Supporting Teacher Growth & Development

Overview

Teachers at John Adams MS are coached in many ways (both formal and informal) to provide instructional feedback, and increase alignment to LCAP goals in our classrooms. According to the principal, the goal of all coaching is to build high performing teams at our school that coach each other to meet the needs of all students. This lines up with SMMUSD’s vision of “Extraordinary achievement for all students while simultaneously closing the achievement gap”. To support this, the district has recently passed initiatives focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Teachers get training on different topics throughout the year, but these trainings are rarely followed up through coaching or instructional feedback. These leads to diverse outcomes for informal and formal coaching, depending on the teacher.

The intended outcome of informal coaching is for teams of high performing teachers to work together to meet the needs of students. Teachers are coached with student work and student need at the forefront of informal coaching. To facilitate this goal, three types of informal coaching are available to teachers: PLC’s (Professional Learning Communities), Lesson Study, or working with an Instructional Coach. Teachers meet in PLC’s (Professional Learning Communities) by department to engage in cycles of inquiry throughout the year. Another practice that provides feedback to teachers is the use of “Lesson Study”. This process is done on a district level, with teachers from multiple sites voluntarily planning a lesson together, and then observing multiple teachers teach the same lesson in 3 different classrooms with the goal of improving every time. Ideally, Lesson Study opportunities happen 1-2 times per year for each department. Finally, there is an Instructional Coach who is available to work with teachers based on teacher interest. These processes depend on teachers coaching each other, and quality varies based on the interest and commitment of teachers participating. For example, in the science department, Lesson Study was done twice during the year, and was very effective in developing a lesson that engaged students (focusing on CSTP 3.4), but feedback from observations were surface level and did not dig deep into supporting and challenging student knowledge of the subject matter.

Formal observation is done by the principal and assistant principals. Evaluations are done biannually for tenured teachers, and yearly for probationary teachers, and are based on the CSTP’s (California Standards for the Teaching Profession). First year to the district teachers are evaluated based on CSTP Standard 1 and 3. Second year teachers are evaluated based on CSTP Standards 4 and 5. Tenured teachers work with the administration to pick 2-3 standards on their own, but chosen standards must include Standard 6. This process is not always completed on a consistent basis, with many tenured teachers not receiving feedback for 3-4 years.

Informal processes that are initiated by the teacher, such as working with the Instructional Coach, or participating in a Lesson study are generally effective. Teacher’s seek out these forms of feedback, with specific objectives in mind. PLC’s are not as effective. Meeting times for PLC’s are always changing, and often have members absent, or attending without doing their “part”. This stymies the move through a cycle of inquiry. Since informal coaching is teacher initiated, it often doesn’t match or follow school initiatives or district goals. The lack of consistent process makes these subgroup initiatives very easy to forget. Finally, the formal observation process is effective at evaluating newer teachers, and determining if they need more professional support in the first two years. However, veteran teachers often view evaluation as a checklist process – something that just has to be completed. These formal evaluations do match school initiatives, district goals, and include equity and inclusion. However, the inconsistency of the amount of formal evaluations makes this an ineffective way of helping promote these goals.

Overall, our practices should be based on Knowles Adult Learning Theory (1968). From this perspective, the “why” is necessary as a beginning point for coaching and feedback, while clearly stating the reasons for including equity and inclusion goals. Involving teachers in this will help increase the readiness of adult learners who have been disengaged from the process. Giving more control to teachers as well – for example, making PLC’s organized by topics that adult learners might be interested in versus automatically by department – will help engage adults by finding a topic they need to know to help their current classrooms, versus a department goal they might not be vested in.

I asked Ms. G to participate in the coaching process since we teach the same grade level and same content area. She knows that I am currently in the process of obtaining my administrative credential and agreed. We also have collaborated before, and she has stated that she enjoys collaborating because I can understand her specific areas of challenges related to content or grade level. This trust that has been built beforehand will help orient Ms. G to participate in my coaching process. Ms. G has participated in pre-observation meetings beforehand. I plan on listening to her student learning needs, and content-specific learning goals at the start of the meeting, and then matching a CSTP with her needs. From previous conversations, I know that she struggles with student engagement in the distance learning environment. Based on these previous conversations, I am assuming that her observation will focus on CSTP 3 or 4, but am going to let her needs determine the specific standard.

