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Practice-Based Coaching for Inquiry-Based Teaching: Understanding Relationships Between Coaching Practice and Teaching Practice

Sat, April 23, 11:30am to 1:00pm PDT (11:30am to 1:00pm PDT), Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina, Floor: North Building, Lobby Level, Marriott Grand Ballroom 13

Abstract

Objectives & Purposes

Policies and curricula often promote rote instruction for Black and Brown students (Au & Gourd, 2013; Preus, 2012). This has meant that white and affluent students have greater access to meaningful, real-world projects (Salazar, 2013). To promote a more equitable distribution of Project-Based Learning (PBL), teachers working in poverty-impacted schools need support. While instructional coaching is a promising lever for promoting this kind of instructional change (Kraft et al., 2019), little research has considered the impact of particular coaching pedagogies on teachers’ PBL practices. For this reason, we explore the following questions:
• What pedagogical approaches did coaches attempt as they supported teachers to enact Project-Based Learning?
• Did the amount of time that instructional coaches spent enacting particular pedagogies influence teachers' subsequent take-up of targeted teaching practices?

Theoretical Framework

While most forms of instructional coaching focus on debrief conversations, our work focuses on a recent innovation in coaching: practice-based coaching pedagogies. Practice-based coaching centers on the instruction of core practices, which are complex to enact, cannot be scripted, and require that teachers be responsive to students (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009). Practice-based coaches enact the following pedagogies: (1) representation, giving learners the opportunity to see complex professional practices; (2) decomposition, breaking down complex professional practices into their component parts; and (3) approximation, providing controlled and structured opportunities for novices to engage in aspects of professional practice (Grossman, Compton, et al., 2009). This research explores the link between these coaching pedagogies and teachers' subsequent enactment of PBL core practices.

Data & Methods

Each coach (N=6) was trained in the Grossman et al. (2009) framework. They then conducted eight video-recorded coaching cycles focused on the core practices of PBL (Grossman, Herrmann, Kavanagh, Pupik Dean, 2021). Ninety-two hours of coaching videos were coded using constructs from the Grossman et al. (2009) framework and length of time was calculated for coaches’ use of each practice-based pedagogy. Subsequently, teachers (N= 30) submitted videos of their classroom instruction following coaching. Classroom videos were then scored using a protocol organized around the core practices of PBL. Inter-rater reliability was above .6 kappa on all elements.

Results

Q1. Coaches used all three practice-based pedagogies to teach the PBL core practices, spending the most amount of time on representations, and the least amount of time decomposing practices (see Table 1); however, there was considerable variation in the amount of time coaches spent on each pedagogy.

Q2. Multilevel modeling results revealed that one coaching pedagogy was connected to changes in teachers’ practice from baseline to post-program: the practice of decomposition, or the act of breaking down and teaching the PBL domains and associated core practices in detail (B= .001; p = .011).

Significance

Results suggest that decomposing practice may have helped teachers to successfully enact practices aligned with PBL. These findings are particularly interesting given debates around the utility of a professional language for teaching (Horn & Kane, 2019), as they indicate that small amounts of time spent stabilizing shared understandings of core practices can predict changes in teachers’ practice.

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