A Week in the Life

In last week’s post, The Times They Are A-Changin’, I referenced a blogpost written by Margaret Goldberg, literacy coach and cofounder of The Right to Read Project.  In her post, Goldberg expressed her frustration in a lack of clarity in a literacy coach’s role.

As I digest her writing for the third or fourth time, I think Goldberg is sharing two competing thoughts:  1)  the role of a coach is fluid:  “I’ve come to think of this as the real work of coaching — not choosing a model and sticking to it, but knowing which model the moment requires.” and 2)  the role of a coach needs a tight definition with clear parameters:  “Coaching has the potential to improve instruction at scale. But we can’t professionalize a job we haven’t bothered to define.”

IF I am interpreting her intention correctly, that she believes two competing ideas to be true at the same time, I couldn’t agree more (and even if my interpretation is off the mark, I am not going to disagree with Margaret Goldberg!).

Goldberg shares the following table to illustrate different models of coaching that she has experienced in her 10 years as a literacy coach:

The Role of a Coach is Fluid

In a week’s time, I find myself rolling in and out of several of those models.  I fall into the “Monitoring” model when conducting walkthroughs to collect data on implementation of The Writing Revolution strategies.  I fall into “Learning” and “Implementing” as I model The Writing Revolution sentence-level strategies, UFLI lessons and Word Connections lessons with students for our 7th-12th grade Special Education teachers.  I fall into “Managing Change” as I attend and (sometimes) co-deliver professional development around The Writing Revolution, secondary transition for special education, IEP (individual education plans) goal-writing, designing SDI (specially designed instruction), and PM (progress monitoring).

In an earlier model of coaching, before being assigned to specific teacher teams, I fell into the “Therapy” model of coaching, where working with a coach was optional.  Although these coaching cycles were fairly pleasant and productive, as a teachers sought out my support, they did not make large-scale impact on student or teacher learning.

The Role of a Coach Needs a Tight Definition with Clear Parameters

When I was hired as a literacy coach in 2018, and for several years after, I was evaluated on and maintained records of my coaching work as it aligned with the Teacher Leader Model Standards as described on this page in my blog.  In fact, I still “assign” those standards that are addressed in each and every blogpost that I write.  I’m not sure when the use of these standards for coaching evaluation fell by the wayside, but they are not currently used for my evaluations.  I maintain them as tags in my blog because I continue to see value in their descriptions.

To Goldberg’s point, if instructional coaches are to be recognized as professionals, they need clearly defined standards that define their role, and they need to be held accountable to those standards.  Goldberg points out that “Coaching appears in nearly every successful school, district, and state improvement plan.”  If that is the case, then instructional coaches indeed should be “part of schools’ infrastructure.”

A Week in the Life of an Instructional Coach

To put these two competing ideas to the test, I ran a recent/typical week through both ideas (1) the model of coaching aligns with what the moment requires and 2) the role of a coach needs a tight definition with clear parameters – I’m using the previously mentioned Teacher Leader Standards/Domains:

Activity	Coaching Model(s)	Coaching Standard(s)/Domains
Collaborate with SPED Teacher around goals, SDI, and PM	Learning Implementing	Domain I Domain II Domain IV Domain V
Work with students to graph progress on goals	Learning Implementing	Domain I Domain II Domain IV Domain V Domain VII
View webinar:  “Improving Reading Results: From Assessment to Action”	Learning	Domain III
Attend a grade level PLC; offer input regarding a method for assessing figurative language identification and usage	Learning Managing Change	Domain I Domain II Domain IV Domain V
Administer reading diagnostic assessments for a student with an IEP	Managing Change  Implementing	Domain II Domain IV Domain VII
Collaborate with Area Education Agency personnel to discuss proposed changes to student goals	Managing Change  Implementing	Domain II Domain IV Domain V
Analyze and write a summary of the findings from the reading diagnostic assessments	Managing Change  Implementing	Domain II Domain IV Domain VII
Model UFLI lessons for SPED teachers	Learning Implementing	Domain I Domain II Domain IV Domain V
Sort Bridges math intervention materials for building SPED teachers		Domain IV Domain V
Collaborate with administration at a weekly coach/admin meeting to calibrate TWR implementation efforts, plan for upcoming state assessments, and plan for Guiding Coalition data analaysis	Learning Managing Change Implementing	Domain I Domain III Domain IV Domain V
Print Bridges math intervention materials and organize manipulatives for a SPED teacher		Domain IV Domain V
Observe teachers implement Writing Revolution sentence-level strategies	Monitoring Managing Change  Implementing	Domain I Domain II Domain IV Domain V
Deliver SDI while SPED teacher attends meeting		Domain I Domain IV
Write a proposal for student IEP goals based on diagnostic summary	Learning Implementing	Domain II Domain IV Domain VII
Sort student goal areas and SDI by schedule for a SPED teacher	Learning Managing Change Implementing	Domain II Domain IV Domain V
Attend PD session with two SPED teachers to learn about online curriculum for Career and Technical Education	Learning Implementing	Domain I Domain II Domain IV Domain V

So What?

I suppose this post is a justification of sorts.  As our district moves forward with the decision to decrease from six instructional coaches to four, I puzzle over alignment between that decision and the district’s ability to build and strengthen a robust system of operation including critical components like:

• Strengthening Tier 1 instruction
• Facilitating collaboration among teacher teams
• Using data to make system-level decisions
• Connecting professional development to system needs
• Aligning tiers of instruction
• Using assessments to drive instruction

As every minute of every day – and often far beyond the school day – is filled with activities like those outlined in the chart above, coaches are, in fact, a vital part of schools’ infrastructure.  This work cannot be handed off to already overworked teachers and administrators.

The following quote from a School Spotlight in It’s Possible by Pati Montgomery and Angela Hanlin, further strengthens this “justification” to maintain instructional coaches as part of schools’ infrastructure:

From Joyce and Showers (2002), we know the likelihood that an educator will put something into practice without ongoing coaching and administrator support is close to 0 percent, but with the coach and administrator’s support, the likelihood of implementation is 95%.