Instructional Coaching

INSTRUCTIONAL COACHES & EEFECTIVE CHANGE

Role and Relevance of Instructional Coaches as Effective Change Agents

Within a Learning Community

Independent Research Project-‐Part II

Ana D. Larena-‐Avellaneda Álvarez

EDU-‐600 Teacher as a Leader

Master of Science in Education in Reading Specialist/Literacy Coach K-‐12

University of New England


To coach is to teach; as simple and complex as that may be. An instructional coach is for teachers what any sports coach is for an athlete or a professional sportsman: on going, contextualized, goal-‐oriented, research-‐based, and systemic guidance for performance improvement. Nobody would ever doubt of the essential and definite role of Rafa Nadal’s coach in his outstanding and historic tennis career. So, what is effective instructional coaching? And, why is the role of an instructional coach somewhat slippery, potentially bumpy, and highly questioned? After delving deeper into this fascinating topic of coaching professionals in education, I am pleased to find overwhelming expert consensus. In his analysis of effective coaching and the caveats it may find, “School-‐Based Coaching. A revolution in professional development—or just the latest fad?” (2004), Alexander Russo concludes “school-‐based coaching helps educators envision a world where professional development means showing and not telling; where teachers can learn and improve their practice in a reflective, supportive setting, and where coaches serve as liaisons between research and practice, bringing the latest findings to where they are most needed—the classroom”. Barbara Neufeld and Dana Roper, Education Matters, Inc., study the promise of coaching carrying out a comprehensive dissection of the role, challenges, and impact of both change and content coaches within public schools and conclude, “while not yet proven to increase student achievement, research does support coaching does increase the instructional capacity of schools and teachers, a known prerequisite for increasing learning”. “Organizational Barriers to Effective Literacy Coaching” (2007) by Allison Niedzwiecki, reflects with precision what the role of an instructional coach should not be: district or principal’s police, enforcers of specific programs, evaluators, outside experts, or fixers of ineffective teachers. Niedzwiecki, experienced English teacher and literacy coach in Georgia and New York, makes the case for organizational and structural support for effective coaching: “when coaches are supported, at both the school and district level, literacy coaches can help move a school community to significant instructional change”. In “Fulfilling the Promise of Literacy Coaches in Urban Schools: What Does It Take to Make an Impact?” (2009), Barbara Steckel successfully appeals to both our heart and mind with the presentation of solid literature on what effective instructional coaching is, as well the findings of the study she lead in 2002 shadowing four instructional coaches. In the article, we find the detailed analysis of two of those case studies, focused on coaches who helped change instructional practices and overall school culture. “These case studies enable us to begin to identify the beliefs and practices of coaches who have made an impact on urban schools and the leadership, management, and organizational systems that have facilitated their success.” Finally, Michael Fullan’s thrilling “Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform” (2011) throws immaculate and crushing light to the question of how much school reform impacts student success. His paper is an extraordinary review and evaluation of the “wrong drivers (policies and strategies) that have a negative or


