaches from different school districts and their respective colleagues participated in book studies as part of their PL. They reflected and debriefed individually and collaboratively with a researcher facilitator. Data were collected through interviews, field notes at meetings, observations, researchers’ reflections and artefacts. Qualitative data analysis methods were employed.

The findings offer a glimpse into (1) benefits of cross-district collaboration, (2) challenges finding resources for coaching, (3) career-long desire to learn and (4) time to build and sustain cross-collaborations.

Conclusions suggest that DL and STEM/L coaches benefit from their own dedicated, differentiated programme of PL supported by each other (as from other districts) and a researcher facilitator. Educational implications are offered for researchers and other school district stakeholders for consideration for them to foster coaches’ collaborative PL.

Importantly, this project is an exemplar of how to support coaches’ PL and growth through researcher facilitation of cross-district collaborative learning.

The purpose of this study is to understand the research on numeracy coach in the Canadian context.

This study was a systematic review of studies about numeracy coaching in Canada, which described the trend of knowledge production on this topic. The study made use of qualitative meta-analysis. According to Timulak (2009, p. 591), qualitative meta-analysis is “an attempt to conduct a rigorous secondary qualitative analysis of primary qualitative findings. Its purpose is to provide a more comprehensive description of a phenomenon and an assessment of the influence of the investigation on findings.” By using meta-analysis, this article analyzed the general pattern of knowledge production, the nature of the publications, the focal topics, the research methods and the citation impact of numeracy coaching studies in Canada. The literature analyzed in this review included all the available sources we were able to find with regard to Canadian numeracy coaches. The sources included peer-reviewed journal articles, online magazines, program reports and information from non-profit organizations, as well as doctoral theses.

Research about numeracy coaches in Canadian contexts remains in an initial stage, and there is, as yet, no accepted definition of a Canadian numeracy coach. Scholars in this area have been fond of empirical studies and qualitative research methods. This research has shown that numeracy coaches, who can be regarded as directors, evaluators and consultants in schools, also experience difficulties such as a lack of background knowledge in math. Scholars have advised several ways to improve the quality of coaching activities, including teacher collaboration and coaching models. The citation impact of the current Canadian literature about numeracy coaches has been quite uneven; only a few articles have been cited by other researchers. This article concludes by summarizing the results of this meta-analysis, its limitations and suggestions for future research.

This is one of important studies to explore numeracy coach research in Canadian context. Theoretical and practical significance is explored.

This paper examines instructional coaching as a means to support teachers at all levels in primary and secondary schools in implementing new and innovative practices using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework as a design guide.

This mixed-methods study compared the impact of an instructional coaching intervention around the implementation of the UDL framework on educators versus the UDL implementation efforts of educators who did not receive the coaching intervention. Coached participants shared their experiences with the coaching cycle. These qualitative data were collected through teacher interviews, self-assessments, and observations. The data assisted in the interpretation of the quantitative findings from a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test comparison group design.

The results of this study revealed positive outcomes for teachers in knowledge and application of UDL, although not at statistically significant levels. The qualitative data collected supported the positive gains and revealed that teachers valued and changed their practices from the use of coaching as they navigated the implementation of UDL in their learning environments.

One limitation to be noted includes the district site that participated in this study had used the UDL framework for several years and maintained high expectations for teachers to increase their UDL-aligned practices each year. Therefore, all teachers who participated in this study were under the same district evaluative expectations to participate in professional development at some level to increase proficiency with UDL implementation, whereas a district in the beginning stages of UDL implementation might serve as a better gauge of growth. Additionally, the control participants were self-identified and not randomly assigned.

This study is one of the first conducted that investigates the effect of instructional coaching on teachers' increased understanding and implementation of the UDL framework. This study examines instructional coaching as a stand-alone professional development in supporting teachers' use of UDL in design-inclusive classrooms. Written into US law, the UDL framework is a scientifically valid framework that supports teachers with the design of flexible and accessible classrooms for an increasingly diverse population of students.

The purpose of this study was to explore how teacher coaching was implemented across eight schools.

A subjectivist epistemological position was adopted as the most appropriate for this study, and a qualitative approach to methodology, data collection and analysis was used within an evaluative multiple case study framework in order to investigate three research questions.

The findings indicate coaching has the potential to provide schools with a professional learning approach that allows staff to explore a wide variety of challenges of practice. However, inconsistencies in perceptions, staffing and coach development mean positive outcomes for students may not be guaranteed.

One limitation of this study is that it provides a snapshot of teacher coaching in relation to a specific group of schools in a constantly changing New Zealand context.

School leaders implementing teacher coaching programmes are encouraged to consider how they will evaluate whether their programmes are changing teachers’ practice and improving outcome for students. School leaders should also plan how to manage changes in personnel.

The findings show the concept of teacher coaching is a social construct influenced by the unique environmental context and individual perceptions of those involved, leading to variations in its application.

This study provides new knowledge in relation to the challenges that can be experienced when implementing teacher coaching across a community of schools.

The purpose of this paper is to build knowledge around the use of coaching to develop teachers’ professional practice in schools. It surfaces insider perspectives of teachers and school leaders in one Australian school, during the development of a model for teacher growth, which used a combination of cognitive coaching and the Danielson Framework for Teaching.

A narrative approach to interview data were used to examine the perspectives of 14 educators – teachers and school leaders – involved in the implementation of a school-based cognitive coaching model.

This study found that being a coach is an empowering and identity-shaping experience, that coaching for empowerment and capacity building benefits from a non-hierarchical relationship, and that coaching can be enhanced by the use of additional tools and approaches. Implementing a school-based cognitive coaching model, in conjunction with the Danielson Framework for Teaching, can have unexpected impacts on individuals, relationships, and organizations. As described by a participant, these butterfly effects can be non-linear, like “oil in water.”

In examining teacher and school leader perceptions of a coaching model that trusts teachers’ capacity to grow, this paper shows what coaching and being coached can look like in context and in action. It reveals that cognitive coaching and the Danielson Framework for Teaching can be congruent tools for positive teacher and organizational growth, requiring a slow bottom-up approach to change, an organizational culture of trust, and coaching relationships free from judgment or power inequity. It additionally shows that the combination of being a coach, and also being coached, can facilitate empowerment, professional growth, and changes in belief and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore ways teachers undergoing induction via the Career Advancement and Development of Recruits and Experienced (CADRE) Teachers Project felt empowered and supported in their well-being through mentoring and coaching.

Surveys about CADRE Project impact were e-mailed to 675 current and former participants. Out of 438 surveys returned, researchers used homogeneous sampling to identify 341 teacher respondents. Researchers used qualitative thematic analysis to determine ways teachers felt supported.

Coaching and mentoring supported CADRE Project participants’ well-being through empowerment (theme). Sub-themes included: growth, collaboration, networking, improvement and resources.

Possibilities for future research include exploring the role of mentors/coaches, tracking teachers’ leadership roles and investigating the link between induction and teacher retention in more detail.

Opportunities for growth and collaboration are cornerstones of first-year teacher support. These support systems can lead to a sense of belonging, develop a mindset for continuous improvement and create long-term networking opportunities. The support teachers need to empower them and maintain their well-being changes with each first-year teacher phase.

Few studies exist on induction programs with the longevity of the CADRE Project. The high survey response rate with overwhelmingly positive responses suggests that CADRE is unique in its support of beginning teachers’ well-being through the first-year teacher phases, specifically due to the combination of mentoring and coaching beginning teachers receive.