2 SETTING A GOAL
The teacher and the coach then need to determine which change (from the list generated in step 1) the teacher will implement to provide enhanced learning for the students. Notice the word change is singular. When a teacher tries to change more than one element at a time, the effort lacks focus and little actual change occurs. If there are multiple areas to work on, the coach should have the teacher work on them consecutively rather than concurrently. When a teacher is doing poorly and there are many skills to change, it is tempting to really push him or her to accomplish significant progress immediately. However, patience is the watchword. The change must be doable. This approach is professional and provides support to the teacher without overwhelming him or her.
3 PLANNING
The teacher and coach then develop a plan so that it is clear what constitutes successful execution of the new skill or strategy. The skills and associated strategies need to be listed in words that describe what it looks like when the teacher uses them effectively with students—both what the teacher does and what the students do and understand in terms of their learning. In addition, this step frequently requires a concrete implementation plan. A lesson plan works well as a model for the implementation plan as teachers are familiar with it and the new skill utilization often requires teaching the students a new procedure, how it will affect what they do, and how it will enhance their learning. In other words, things are going to change in the classroom, so the teacher begins by developing a lesson plan to teach the students what is coming, how it will improve the classroom, how to access the change, and how to incorporate the new opportunity into their own learning processes.
4 PRACTICING
Practice gives the teacher time to implement the change and master the new skill. This typically takes several iterations. Some changes are easier than others, and some are easier or more difficult depending on the setting. For example, a secondary mathematics teacher who teaches five sections of algebra can practice up to five times each day and assess and modify the implementation over the course of twenty or so iterations in just one week. A primary teacher, on the other hand, may be able to practice during his mathematics time only once a day, for a total of just five times in a given week. In addition, some people are very flexible and acquire new skills with ease. Others proceed with more caution and require more time. In many situations, the students also need to practice and acclimate to the change.
5 ASSESSING & CELEBRATING GROWTH
Assessment of the change measures both the change in skill level and its effect on learning. This step of the cycle also includes the opportunity for celebration. If the school or district’s model of instruction includes rubrics (like those included in Marzano’s [2017] and Danielson’s [2013] models), it is easy to apply the rubric associated with each element to measure growth. Most evaluation tools used as a model of instruction (including the Stronge [2018] model) have scoring levels which can be used similarly. The teacher and coach can compare the teacher’s current performance to the baseline to determine growth. They can then celebrate growth toward the goal or accomplishment of the goal.
Once all five steps have been completed, the cycle begins again. If the initial establishment of baseline performance identified multiple areas for improvement, the teacher and coach can select the next goal from that list. While the five steps in the cycle comprise a simple model, each step can be quite complex in terms of the decision making involved. Keeping it simple requires selection among variables as each step unfolds. We provide guidelines for these choices in the upcoming detailed discussion of the cycle. Here are four general points to keep in mind.
1. Strategy and skill appear in the singular: The focus needs to be on a specific skill; if we attempt more than one change at a time, the change almost always fails. The cycle is intended to take approximately one month. Some skills can be implemented more quickly, but some may take longer. This pace may seem too slow to create significant change, but consider: When is the last time you or any of your colleagues gained ten new strategies in a school year? Over the course of a thirty-year career, that would be three hundred!
2. Coaching is about change: Teachers teach and students learn in a broad array of styles and situations. There are innumerable factors that lead to high-quality learning. Students bring with them rich backgrounds and sets of physical, social, and emotional skills. Teachers bring the same. The possible effects on learning are endless. It is the teacher’s professional responsibility to control the variables at his disposal, and to improve his ability to do so throughout his career. This is difficult to do alone; hence, the collaboration between the coach and the teacher allows the best chance for positive change.
3. All teachers can get better: New teachers need to develop broader skillsets. The best teachers can (and should) get better. The Teacher of the Year can get better and is likely the Teacher of the Year because of his or her dogged work on the craft of teaching and learning. Educators will never run out of new methods: models of instruction contain hundreds—maybe thousands—of elements, skills, and strategies on which a teacher can work. Having and using a larger skillset is always helpful to the learning environment. The goal of professional development is better teaching and learning. Indeed, getting better is the only thing.
4. Coaching is teaching, not doing: A coach should model and co-teach, but the intent is to have the teacher gain and independently use the skill. In curricular coaching, a coach may develop the first one or two lessons plans or assessments, but must also teach the teacher how to develop them. In instructional coaching, the coach may (and should) demonstrate a skill or even go into the classroom and use the desired skill with students, but the goal is that the teacher learns and uses the skill with automaticity.
These, again, are the five cyclical steps of coaching and being coached that are crucial in creating positive change in the teaching and learning process.
1. Establishing a baseline
2. From the baseline, setting a goal
3. Planning for the change and its implementation
4. Practicing the new strategy, with time for the teacher and the students to make the change
5. Assessing and celebrating growth appropriately
The remainder of this chapter goes into detail about each step of the coaching cycle.
Establishing a Baseline
As described previously, the first step of the cycle is establishing a baseline. The coach and the teacher need to take stock of current performance in order to make decisions about what specific change will have a positive effect on teaching and learning. There are several ways to determine which instructional techniques, when enhanced or added to a teacher’s repertoire, will improve instruction and, subsequently, student performance.
There are important pros and cons with any method of determining a teacher’s baseline performance. Teachers are often insecure about their performance and, while getting better is a laudable goal, they are already working hard and change seems to add to the burden. Positive language by supervisors and the coach will help. Knowing the pros and cons of each of the options should provide knowledge for both the teacher and the coach so that they can together maximize the pros and mitigate the cons. While there are several options to determine what the teacher is doing on a day-to-day basis, four are common: (1) observation, (2) teacher reflection, (3) teacher evaluation documents, and (4) student data. To help coaches select from among these options, each section includes a list of pros and cons.
Observation
Often a coach will schedule a time to observe the teacher in his or her classroom. During the observation she will take notes which she will review with the teacher at a later time. After some discussion the teacher and the coach may come to a consensus about what was happening and why. Most educators are very familiar with this process as it is usually used