Learning to Facilitate Productive Lesson Debriefs Through Meta-Coaching

• In Event: Reimagining Professional Learning Structures: Supporting Teacher Educators to Lead Ambitious and Equitable Mathematics Teacher Learning

Abstract

Coaching is an increasingly common approach to supporting teachers’ professional learning (PL) (Kraft et al., 2018). Those who become coaches are often accomplished teachers, and there is an assumption that teaching experience alone will prepare one to coach teachers (Fennell et al., 2013). However, much like teachers, coaches must engage in their own professional learning (Feger et al., 2004). With few exceptions, however (e.g., Russell et al., 2020; Stein et al., 2022), little research has examined initiatives for supporting coaches’ learning.
We studied a novel coach learning initiative we call “meta-coaching,” in which an experienced mentor coach, or meta-coach, helped three coaches facilitate coaching cycles. We examined audio-recordings of the lesson planning and debrief phases from one focal coach’s 20 coaching cycles with five different teachers over two years. We also examined audio-recordings of meetings between the coach and meta-coach that occurred before, during, and after the various phases of the coaching cycles. Initial analysis of this data revealed that the coach was wanting to speak with teachers about aspects of their teaching practice she regarded as in need of improvement, but was unsure how to broach such discussions. This is a central problem of coaching practice (Lord et al., 2003) and something in which we developed a particular interest (Stake, 1995).
We identified three coaching cycles in which this problem figured prominently. Next, we listened to audio-recordings of all phases and meetings in these coaching cycles, and identified episodes when this problem was in view. Two members of our research team then read transcripts for these episodes and wrote memos (Maxwell, 2013), guided by a set of analytic questions (e.g., How did the meta-coach prepare the coach to broach discussion of the teaching practice she wanted to discuss?). We present here our analysis of one case that is illustrative of this problem of coaching practice.
In preparing for the lesson debrief in this case, the coach shared with the meta-coach her concern that student engagement had been low in the preceding lesson, yet also expressed frustration with not knowing how to bring this up, stating: “Now, I can’t ask this, but I really want to ask this question, which is, ‘When were you excited in this classroom?’ Because I was not excited.” In response, the meta-coach urged the coach to start the debrief by sharing students’ responses to a question from a survey they had taken in the lesson that asked, “Were you excited about the problem?”, to which students’ responses were “close to 50-50.” In the debrief, the coach directed the teacher’s attention to students’ responses to this question, which led to a sustained discussion of student engagement.
We argue that this discussion may not have occurred or been as productive absent the meta-coach’s support. We regard meta-coaching as a promising approach for supporting coaches’ learning that offers the sort of intensive, sustained, and focused support that coaches require. We will demonstrate the promise of meta-coaching and discuss limitations tied to its expensive and labor-intensive nature.

Authors

• Michael Jarry-Shore, North Carolina State University

• Hilda Borko, Stanford University

• Meghan Smith Durkin, Stanford University

• Marsha M. Ing, University of California - Riverside

• Thomas M. Smith, University of California - Davis