Running Head: COACHING JOURNAL

Coaching Journal

Margareta Tripsa

PL & Technology Innovation (ITEC7460)

Kennesaw State University

Ed. S. Instructional Technology, Spring 2017

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Coaching Session 1: February 5th, 2017

Enrolling and Needs Assessment

Strategies:

I have approached my colleague by employing the 3-Step Coaching Model developed

by Knight (2015): identify, learn, and improve. The 3-Step Coaching Model was

designed around the idea of helping coaches communicate proactively, lead

effectively, and work in systems that foster meaningful professional learning that has

an impact on student achievement. Two important components of the first step

(Identify) are identifying a student-focused goal and identifying a teaching strategy to

be used to hit the goal. It all started with an informal conversation in the lounge when

the social studies teacher shared that she was supposed to teach information

communication technology (ICT) classes and she has no ICT training. When I

informally shared with her that the previous teacher started by having her students

create websites, she confessed that she has never created one. She shared with me

that the Information Technology (IT) director shared with her some standards, but

when I asked her if the standards the IT director shared with her were the

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards, she did not know

the answer. This happened on February 5th. I immediately realized that this young

teacher needed help pretty quickly. I also realized that by helping her through

coaching, I would kill two birds with a stone: provide her the help she needed and

also meet my course requirements. She was very excited to enroll in coaching and we

decided to meet in my room two days later to discuss further.

For the second meeting, I adapted one of Knights resources called Are You

Interested? By including the components of the Big Four framework (behavior,

instruction, content, and formative assessment), I targeted the four main components
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of instruction in order to perform a quick needs analysis. This forms helped both the

teacher and I to focus our attention on specific areas. We analyzed the data collected

via this form together and we noted that Ms. B. did not need any help in regards to

behavior or classroom management. However, because of her lack of experience and

lack of training, it was apparent that there were several critical aspects that she needed

help with: (1) publishing opportunities for students, (2) building a course syllabus, (3)

collaboration opportunities for students, (4) quick formative assessment tools. We

agreed that although the lack of a syllabus would typically be a priority because it was

February, we decided to postpone this need and address it towards the end of the year

when we could work on designing a syllabus for next school year. Ms. B. was highly

interested in setting up short-term goals and working towards reaching them as soon

as possible.

Skill and Affective Changes

My first interactions with Ms. B. via our preliminary coaching sessions have been

very productive. We took the opportunity to connect both professionally and

personally. As a veteran teacher who has been part of the founding faculty, I shared

with her the history of our young school and the schools approach to technology

integration. Ms. B. was very eager to embark on the coaching journey. Our

preliminary conversations were rather long, but these conversations helped us

establish a solid foundation for our future coaching sessions and delineate clear

priorities, which made Ms. B. feel less overwhelmed.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution:

I was very excited to have the opportunity to help out and coach Ms. B. Finding time

when both of us were available was not an issue. We decided to meet every Tuesday

and we scheduled our coaching sessions via Google Calendar. The biggest challenge
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was addressing all her pressing needs in a short period of time. We solved this

problem by prioritizing her needs. An important consensus we reached, which helped

frame our coaching sessions, was the need to work towards reaching several goals at

the same time as opposed to addressing a single goal and working during consecutive

coaching sessions on resolving that single particular need before starting to work on

the next one. Therefore we decided to work on (1) publishing opportunities for

students and (2) quick formative assessment tools during the next five sessions.

During the following sessions we would loop back and try to refine practice and work

on additional skills and it would result from our coaching sessions.

Coaching Session 2: February 7th, 2017

Google Sites

Strategies:

The two most important components of the second step of Knights (2015) 3-Step

Coaching model (Learn) are (1) coaching to provide modeling and (2) the teacher

setting time to implement the practice. During this coaching meeting, I have modeled

for her the process of creating a website with Google sites. I also pointed out the

benefits of giving the students the opportunity to publish online and how she could

use it in her social studies classes, as well. We discussed the importance of giving

students choice when it came to creating the pages for their websites and how she

could guide them in making those choices. In addition, we discussed the value of

fostering students creativity while they publish for authentic audiences. One final

aspect we discussed was the importance of teaching her students digital citizenship

and online safety. The three most important components of the third step (Improve)

are the implementation of the practice by the teacher, the gathering of the data on
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teachers implementation practice, and the conversation that follows with the purpose

of improving practice. I have observed Ms. B. implementing the practice on February

14th. This observation was followed by a coaching session when we discussed the

implementation and we set up new goals.

Skill and Affective Changes

While observing Ms. B., I have noticed her students excitement to design their own

websites. Ms. B. did a great job teaching her students about internet safety, digital

citizenship, and online publishing. It was also apparent that Ms. B. encouraged her

students to take ownership of the website design process and eventually, of they

learning. Ms. B. felt that having her students create websites was an important first

step in the journey of helping her students meet the ISTE standards for students.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution:

One of the challenges was the fact that Ms. B. was unsure whether she wanted to use

the Classic Google Sites, or the New Google Sites. Knight (2015) noted that if

partners are equal, if they choose what they do and dont do, it stands to reason that

they should be free to say what they think, and that their opinions count. (p. 12)

Taking these principles into consideration, I presented Ms. B. with the advantages and

disadvantages of using both the New and the Classic Sites and I showed her samples.

She chose, initially, to go with the New Sites, but only after she finished creating a

sample site she realized she would rather go with the Classic Sites. Although it took

additional time, she was pleased to learn new skills and have a clear understanding of

both options in order to best guide her students. It was also important for her to see

that she had a voice and was encouraged to make choices.