During the observation, I will be noting what the teacher says, and what the students are doing. This will help capture student engagement and teacher moves. One challenge will be observing all that is going on in the zoom classroom. The chat is an active way for students to participate, but is not visible to all observers. Given this, I know that we will have to watch the video in a way that aligns with the timestamps on the chat, and that I will have to do 2-3 observations. I will first have to observe the lesson live, as it is happening, and again after the fact to read the chat happening between the teacher and the students. I will still miss some of the prompting that might be done in the student’s document itself and look for prompts afterward. These prompts are often “resolved” by the students however, so I will have to open the comment history to see if students were prompted within the document. During the coaching process, the volunteer teacher and I will have to clearly decide which data is most relevant to her CSTP, so I can focus my attention on those areas.

Main Activities

Equity and inclusion is stated at the forefront of SMMUSD’s vision. Small changes have been started, but capacity building is still in progress. The biggest barrier to equity and inclusion at John Adams Middle School (JAMS) is the lack of a continuous improvement mindset in all our teachers and in our school culture. Many teachers will talk about “doing things the way we’ve always done them”, and “if the system works, why break it” as reasons for resisting change. To establish continuous improvement mindsets among our staff, equity and inclusion goals need to be strategically included in all types of coaching (informal and formal), and it needs to happen on a consistent basis – not just when the teacher chooses to do it. While some teachers do focus on continuous improvement to ensure equitable practices to meet the needs of their students, other teachers opt out, or focus on planning lessons to reuse in years to come. This fixed mindset keeps improvements from benefitting all students.

Currently, more teachers participate in informal coaching on a consistent basis than formal coaching– through Lesson Study, PLC meetings for one hour twice a month, and working with the instructional coach. However, since these are teacher initiated, they only consider areas of equity and inclusion when it is brought up by the teacher. The coaching processes does not have equity goals, and many well-intentioned teachers can gloss over subgroups that are low-performing and focus on the overall score of students. In contrast, looking at subgroups specifically unveils inequitable practices. For example, the volunteer teacher talked about participating in the Lesson Study last year, and how the teachers looked at student’s ability to analyze a graph showing populations in an ecosystem. The group focused on overall percentage of students passing to design a lesson to meet this need. While the groups work definitely helped analyze learning strategies to help students, they might have missed subgroups that were struggling despite different teaching strategies. So although these strategies are successful at engaging teachers, and definitely benefit students by improving instruction, they improve instruction for all students. Coaches and I need to embed protocols in these processes that look at these subgroups data. Consistent use of these protocols will over time help teachers focus on these subgroups and build capacity toward supporting all students.

An analysis of teacher leaders working as instructional coaches at different school sites by Jacobs, Beck, and Crowell in 2014 found that the first step part of creating change at school sites was the need for a trusting relationship with the other teachers to bring up difficult conversations around deficit beliefs. This is something that exists person by person at my school site, but there is not a school culture of trust at the staff level. As an equitable leader, I need to focus on building relationships with others before tackling these difficult conversations.

Based on this research, improving coaching (both formally and informally) needs to be a multi-pronged approach – with protocols and more time scheduled for all teaching staff to participate in coaching, as well as time to build trust and relationships between the staff. Our school has recently started small scaled implementing circles and restorative justice practices for our students – this could be held with our staff on a regular basis. Having a chance to get to know each other, and learn the “why” from each of our staff members can help build the trust on our campus. Simultaneously, I need to ensure that informal coaching and formal coaching processes have protocols that focus on subgroups embedded. Using these protocols consistently will help more and more staff learn these strategies, and use the process of looking at subgroup data in their own daily practice. These changes will help coaching and feedback be more equitable over time, and help all teachers be open to a continuous improvement mindset.

CAPES

Supporting Documents