Provide job-embedded professional learning with coaching, and keep coaches nonevaluative¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

For targeting professional learning opportunities, the guide's practice description calls for districts to "Offer regular opportunities for job-embedded learning, including coaching, mentoring, and observation/peer observation" and to leverage high-performing teachers, coaches, and leaders as models and peer coaches. For coaching programs, it advises districts to "Clarify that coaches are not evaluators: They are guides in promoting educators' capacity to impact students' learning and academic achievement," and to align professional learning with district and school priorities based on student achievement data.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Districtwide plans for school-based coaches; clear communication that coaching interactions are confidential and nonevaluative

Constraints¶

• Coaching effectiveness is to be correlated with student achievement as an open measurement question in the guide's reflection questions

Target Learners¶

• Teachers, instructional coaches, principals, district staff

Target Learning Goals¶

• Building educator capacity for rapid school improvement through job-embedded professional learning

Affordances¶

• Four Domains Rapid Improvement Framework Lea Guide

Related Strategies¶

• Sustained teacher professional development with coaching and professional learning communities
• Instructional Coaching
• Deliver school-based, job-embedded professional learning in varied well-matched formats
• Provide job-embedded coaching to school leaders to translate learning into sustainable practice
• Policy and practice recommendations for supporting evidence-based professional development
• Provide socially embedded, collaborative professional learning — mentoring, dialogue and reflective practice — for late-career teachers

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• The Center for School Turnaround and Improvement. (2025). Strategies and suggestions for local education agencies using the Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement framework. WestEd. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED673517