Integrating Classroom Practical Measures in One-on-One Coaching

• In Event: Using a System of Practical Measures, Routines, and Representations to Support Instructional Improvement at Scale

Abstract

Objectives: Practical measures enable practitioners to determine whether a change in practice is an improvement. In this paper, we investigate whether practical measures of the classroom learning environment can also enhance the effectiveness of supports for teachers’ learning (e.g., teacher collaboration, content-focused coaching) beyond determining whether a change is an improvement. Specifically, we focus on a practical measure designed to assess key aspects of whole-class mathematics discussions and examine whether mathematics coaches’ use of the measure in coaching cycles enhanced their capacity to support teachers’ learning.

Theoretical perspectives: Engaging mathematics teachers in coaching cycles can support them in improving their instructional practices (Russell et al., 2020). Coaching cycles consist of three phases: a lesson planning phase, a lesson enactment phase, and a lesson debrief phase. Here, we focus on coaches’ use of practical measures in the debrief. Effective debriefs involve: (a) determining what students learned in the course of a lesson and (b) analyzing instruction to explain that learning (Author, 2020). By conducting this kind of analysis, coaches and teachers can identify strengths and weaknesses of a lesson, and thus identify areas for teachers’ improvement of their instruction. We conjectured that analyzing classroom practical measures data in debriefs could enable coaches and teachers to (a) better account for the students’ learning with regard to instruction and thus (b) better identify areas for future improvement.

Methods and Data Sources: We examined the following data from 14 coaching cycles in which a coach and teacher analyzed practical measures data while debriefing: audio-recordings of the debriefs, interviews with coaches prior to the debrief in which coaches described their intended use of the practical measures data, and separate interviews with coaches and teachers after the debriefs in which they described their takeaways. To investigate our conjectures, we identified episodes of talk in the debriefs in which the coach and teacher discussed the practical measure data. We then examined these episodes to determine whether and how analyzing the practical measures data resulted in conclusions about instruction and areas for improvement that would not have arisen otherwise.

Results: We identified 61 distinct episodes in which coaches and teachers discussed practical measures data. In eight of the episodes, discussing the data enabled the coaches and teachers to better account for students’ learning with regard to instruction. In four of the episodes, discussing practical measures data gave rise to areas for improvement that were unlikely to come up without the data. Additionally, we found that the extent to which the analysis of practical measures data enhanced the debrief conversation appeared to depend on whether the coaches pressed and supported teachers in linking students’ perceptions of the classroom learning environment to instructional decisions that they had made.

Significance: Our findings indicate that data from classroom practical measures can contribute to instructional improvement efforts beyond determining whether a change is an improvement. However, these additional contributions appear contingent on coaches’ expertise in connecting students’ learning to (students’ perceptions of) the classroom learning environment, and thus to the teacher’s instruction.

Authors

• Nicholas Kochmanski, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Paul A. Cobb, Vanderbilt University