Coaching Elementary Teachers: Sharing Expertise to Hypothesize, Design, and Implement Effective Instruction for Multilingual Learners

• In Event: Enacting Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy for Multilingual Learners: Investigating Novice Teachers’ Practices

Abstract

Purpose
Though much scholarship focuses on the design of teacher education programs to support teacher learning related to emergent bilingual students (EBs) (Athanases & de Oliveira, 2011; Villegas & Lucas, 2002), few studies investigate the actual processes of individualized teacher learning. More recently, language teacher education is investigating the unique nature of each teacher’s learning trajectory and the related need for contingency among teacher educators (Authors, 2016; Johnson, 2015). The goal of this study is to examine how coaches engaged teachers in hypothesizing about, designing, and implementing effective instruction for multilingual learners through the analysis of one-on-one coaching conversations.

Theoretical Framework
Effective coaching for teachers involves rich opportunities for teachers to talk with teacher educators and to engage in teachers’ questions and interests, as opposed to teachers listening to coaches’ suggestions (Haneda et al., 2017; Heineke, 2013). While this work points to the importance of shared expertise, less is known about the moment-to-moment discourse wherein coaches and teachers position themselves in ways to engage in deep conceptual thinking. Theories of positioning (Davies & Harré, 1990) and dialogic learning (Haneda et al., 2017; Wells & Arauz, 2006) inform our analysis of how coaches’ positioning of teachers and responsive facilitation of teacher learning enabled teachers to engage in conceptual thinking.

Methods
To improve coaching practices of in-service elementary teachers learning to support EBs in mainstream classrooms, we audio-recorded our weekly 20-30-minute coaching sessions, which occurred immediately after teacher observations. Purposefully sampling (Patton, 2002) three teachers demonstrating significant growth in their instruction throughout the year, we transcribed 24 audio-recordings and conducted discourse analysis (Erickson, 1992). First, we coded instances when teachers engaged in high conceptual thinking, which we categorized as hypothesizing, questioning, transforming ideas, and evaluating instruction for EBs (Authors, 2016). Next, we asked: How did we facilitate opportunities for teachers to think conceptually and improve their instruction for EBs? Applying theories of positioning (Davies & Harré, 1990) and dialogic learning (Wells & Arauz, 2006), we re-coded transcribed episodes we tagged as showing high teacher conceptual thinking.

Results/Significance
Our findings indicate that teachers engaged in conceptual thinking – and demonstrated opportunities for improving their instruction for multilingual learners – when both the coach and teacher positioned themselves and one another as experts and learners. Our analyses reveal how positioning can change from one moment to the next. The mentor was able to position the teacher as expert through discursive moves such as referring to the teacher’s efforts in previous weeks, recognizing moments of effective instruction in the lesson observed, inquiring with the teacher about how the mentor’s suggestion works with her particular groups of learners, making context-specific pedagogical suggestions, and building off of the teacher’s ideas or questions.
Illuminating specific discursive moves that positioned teachers as expert-learners who can think about their own instruction, as well as instances where we inadvertently failed to do so and shut down teacher thinking, will provide implications for district- and university-led coaching efforts. Through this work, we aim to improve teacher learning and the promise of public schooling.

Authors

• Shannon Mary Daniel, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College

• Mark Barba Pacheco, Illinois State University

• Lisa Pray, Vanderbilt University