Search results

Purpose – This study explored agentive and sustainable teacher development as part of literacy coaching that employed a reflective framework and video with an apprenticeship stance. This chapter examines principles of apprenticeship and the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) model to analyze the transition of responsibility for reflection from coach to teacher.

Design/methodology/approach – An earlier seven-month multiple case study of literacy coaching with four secondary level teachers revealed seven joint actions (i.e., revoice, build, ask questions to develop understanding, ask dissonant questions, suggest, disagree, reconceptualize) and four categories of joint action (i.e., directive/consonant, directive/dissonant, responsive/consonant, and responsive/dissonant) within a model of joint action for literacy coaching (Reichenberg, 2018). This analysis mapped those joint actions onto the GRR model (McVee, Shanahan, Hayden, Boyd, & Pearson, 2018; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). This chapter explicates reasoning for variability in responsibility and the potential relationship between variability and the development of teachers’ thinking and action through in-depth analysis of a single coaching session. Examples from other teachers’ coaching sessions are included.

Findings – Synthesis of the two models shows that joint actions initiated by the coach that were directive/dissonant fell on the left side of the GRR model with primary coach responsibility. Actions initiated by the coach that were classified as directive/consonant came next on the journey toward the middle, followed by responsive/dissonant actions. Responsive/consonant actions encompassed the middle region of shared responsibility. The same actions initiated by the teacher mirrored this progression. Principles of apprenticeship in this gradual release of responsibility highlight the bi-directionality of expertise in situated action informed by historical and dynamic context (Mercer, 2008). Evidence of teachers’ growing agency and sustainability were present in joint actions they initiated within the context of literacy coaching.

Research limitations/implications – Analysis of the actions of a literacy coach and teacher as directive, responsive, consonant, and dissonant add complexity to the discussion about how to transfer responsibility for reflection from coaches to teachers. Awareness of how joint actions map onto the GRR model can inform coaches’ and teachers’ decisions as they thoughtfully move toward greater teacher agency within coaching interaction.

Practical implications – The reflective framework employed in this study is applicable to a variety of settings such as instructional coaching across the disciplines, coaching by in-service literacy specialists, and the preparation of pre-service literacy coaches. The model of joint action for analyzing coaching interaction could be used by in-service literacy coaches, pre-service literacy coaches, and teachers who are being coached.

Originality/value – This chapter analyzes the transition of responsibility for reflection from coach to teacher. Principles of both the GRR model and apprenticeship theory provide a theoretical explanation for how these teachers achieved greater agency and sustainable development of a reflective stance.

The purpose of this study was to identify if and how K–6 teachers perceive that their literacy instructional coaches influence their writing teaching.

The authors employed a parallel convergent mixed-methods design with survey data. The authors used thematic analysis to identify patterns within short-answer responses.

K–6 teachers receive little literacy coaching specific to writing. However, when they do receive coaching, they believe it benefits their writing instruction. Sustained coaching through the coaching cycle, frequent collaborations, and support with writing instructional resources and strategies were reported as the most influential writing coaching practices.

Sample size was a limitation to this study. Of the 66 participants, 41 (62%) completed the entire survey.

This research provides coaches with valuable insights about coaching practices that teachers find to be the most effective in influencing their writing instruction. The increase in teachers' competence in writing instruction due to coaching provides evidence to administrators and stakeholders that coaching in writing is an area in need of attention.

This study adds to research specific to the coaching of writing within the K–6 context, which currently is sparse.

This study focused on unpacking the instructional coaching process, addressing key questions about what happens during a coaching session and what coaching elements predict teacher outcomes.

Using coaching observational data, the research examined critical coaching processes described in the literature: coaching practices (observation, feedback, reflective discussion and planning), the coach–teacher relationship, coaching strategies and coaching duration. The study also developed a path model documenting how coaching behaviors predicted teacher instruction.

Results showed that the coach talked more than the teacher and that most coaching time was spent in reflective discussion. The coach–teacher relationship was promoted by building rapport and reciprocal trust, with use of “we” language demonstrating that coach and teacher were working as a partnership. Most common coaching strategies were clarifying and the coach prompting the teacher to attend to teacher or student behaviors. Path model analysis showed that (a) the coach–teacher relationship quality predicted the level of teacher engagement in coaching and their instructional reflection and (b) the quality of coaching strategies predicted the overall quality of the classroom instruction.

The study provides empirical evidence about the active ingredients of coaching – those underlying processes that impact and improve teacher practice.

Co-teaching is a prevalent and productive coaching activity that coaches can leverage when working with teachers to support teaching and learning. However, there is insufficient research detailing how coaches can and should implement this coaching activity with teachers. Hence, the purpose of this qualitative interview study is to better understand the challenges that make co-teaching coaching cycles difficult for coaches to enact with in-service teachers, as well as the supports that can enhance the co-teaching experience for all involved parties.

Fourteen semi-structured interviews were completed with one instructional coach and three elementary teachers in one school district in the USA. A combination of emergent as well as literature-driven codes was used to code the data.

Overall, the participants pointed to six barriers they encountered when engaging in episodes of co-teaching, which spanned the broad categories of management and logistics, pedagogical dilemmas, and teacher learning. Furthermore, participants identified seven supports, spanning the broad categories of coach preparation, contextual factors, and management and logistics, that enabled them to productively engage in co-teaching.

Although coaches may frequently engage teachers in coaching cycles involving co-teaching, there is a lack of research-based guidance for coaches about how to engage teachers most productively in co-teaching episodes. The findings from this study, which shed light on the challenges and support of co-teaching from one coach and three teachers, will enable coaches to more effectively co-teach with teachers as a form of high-quality professional development.

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.

