The Micro-Level Work of Coaching: Examining the Content and Purpose of Coach-Teacher Interactions

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 4:20 pm
  In Roundtable Session: A Roundtable Discussion to Examine a Synthesis of Micro- to Macro-Level Coaching Research (Table 5)

Abstract

The larger theory of action of coaching instructional coaching rests on resources being made available to teachers through social interactions with coaches (Coburn & Russell, 2008). Coaching is job-embedded in nature and coaches can take an active role in the work of teaching. As such, coaches can orchestrate professional interactions that make visible the complex reasoning work in teaching (Saclarides & Munson, 2021). Professional discourse is central to how teachers learn and shapes what they have an opportunity to learn (Lefstein et al., 2020).

Particular features of social interactions can be more or less conducive to accessing appropriate resources and creating a normative environment that supports and enables change in teachers’ instructional practices. Understanding the features of coach-teacher interactions that provide productive learning opportunities to teachers is critical to supporting the professional learning of coaches, as well as researching the effectiveness of coaching.

Research that has examined coach-teacher interactions has categorized the depth of interactions that may impact teacher learning (Coburn & Russell, 2008). Higher depth interactions have been characterized as focusing on underlying pedagogical principles, the nature of the content or discipline, and how students learn (Stein et al., 2021). Lower depth interactions focused on surface structures and procedures, such as sharing materials, classroom organization, pacing, and how to use the curriculum. Coach-teacher interactions also serve to establish and maintain trust (Tschannen-Moran, 2014), and as such, interactions that have been characterized as lower depth may serve to help establish rapport between coaches and teachers.

Coach-teacher interactions have been studied in relation to examining: interactions amidst co-teaching or modeling (Saclarides, 2022), coaching routines that support teacher-coach interactions amidst teaching (Author, 2022; Muson & Dyer, 2022), interactions during co-planning conversations (Gardiner & Weisling, 2016; Stein et al., 2021), productive coaching questions (Robertson et al., 2020), balancing responsive and directive relationships (Author, 2010; Author, 2017; Sailors & Price, 2015), and providing scaffolded feedback to teachers (Author, 2023).

Guiding question for our roundtable discussion include: What interactions are productive for teacher learning? How are coach-teacher interactions shaped by the content area and discipline within which they work? How do coaches’ orientations toward teacher learning influence their interactions with teachers? We then will consider how we might craft a research agenda moving forward that attends to examining coaching interactions that support teacher learning.

Authors

• Lynsey K. Gibbons, University of Delaware

• Abby Reisman, University of Pennsylvania