CoachingUP: Using inquiry to set goals for children, plan intentional interactions, and prompt reflective understanding

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Prevention and Interventions

Abstract

Coaching UP is an inquiry-based, responsive coaching intervention, focused on promoting children’s social emotional and cognitive development. The coaches use inquiry to collaborate with teachers and families to notice children’s abilities and interests and to set intentional goals to promote their development. Coaches ask teachers questions to plan high-quality interactions, embedded within daily routines to promote children’s engagement and higher-order thinking skills (e.g., cause and effect, comparisons, predictions). They integrate brief learning modules within iterative coaching cycles to build on teachers’ knowledge and ask questions to prompt reflective understanding.

Seventy-three classrooms (35-intervention; 38-control) across 24 Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership (EHS-CCP) programs participated in the RCT, which was conducted across two cohorts. In anticipation of the conference, we will examine the impact for both cohorts together. Currently, we have only examined the data for Cohort 1 and are preparing the Cohort 2 data for analyses. Here, we share preliminary results for Cohort 1.

Cohort 1 Findings
The 39 participating teachers (20 intervention and 4 control classrooms), ranged from 25 to 61 years of age (M= 40.5). Fifty-one percent of teachers self-reported their race as white, 38% Black, 8% mixed, 3% as “other.” The majority of teachers identified as Hispanic (60%) and 47% identified Spanish as their primary language. About 63% of teachers had a CDA.

To examine the effectiveness of CoachingUP, reliable observers, blind to the classroom conditions, used the Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Toddler (CLASS-T; LaParo, Hamre & Pianta, 2012) to conduct observations of teacher-child interaction quality. The CLASS is comprised of two domains: Emotional and Behavioral Support (EBS), which measures the expression of emotions, sensitivity of the teacher, and the degree to which teachers support the children’s independence and behavior regulation, and Engaged Support for Learning (ESL), which measures the teacher’s facilitation of experiences and feedback to promote understanding, as well as the quality and amount of language used.

We compared gains in teacher-child interaction quality between classrooms randomly assigned to “coaching” and those in the “no coaching” group for Cohort 1. Gains in EBS and ESL were significantly higher in classrooms with teachers who participated in coaching, compared to those who did not participate in coaching. In advance of the conference, we will replicate these analyses including the Cohort 2 data.

This study provides initial evidence for a unique coaching approach centered around noticing children’s abilities and interests and setting intentional goals to support their development. We used inquiry to collaborate with teachers in planning high-quality interactions to support goals for children. Despite not explicitly focusing our coaching on improving teacher’s practices, we were able to impact teacher-child interaction quality. Children in coaching classrooms experienced significantly higher teacher-child interaction quality than children in “no coaching” classrooms. The CoachingUP intervention positively impacted teacher-child interactions quality, which provides children with an advantage in engagement and learning.

Authors

• Veronica A. Fernandez, University of Miami
  Presenting Author

• Johayra Bouza, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Claudia Perez, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dorothy Sanchez, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Silvia Niño, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daryl B Greenfield, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author