Coaching for teachers has evolved as a form of professional development. The benefits of such interventions have been examined with regard to student, teacher and school outcomes, but the purpose of this paper is to present an investigation relating to the benefits of instructional coaching (Knight, 2006) to teachers as perceived by the teachers themselves.

The study utilises a subjectivist approach with a constructivist paradigmatic stance (Morgan and Burrell, 1985). Eleven semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted (King, 2019) with teachers at a secondary (high) school in the UK. The data were interpreted and analysed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clark, 2006).

The research suggests the following four benefits to the teachers who participated in the study, which aligned well with the literature review: improved relationships, awareness, reflectiveness and enhanced practice. A fifth perceived benefit reported by the participants was positive attitude, which captured a sense of increased confidence, motivation and positivity.

Findings were based on the self-reported data of a small sample. Therefore it is not possible to generalise the findings but Thematic Analysis was used to understand perceptions and insights in a wider context (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). This research builds on the literature focusing on perceived benefits to teachers. Findings generally support current theoretical understanding. The results of this exploration of the teacher perception of benefits of instructional coaching in one UK school contributes to the emerging literature about the benefits of coaching. The teacher perceived benefit of positive attitude does not appear to be identified in the literature.

In practice, this study raised awareness of the possible benefits of coaching to educators. The authors recommend that educators, policymakers and educational leaders should further explore the potential benefits of coaching in education settings. Utilising teacher perception, the study further confirms coaching to be a useful way of supporting educators to enhance their practice.

This paper fulfils an identified need to gain a better understanding of teacher-perceived benefits of coaching. This understanding will support school leaders and policymakers who may be considering how to best leverage coaching in educational settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how teacher coaching is being implemented in New Zealand secondary schools.

A pragmatic mixed methods approach was identified as the most suitable. A dominant qualitative approach, using a sequential design, incorporating triangulation of methods and perspectives across time, provided an appropriate research design framework.

The findings indicate that teacher coaching is a popular professional development approach that has been enthusiastically implemented throughout New Zealand secondary schools. The four factors of purpose, evaluation, training and funding have been shown to be interrelated factors operating in New Zealand teacher coaching programmes. These factors are perceived to have an influence on teacher coaching programmes achieving their stated objectives.

A limitation of this study is that it provides a snapshot of teacher coaching in New Zealand secondary schools, and the snapshot presented is constantly changing. A methodological limitation of the study related to the 28 per cent response rate of the questionnaire and the small sample size used for the interview phases.

This study encourages school leaders to consider if they have defined teacher coaching in the context of their programmes and articulated their objectives. They are persuaded to think about how they could design robust evaluation strategies and targeted training.

The findings show the concept of teacher coaching is a social construct that is influenced not only by unique environmental contexts but also the individual perceptions of all those involved.

This study provides new knowledge in relation to how and why teacher coaching is being used and the factors that influence whether programme objectives are achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether aspects of co-coaching could support primary science teacher education in a university–school initial teacher education (ITE) partnership program in England.

A mixed methodological approach was taken, comprising of student teachers responding to a coaching questionnaire blended with a qualitative exploration of audio-recorded student teacher co-coaching conversations. Informal student teacher discussion groups were used as a means to discern their attitudes and beliefs pertaining to co-coaching within taught university sessions.

Analysis and subsequent integration of data showed that many aspects of co-coaching supported student teacher pedagogical knowledge acquisition and professional development. Additionally, questionnaire responses and small-group discussions revealed that student teachers developed positive attitudes to this mode of learning.

This study evaluates the innovative use of co-coaching techniques during primary teacher science education, and the outcomes have clear implications for the design of ITE programs in England and potentially further afield.

The purpose of this paper is to develop representations for teacher coaching sessions that are (1) useful for communicating the session to other coaches or researchers and (2) capture the roles of the coach as convener of dialogue for teacher development as well as facilitator of design for learning.

Two coaching sessions with preservice science teachers are analysed using two forms of discourse analysis: (1) the T-SEDA coding scheme (Vrikki et al., 2019) to analyse the dialogic interaction; and (2) a novel coding scheme to show the development of the design for learning over time. A synthetic representation is developed that combines and communicates the results of both analyses.

Results show a novel way of representing coaching sessions with teachers during design for learning. Theoretical claims about the utility of this representation are made with reference to the literature.

The representations and methods for developing them are useful to researchers in analysing coaching sessions. They have application for helping coaches to communicate their practice with one another. They are a step towards understanding the scalability and transferability of coaching programmes for school improvement.

The paper highlights shortcomings of existing representations for teacher coaching sessions and produces a novel representation that has value for researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify a set of principles that are necessary to overcome the challenges that inclusion coaches encounter with teachers as they transition into an inclusive service delivery model.

Online written reflections of 13 inclusion coaches (K-12) who were a part of a larger, mixed-methods research design are the primary data source. For the two years of the project, the inclusion coaches provided bi-annual reflections, each with 7-11 entries. The reflections were downloaded, coded, collapsed, and thematically presented as the inclusion coaches’ perspectives for supporting teachers’ inclusive classroom practices.

The findings are presented as six principles for the process of coaching teachers for inclusion: pre-requisite: teachers’ receptivity; process: from building trust to collaborating and reflecting; precipice: tension between knowledge and beliefs; promotion: administrative support; proof: evidence of change, impact, and capacity building; and promise: future of the role.

These six principles of coaching for inclusion offer considerations, conditions, and guides for inclusion coaches that are striving for fully inclusive classrooms in their jurisdictions. With a view to future practice, the six principles are reiterative as they should be revisited each time a coaching interaction is initiated in a school site and with a classroom teacher.

As a conclusion, a conceptual model is offered. This spiraling staircase displays the conditions that exist prior to coaching and during coaching interactions and considerations for coaching sustainability.