ineffective impact on achieving the desired goals: raising the bar (for all) and closing the gap (for low performing students)”. The role of the instructional coach within the system he describes, driven by the right drivers of reform, is explicitly mandatory: “capacity-‐building referred to investments in collaborative practices, coaching technical skill building and so on” (pg. 10), group work, pedagogy, and “systemness” or systemic solutions. Experts on the topic unanimously agree that effective coaching is school-‐based, relevant professional development, which is on-‐going, focused on research-‐based approaches, embedded in classroom teaching and student learning, as well as aligned and specific to grade level or content. I would also add, based on Fullan’s analysis of the right and wrong drivers for school reform (2011), that effective coaching must be both systemic and supported by the system it is part of, with structure, leadership, and specific continuous training. I particularly connect with Allison Niedzwiecki’s definition of what the real role of an instructional coach is: “support teachers as they become self-‐extending, reflective practitioners, providing opportunities for professional collaboration, structured reflection, and team problem solving” (2007). This definition rings a bell in any professional of education; it defines teaching. If we want to identify the characteristics of effective coaching, we only need to look at those of effective teaching. And by teaching I refer to what we understand by teaching today; not merely transmitting knowledge in an industrial model (listen, recall, repeat) but, much on the contrary, facilitating, guiding, fostering, promoting and ensuring learning. Hard work. Instructional coaching or meta-‐teaching (as I like to call it), is a relatively new tool within systems to support improvement of teacher practice and student learning, promising not to commit the absurd mistake of ignoring what “cognitive psychology has taught us about what it means to learn and to know something” (Neufeld & Roper, 2003). Instructional coaching is a new form of professional development; an expensive one because, if done properly, it demands consistency, cohesion, continuity, and a school wide effort. Taking into consideration that traditional professional development rarely yields the success it promises, basically due to the faulty design of potential but missed learning experiences, coaching logically encounters initial reluctance; a new form of school-‐based PD that demands huge changes in collective behaviors, facing a number of challenges. First, overcoming the disastrous model of pre-‐scripted, decontextualized professional development delivered by ”outsiders” in the exact opposite way of what it intends to teach: conferences and workshops where attendees (teachers in this case) sit and listen. What we “know and understand about how our students learn, applies to adults as well; yet, traditional forms of professional development do not take advantage of this knowledge” (Neufeld & Roper, 2003). We ask our teachers to drop direct instruction towards research-‐based models of inquiry,


project development, and problem solving using collaborative learning approaches, making learning experiences real and relevant for the learner, but schools have failed recurrently to model such a thing for their staff. “Improving teachers’ learning – and, in turn, their practice and student learning – requires professional development that is closely and explicitly tied to teachers’ ongoing work delivered in a collegial way instead of directly instructed. Coaching addresses this requirement” (Neufeld & Roper, 2003). If a school is set to overcome the obsolete, ineffective conception of traditional professional development and embrace the vision of what effective teacher training and learning should be, instructional coaching encounters a second challenge: understanding coaching as a part in the whole, a tool within a system – a crucial one, but just a tool. Instructional coaching is not the answer to all the necessary changes within school improvement, and it will fail if it is not used how and for what it is originally designed for: building individual and collective capacity. Experts coincide with Alan Richard, a state policy writer for Education Week, who reports the practice of coaching as a “promising but often poorly focused school improvement tactic” (as cited by Russo, 2004, pg. 3). Not only should coaching be systemic itself, but also will be utterly condemned to ineffectiveness, and thus labeled as useless, when not conceived aligned to a school’s system: vision, standards and curriculum, practices, professional relationships, leadership, structure, organization, … The system has to make room and time for coaching (structure, organization), develop a solid case for coaching (vision and leadership), foster the collaborative, interdependent, learning community environment it demands (behavior changes), and support coaches with competent staff, resources and specific training. Instructional coaching is a tool that fits in a particular system, not in all. Throwing in an instructional coach in any given system will not produce the desired effects; much on the contrary, the coach/coaches will end up frustrated and alienated. But then, how? Tremendous challenge. How do we ask teachers to open their classrooms, their grade books, their practices, their beliefs; their guts? Conquering the challenge of school culture can only be done addressing precisely what shapes it: “values, norms, skills, practices, and relationships” (Fullan, 2011). Change behaviors, and you will change culture (DuFour, R. et al., 2008). Yet, the necessary changes needed here are based on none other than trust (Neufeld & Roper, 2003) as well as individual and collective intrinsic motivation (Fullan, 2011). These two delicate and vulnerable emotions are crucial to reform any system, and thus the entire teaching and learning culture, since they lay at the core of changing people’s behavior: willingness. Building individual and social capital (Fullan, 2011), worth and expertise, is the number one driver of change and improvement towards effective teaching and effective student learning. Trust and intrinsic motivation pair up with


