School and district leaders' recommendations for implementing effective classroom coaching programs¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Based on DLP evidence, the report recommends that school and district leaders work with their coach to build better partnerships (promote teacher buy-in, voluntary participation, teacher-set goals, protected coaching time, and coach-teacher confidentiality kept separate from formal evaluation), promote teachers' active learning through frequent in-school-day sense-making opportunities, personalize support, ensure sustained follow-up time for coaches, and provide subject-specific support where the teacher remains the content expert while the coach advises on strategies and tools.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Coaches need time in their schedules to provide sustained follow-up and informal support to teachers

Constraints¶

• The report states coaching should be kept separate from a teacher's formal evaluation and coach-teacher confidentiality respected

Target Learners¶

• school leaders
• district administrators
• instructional coaches

Target Learning Goals¶

• implementing and sustaining effective classroom technology coaching programs

Related Strategies¶

• Hold a kick-off event aligning coaching with school and district goals, and leverage early volunteers' testimonials to build teacher buy-in
• Engage district leaders as they implement a coaching program
• Provide clear guidance to coaches when implementing a districtwide coaching program
• Track coaching activities to support districtwide coaching implementation
• Protect confidentiality and a non-evaluative stance so teachers trust the coach-teacher relationship
• Protect coaches' time so the majority is spent directly with teachers
• Recommendations for adopting and sustaining high-quality coaching
• Design coaching programs as a systemic collective enterprise with shared vision, recruited and developed coaches, and continuous evaluation
• Integrate bilingualism into all instructional settings through districtwide professional learning and in-service coaching
• Sustain educator learning through schoolwide, network, and districtwide approaches that embed professional learning across the system
• Support school leaders in low-satisfaction schools to develop coaching skills and implement evaluations in ways that encourage instructional improvement

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Bakhshaei, M., Hardy, A., Ravitz, J., & Seylar, J. (2019). Scaling Up Classroom Coaching for Impactful Technology Use: Results from Year 2 of the Dynamic Learning Project. Digital Promise. https://digitalpromise.dspacedirect.org/items/79337f05-0795-4bac-b1d7-f4758c23285c. doi:10.51388/20.500.12265/82