Instructional Coaching Impacting Schools

The Albemarle County Public Schools are using instructional coaching to impact the teaching and learning going on in their classrooms.  I invite you to watch the video and unpack some of the takeaways from this work.

The Overall Structure

As the video highlights the structure at Albemarle is designed around sharing information among teachers and buildings.  This structure allows ideas to flow between a large population of teachers.  In this way the school has harnessed the power of collaboration among the entire district.  There are 24 coaches who each work in three different schools and every school has multiple coaches.  When an idea is born it can eventually make its way throughout the district via the network of coaches who share buildings.  In addition, the diverse needs of teachers are met by having multiple coaches available to them.  Coaches also have the opportunity to meet together to share learning.

The school uses what is referred to as The Seven Pathways to Learning as a foundation for their coaching.  Utilizing these ideas, teachers can approach coaches for help on how to integrate ideas into their classroom, and coaches can help guide teachers to practices that fit their needs and situation. 

As coaches and teachers meet, the coach helps the teacher clarify the need and connects appropriate learning ideas or tools to the instruction.  Then coaches help model, plan, provide feedback from observation and evaluate the process with the teachers.

The Five Phases

Establish the Need:  This is where is all begins.  Teacher have a desire to design learning toward a specific area.  Perhaps the strategy or instructional plan is a new endeavor or previous attempts have not gained the expected results.  The teacher now has a need to develop a partnership with a coach.

Create Partnerships: The appropriate coach should then be selected to help the teacher develop the learning experience.  At Albermarle the shared design allows for some level a choice within the building but also a network of resources for coaches to use to assist teachers.  It appears that this choice is often strongly connected to the teacher's desire and certainly trust plays a role in this decision.

Target Differentiated Projects: It is here that the project take shape.  Teachers have articulated the needs, now the plan for how it is done gets rolled out.  Coaches help design learning, model, acquire tools or provide assistance depending on the need of the teacher.  In the video we see the coach ask the teacher about a critical thinking rubric to help design instruction.

Assess The Progress:  This is ongoing, but the idea is that the intended goals are being met with the work being done.  This is possible through observation feedback and or student data, as well as, reflection and discussion between the coach and teacher.  Hopefully, the ongoing relationship helps to build better practices.  Again, we see the coach interacting with students at Albermarle as a way of assisting the teacher and gaining feedback.

Reflect on the Integration:  As always, reflection helps to build learning.  This step is about a look back on the process as a whole to see if it met the goals.  It is also demonstrated by sharing out findings among others.  Again, this is modeled by coaches sharing with others or taking the learning to another building at Albermarle.

My Takeaways

I love the fact that the coaches don't dictate processes, but help teachers to establish powerful goals and reflection.  The ownership is on the teachers to grow their practice and take ownership in the process.  Ben Johnson states in his blog, "..., the administrator's role is to help the teacher identify the problems and bring their own solutions to light. By asking the teacher probing, open-ended questions, the administrator helps the teacher reflect and analyze an issue of the teacher's choosing and then asks the all powerful question: 'What are you going to do about it?'"(Johnson).

Another big piece demonstrated in the video is that the coaches get to spend significant time with the teachers and the students through this process.  They are there to model and assist rather than just give ideas of throw out suggestions.

Finally, I like how the school has established choice between coaches and how these coaches take learning across classrooms and buildings.  I think it is a strong model for impacting a big population of teachers and, most importantly, students.

References

Johnson, B. (2013, January 31). The Power of Educational Coaching. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/power-educational-coaching-ben-johnson

E. (2015, September 18). Instructional Coaching: Seeding District-Wide Innovation. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0IrZ5jrvCo