transparency, of results and practice, and it is the system’s responsibility to create these conditions. Steckel (2009) found several parallel beliefs linked to trust and intrinsic motivation expressed by the coaches she included in her paper, Pam and Cassie: “empowering teachers is the ultimate goal of coaching”, “cultivating this climate of respect was essential to her becoming a vital part of the life of the school”, “the best way to arouse teachers’ interest and willingness to learn was to show them evidence of improvement in their students’ writing or reading comprehension”. Appealing to teachers’ minds is extraordinarily easy: show them their own students’ improvement, based on researched practices, facts, and student data. Win their hearts with a candid, consistent, and professional relationship based on respectful empowerment and interdependence with peers, coaches, and leaders who support each other. Isolated teachers fear comparison and failure. Schools must bring teachers together, in a collective and interconnected effort to improve, both morale and achievement (Russo, 2004). After examining such compelling arguments to support instructional coaching, though research beyond anecdotal evidence is still scarce, the case for these professionals within a comprehensive school improvement plan and system is beyond question. Also, the role and conditions for effective coaching are crystal clear. It is no silver bullet, but instead a necessary piece within a specific puzzle to complete. In my opinion, Michael Fullan’s analysis, so bluntly clear about what should drive effective and successful school reform leaves no room for doubt. “The essence of whole system success is continuous instructional improvement closely linked to student engagement and success…” (pg. 15). In addition, Neufeld & Roper’s report on the promises and practicalities of instructional coaching was extremely useful in defining a role that seems to be misunderstood and misused too often. It is our responsibility as future instructional coaches to ensure we jump on board of educational projects that have or comprehensively plan on having a cohesive system that will support and enable our success as teacher coaches. Some time ago, my sister, also a teacher, sent me the following article from the section of Annals of Medicine of The New Yorker online magazine: “Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should you?” (2011). Atul Gawande, a surgeon and public-‐health researcher, writes this inspiring reflection after turning forty-‐five and at the peak of his medical career. I found it absolutely humbling. If a surgeon realizes it is necessary to find support from a coach to avoid getting stale, to continue improving, to impede falling into potential ineffective habits or even life-‐threating mistakes, how could we teachers question exactly the same need in our profession? We not only save lives, we shape them. It is beyond the capacity of one single teacher, one single person, to do this. One cannot possibly bear the enormous responsibility and commitment that education entails.


References: Russo, Alexander (July/August 2004). School-‐Based Coaching. A revolution in

professional development—or just the latest fad? Harvard Education Letter,

Volume 20, Number 4. Harvard Education Publishing Group. Harvard

Graduate School of Education. Massachusetts.

Retrieved from: http://hepg.org/hel-‐home/issues/20_4/helarticle/school-‐

based-‐coaching_269

Neufeld, Barbara & Roper, Dana (June 2003). Coaching: A Strategy for Developing

Instructional Capacity, Promises and Practicalities [Preface]. Washington, DC:

Aspen Institute Program on Education and Annenberg Institute for School

Reform. Retrieved from:

http://www.annenberginstitute.org/sites/default/files/product/268/files/C

oaching.pdf

Niedzwiecki, Allison (September 2007). Organizational Barriers to Effective

Literacy Coaching . Journal of Language and Literacy Education, v3 n1 p59-‐

64. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1068203

Steckel, Barbara (September 2009). Fulfilling the Promise of Literacy Coaches in

Urban Schools: What Does It Take to Make an Impact?. The Reading Teacher,

v63 n1, p14-‐23. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ855105

Fullan, Michael (April 2011). Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform.

Center for Strategic Education-‐CSE, Seminar Series 204. East Melbourne,

Victoria, Australia. Retrieved from: http://michaelfullan.ca/wp-‐

content/uploads/2016/06/13396088160.pdf


DuFour, R., DuFour, R. B., & Eaker, R. E. (2008). Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at work: New insights for improving schools. Bloomington: Solution Tree.

Gawande, Atul (2011). Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should you? Annals of

Medicine, The New Yorker, October 3, 2011. Retrieved from:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-‐best

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Instructional Coaching