Reflecting on my coaching practice, I would note that the surveys I administered to

Ms. B. really helped me be more responsive to her needs. The first survey I
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administered to Ms. B. had the purpose of helping me identify her Level of

Technology Integration (LoTI) and understand her perspective in regards to

technology integration. To collect data regarding Ms. B.s new innovations adoption

level, I have administered to her a nine-question survey. After analyzing her

responses, I concluded that Ms. B. would most likely identify herself as being part of

the early majority group. Therefore, I concluded that she is open to new ideas and

eager to embrace change if shown the advantages and benefits of doing so.

Coaching Session 3: February 28th, 2017

Formative Assessment Tools and Accreditation

Strategies:

This session was about formative assessment tools. Knight (2007) noted that

importance of students receiving extensive targeted feedback and being aware of how

close they are to their goal. (p. 169) He exemplified this by describing how attracted

young people are to video games because these games offer them immediate feedback

and ongoing formative data in regards to how far they are from their goals. During

this coaching session we talked about the importance of involving students in

assessments and the importance of teacher-student constructed success criteria and of

child-friendly rubrics. Afterwards, I moved on to talking about tools that Ms. B. could

use in her social studies class for formative assessment. Some of the tools I shared

with her were Google Forms, Kahoot, Todays Meet, and Padlet. During this

coaching session I started employing once again Knights (2015) 3-Step Coaching

Model: Identify, Learn, and Improve. Since we have identified the need for formative

assessment tools in our preliminary meetings, this session was about learning new

strategies and tools for checking student understanding throughout the lessons. By
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using the I Do It, We Do It, You Do It instructional approach, we explored the

assessment tools mentioned above. Knight (2007) asserted that, I Do It, We Do It,

You Do It is a simple way of helping teachers structure instruction so that students

see a model, get a chance to test their knowledge, and then have a chance to practice

their new knowledge. (p. 164)

During our fifth coaching session we were supposed to discuss the implementation of

formative assessments in her lessons. However, we had to drop our plans as Ms. B.

needed help with gathering specific evidence for accreditation purposes. As Vision

International School has been undergoing an accreditation process, all teachers were

required to provide evidence in regards to instruction, differentiation practices, and

assessment practices. Therefore our fifth meeting revolved around coaching Ms. B. in

regards to where she could find the directions of what needed to be uploaded for

different committees, how she could find the best evidence, and how she could take

screenshots and submit her evidence.

Skill and Affective Changes:

During this coaching session, it was apparent that Ms. B. got a good grasp of the use

of Google Forms, Kahoot, Padlet, and Todays Meet for formative assessment

purposes. In addition, as Ms. B. has been successfully incorporating higher level

thinking skills into her assessments and has been utilizing Blooms Taxonomy, the

conversation about the Webbs Depth of Knowledge added another layer of rigor to

her assessments design and enriched her teaching toolbox. Ms. B. was appreciative of

my flexibility to guide her with the accreditation work, as well, although that meant

we had to readjust our plans.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution:

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The challenge I faced during these last two sessions was the need to drop our

coaching plan and address a completely different need. In my opinion, coaches need

to be flexible and need be willing to adapt or change their strategies and focus on the

fly. Knight (2007) also talks about the importance of coaches not getting overly

involved in their coaching plans and therefore, of being able to improvise and make

changes as needed.

Friedman (2010) noted that, "coaching, to put it simply, is the process of helping

others to improve performance now and developing their capacity to perform well in

the future." I have enjoyed the opportunity to coach Ms. B. and this growth

opportunity has been to be a positive experience for both of us.

Knight, Elford, Hock, Dunekack, Bradley, Deshler, Donald, Knight (2015) posited

that, instructional coaches who use a proven coaching cycle can partner with

teachers to set and reach improvement goals that have an unmistakable, positive

impact on students lives. And that should be the measure of the effectiveness of any

coaching program. (p. 18) I firmly believe that the coaching sessions I started

conducting would have a positive impact both on the teacher I have been coaching

and the students at my school. One thing I learned while engaging in these coaching

sessions was that coaching individual teachers could be very rewarding. Coaching

can definitely generate more positive results than the traditional whole-school training

sessions. Episodic, periodic, or occasional professional learning has little effect on

educator practice or student learning because it rarely includes ongoing support or

opportunities for extended learning to support implementation. (Learning Forwards)

Coaching allows the implementation of strategies that target specific needs and has

the power to generate transformational changes.

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References:

Friedman, S. (2010). How to cultivate a peer coaching network. Harvard Business

Review - HBR Blog Network. Retrieved from

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/cultivate_your_coaching_networ.html

Instructional Coaching. Retrieved April 10, 2017 from

http://www.instructionalcoaching.com/downloads/pdfs/AreYouInterested.pdf

Knight, Elford, Hock, Dunekack, Bradley, Deshler, Donald, Knight (2015). 3 steps to

great coaching: A simple but powerful instructional coaching cycle nets

results. Journal of Staff Development, 36(1), 10-18.

Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: a partnership approach to improving

instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: NSDC.

Learning Forwards. https://learningforward.org/standards/implementation Retrieved

April 10, 2017

Webb, Norman L. and others. Web Alignment Tool 24 July 2005. Wisconsin

Center of Educational Research. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved

April 10,, 2017 from https://static.pdesas.org/content/documents/M1-

Slide_19_DOK_Wheel_Slide.pdf