Mathematics Coaches' Suggestions Through Online Video Coaching to Support Middle-Grades Teacher

• In Event: Innovations in Video-Intensive STEM Professional Development in Online and Blended Environments

Abstract

Coaching is professional development process used to support teachers to improve their instruction (West & Staub, 2003). We describe an innovative online mathematics video coaching experience that we adapted from a face-to-face modality to an online modality. In this poster presentation, we will share our model and focus on the video interactions between the coach and teacher. We will characterize the suggestions coaches provided to mathematics teachers by looking at the type of suggestion (e.g., revise the task, pose specific questions to students, elicit contributions from students) and the actionable nature of the suggestions.

Our model is based on content-focused coaching (West & Staub, 2003). Coaches engaged teachers in typical coaching cycles that included a planning meeting, lesson implementation, and a debriefing meeting. The planning and debriefing meetings were conducted via Zoom and video-recorded. The lesson was recorded using Swivl robot technology to capture audio and video data from middle grades mathematics classrooms. These data were automatically uploaded to the online Swivl platform. The coach and teacher each then independently watched and annotated the video prior to the debrief meeting.

In total, there were three cohorts in the project, staggered over a 4-year span. The coaching cycles were completed using online teaching labs and online courses as part of a three-part model (Authors, 2019). For the purposes of this poster, we focus on online video coaching in mathematics for one cohort of eight teachers and four coaches, for a total of 23 online planning meetings. We analyzed 273 coaching suggestions across the 23 planning meetings. Two researchers analyzed each suggestion for: (a) implied pedagogical principle, (b) content of the suggestion, and (c) actionable nature of the suggestions.

We focused on the connections between: (1) the suggestions; (2) the actionable nature of the suggestions (how easily could they be observed if implemented); and (3) the pedagogical principles the suggestions implied by the suggestions. We found that the pedagogical principles included activating prior knowledge, positioning students as authorities, supporting student agency, selecting tasks, organizing summary discussions, and launching lesson in ways that would support students’ thinking. As an example of an organizing summary discussions, one coach said, “Then when you get to that part in your sharing and your summary, you can let the students who figured it out share in front of the class and explain how they figured it out.” The coach suggested that students present their solution strategies to their classmates, which was an actionable suggestion.

We contend that our online model afforded opportunities for mathematics teachers and coaches to engage in content-focused coaching from a distance. We also note that coaches varied in the content of the suggestions and the actionable nature of the suggestions, with some coaches provided highly detailed suggestions about task features and questions to pose to students and others whose suggestions involved broad pedagogical principles.

Authors

• Julie Amador, University of Idaho

• Jeffrey M. Choppin, University of Rochester

• Ryan Gillespie, University of Idaho

• Cynthia Carson, University of Rochester