Is It Working?
May 2019
As coaches, there is one big question we should be frequently asking ourselves:
Is the PL and support we provide working?
Are we effective? (Okay, that’s two questions - but related.)
Just as we would analyze data in the classroom and adjust for student learning, we must also analyze data and adjust how we support teachers.
First, the data - What kind of data are you collecting on teacher learning?
Participation?
Participation data can tell you quite a lot. Are teachers motivated to participate in PL? Are they excited? Passionate?
Encouraging and successfully gaining teacher participation is a win all by itself. Many teachers are disengaged in anything remotely connected to PL because they’ve had unpleasant (diplomatic phrase choice) experiences in PL. If your goal is to increase teacher participation, then analyzing that data is huge.
It’s also, really, a first step in truly evaluating the effectiveness and results of PL and support.
So let’s dig deeper into implementation data and student results.
A recent conversation with a Coaching Colleague about the Standards for Professional Learning and evaluating professional learning has had me hyper-focused on how we know if PL is working.
There are a few things I’d like you to consider - is the PL and support you provide evidence-based? Meaning, do teachers provide evidence of implementation - videos, pictures, documents, etc.? And do you discuss student results and outcomes as a part of that evidence? Do teachers analyze and reflect on how it went with this new strategy or approach? Do they determine next steps for further growth?
And also - Do you collect data of teachers who have implemented PL? Do you have those follow-up conversations (questions, really) on what they have tried and how you can support them further?
And here’s the wake-up call.
If the data is not favorable - if teachers are not growing, if students are not growing - what can you, the coach, do differently to support that teacher to, in turn, support each of their students? How can you approach PL differently? Perhaps they are not getting the support they need as an adult learner (check out Elena Aguilar’s “Mind the Gap”). Just as we would modify to support learning with students in a classroom, we must change how we are providing PL in order to support adult learners in various stages.
Because, if it’s not effective, what are we doing?
What other kinds of data could be important to collect? As a coach, how do you use that PL data to adjust your coaching and better support teachers along their PL journey?
- Ginny
References:
Aguilar, Elena. The key to working with adult learners: Mind the gap. Education week teacher. https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coaching_teachers/2018/02/the_key_to_working_with_adult_.html
Learning Forward. Standards for professional learning. https://learningforward.org/standards