Source:The Annenberg Institute for School Reform

Instructional Coaching

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform

Summary from the 17 page pdf file.

Coaching aligns with the Institute’s interrelated focal areas for systemwide school improvement: district redesign, leadership, opportunity and accountability, and community-centered education reform. Indeed, effective coaching incorporates an array of interrelated approaches we advocate that promote coherence, focus, and alignment at multiple levels of a school system:

• Investment in human capital Effective coaches and coaching structures build instructional and leadership capacity by applying what is known about adult learning and change theory.
• Sustainability Coaching supports the systemic improvement efforts of school communities that push beyond individual teacher behavior or even the work of an individual school.
• Equity and internal accountability Coaching holds the potential to address inequities in opportunities for teacher and student learning by providing differentiated, targeted supports. The structures and culture that well-implemented coaching models promote can increase collective responsibility throughout a school system for students and their learning.
• Connecting school and district In cases where coaches are effective liaisons between school practice and district initiatives, emerging evidence shows that they can facilitate professional learning that supports systemwide initiatives more powerfully.

The Institute believes that – when employed and supported effectively – instructional coaching enhances district professional development systems by providing school and central office personnel with sustained, targeted supports to build knowledge, improve practice, and promote student achievement.

Effective Coaching

The principles of instructional coaching are grounded in research on effective professional development and professional learning communities. Coaching appears to be a promising approach because it strives to blend what is known about effective professional development with school-based and school-specific needs regarding both content and school climate.

Evidence of increased student learning as a direct result of coaching is not yet well documented (Poglinco et al. 2003). But, as coaching is increasingly used and its impact measured, researchers expect more and more links to be established between coaching and student achievement. A growing body of research suggests that coaching is a promising element of effective professional development in some of the following ways.

• Effective coaching encourages collaborative, reflective practice

Coaching shifts professional learning from direct instruction outside the context of practice (such as workshops and conferences) to more varied opportunities to improve discipline-specific practice. Most studies show that coaching leads to improvements in instructional capacity. For instance, teachers apply their learning more deeply, frequently, and consistently than teachers working alone; teachers improve their capacity to reflect; and teachers apply their learning not only to their work with students, but also to their work with each other (Neufeld and Roper 2003; Poglinco et al. 2003).

• Effective embedded professional learning promotes positive cultural change

The impact of coaching often goes beyond improving content instruction. The conditions, behaviors, and practices required by an effective coaching program can affect the culture of a school or system, thus embedding instructional change within broader efforts to improve school-based culture and conditions (Neufeld and Roper 2003).

• A focus on content encourages the use of data analysis to inform practice

Effective coaching programs respond to particular needs suggested by data, allowing improvement efforts to target issues such as closing achievement gaps, supporting teachers across career stages, and advocating for equity (e.g., through differentiated instruction). A coaching program guided by data helps both to create coherence within a school and to bridge different levels of the system (Barr, Simmons, and Zarrow 2003) by focusing on strategic areas of need that are suggested by evidence, rather than by individual and sometimes conflicting opinions. Coaches can then be chosen who have the content expertise and organizational development capacity to lead their “cadres” toward more effective practice in these areas of need at various levels of the educational system.

• Coaching promotes the implementation of learning and reciprocal accountability

Coaching is an embedded, visible support – usually funded by the district – that attempts to respond to student and teacher needs in ongoing, consistent, dedicated ways. The likelihood of using new learning and sharing responsibility rises when colleagues, guided by a coach, work together and hold each other accountable for improved teaching and learning (Barr, Simmons, and Zarrow 2003; Coggins, Stoddard, and Cutler 2003; WestEd 2000). And because instructional coaching takes place in a natural setting – the classroom rather than a hotel ballroom – observation, learning, and experimentation can occur in real situations (Neufeld and Roper 2003).

• Coaching supports collective, interconnected leadership across a school system

An essential feature of coaching is that it uses the relationships between coaches, principals, and teachers to create the conversation that leads to behavioral, pedagogical, and content knowledge change. Effective coaching distributes leadership, supporting the goals of effective principals through the coaches by keeping the focus on teaching and learning. This focus promotes the development of leadership skills, professional learning, and support for teachers that target ways to improve student outcomes (Lyons and Pinnell 2001). Research findings indicate that effective coaching structures promote a collaborative culture where large numbers of school personnel feel ownership and responsibility for leading improvement efforts in teaching and learning. Coaching attends to the “social infrastructure” issues of schools and systems (Payne 1 9 9 8) that often impede the deep and lasting change that school reform requires. These issues include school climate, teacher isolation, insufficient support, and limited instructional and leadership capacity. The attempt to address these critical elements of school quality by incorporating new understandings of effective professional development is a primary reason that coaching holds significant promise toward improving teaching and learning in urban schools (Neufeld and Roper 2003).

What Does Instructional Coaching Look Like?

Instructional coaching is fundamentally about teachers, teacher leaders, school administrators, and central office leaders examining practice in reflective ways, with a strong focus on student learning and results as the ultimate barometer of improvement. In instructional coaching (sometimes referred to as content-based coaching), teacher leaders, or coaches, facilitate and guide a school-based professional learning program for groups of teachers in specific content areas.These groups focus on the intersection of school and student needs and district reform initiatives with the goal of building a professional learning community that supports collective leadership, continuous improvement of teaching practice, and, ultimately, improved student learning.

A well-designed coaching system exhibits three key components:

1. Structural conditions that support effective coaching, which include but are not necessarily limited to
• clearly articulated district initiatives and goals that are directly linked to expected coaching outcomes
• a content focus (such as literacy)
• structural guidelines (coaching is for groups rather than individuals)
• systematic measurement of work and impact (data and evidence documentation)
• a generally accepted set of principles for adult learning, including collaborative, ongoing, job-embedded work that is actively constructed and refined by participants
• dedicated time for teacher groups to meet, learn together, analyze their work, observe each other, collect evidence of their work and its impact, and refine their practice
2. A guided, content-based focus on adult learning in a school-based professional learning environment that enables coaches to
• focus on data- and evidenceinformed learning
• promote adult learning in a way that models classroom practice
• construct and apply knowledge and skills in the classrooms of participating teachers
• develop school and teacher learning plans that focus on content and leadership
• make connections and ensure alignment with the larger system
• continuously measure, document, reflect upon, and adjust professional learning opportunities
3. Instructional leadership by coaches who typically
• observe instruction and provide feedback to teachers
• construct opportunities for groups of teachers to observe each other
• structure time for teachers to discuss their learning from classroom observations, modeled lessons, etc.
• model particular instructional strategies for individuals or groups of teachers
• employ multiple strategies to gather and analyze student evidence with teachers
• facilitate teacher meetings during professional development time, common planning time, etc.
• support teachers in group, and, if necessary, individual settings
• engage in their own learning with other coaches and content specialists to improve their work

Coaches must be knowledgeable about not only their content area, but also district reform goals, achievement standards, and adult learning. Meeting such a range of goals requires that coaches possess strong communication and interpersonal skills, consistently follow through with support for teachers, and demonstrate a willingness to listen and learn (Neufeld and Roper 2003).The degree to which coaches possess these skills impacts the success of standards-based instruction in the classroom and the quality of links to district supports and broader school reform efforts; emerging evidence shows that teachers’ success at changing practice mirrors the work of the coaches (Neufeld and Roper 2003; Poglinco et al. 2003).

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Last modified: December 23, 2004

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