NRC Listserv Discussion on Literacy Coaching, March 2007
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NRC Listserv Discussion on Literacy Coaching, March 2007
1. Dear Colleagues,
1. I have been asked to teach a course on literacy coaching and would like to hear from those of you who have taught such a course. How did you approach the course? What worked and what did not? Please email me privately with your suggestions. This course will be taught online so, please share your experiences teaching an online course.
I look forward to hearing from you. Eury Bauer -- Dr. Eurydice Bauer Associate Professor University of Illinois 1310 South 6th Street Room 397 Education Building Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 333-4664 * fax (217) 244-4572 email [email protected]
2. From: Michelle Commeyras
Eury,
Visit my livejournal page at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pulane/
3. From: William Teale [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 7:18 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Literacy Coaching [email protected]
Hello All,
I am thinking that a number of us would be interested in this discussion, so why not conduct it through the listserv? I teach a course on Literacy Leadership, and coaching is one aspect of it, but I have never done an entire course in coaching per se. Also, I am now conducting an Early Reading First project in which we have coaches working in preschool classrooms approx 30 hours per week and know there are others on the NRC listserv who are involved with ERF projects.
There is so little research on coaching for literacy currently available that I think it would be great to hear what is happening out there.
4. M. Trika Smith-Burke wrote: > > Bill > Unless there are folks who are bothered by the coaching emails, I for > one would like to continue this discussion on the NRC listserve. If > we get feedback that others would like us to leave the listserve then > I think your idea is a good one. > > Trika Smith-Burke
5. All, I'm enjoying this discussion although I'm only lurking. Please continue. Karen Smith
6. email: [email protected]
To all:
I do 9 full days, and it is a regular university course, so it meets for a total of 45 hours (semester hours). I have a corps of regional coaches who are there to help out, as most of these courses have from 30 to 90 coaches involved. The regional coaches are hired by the state department of education, as part of the South Carolina Reading Initiative. One of the major structures is what I call coaching rounds, where the participants have to bring in a 15-20 minute lesson they've taped of themselves teaching a lesson with students. They will be the teacher in the coaching round. Then a new coach sits with them, they talk a bit, view the tape and talk a bit while they watch it, then they have a debriefing conversation. They sit in front of the TV, and they are observed by their regional group with their regional coach. After the coaching round, the regional coach leads the group in a discussion of the "event," wherein they have to talk about both the teaching and the coaching (they often want to avoid the coaching conversation at first!). I'm including a document of the first coaching round, where I ask them to talk about what they'd like to learn (as a teacher, then as a coach), and then what they did learn after the first experience, so you get a sense of the stance we take to coaching. Last year, my group was half middle school teachers and half high school teachers. This June I'll be back to teaching one of the elementary cohorts (about 30 literacy coaches in training). I'll also give you a sample schedule so you can see the other structures I use across the 9 day experience with a listing of the lecture topics.
The coaching rounds, panels and mini-conferences offered by regional coaches, the readings, and the two times we have a "behind the glass" day wherin we observe lessons of teachers working with children, and I coach the literacy coaches on what to "see" and how to hold a "professional conversation" with teachers are the highlights of the course. The orchestration of it all would likely be a nightmare for most instructors who prefer a lecture type situation (which also occurs on certain topics), but I believe this type of interaction is critical to quickly learning how to work with adults as a coach, and to learn how to observe teaching and learning as it unfolds. DD [I will post additional word files that DD sent separately.- NLS]
Home: 165 Summer Breeze Dr. Leesville, SC 29070
Office: 231 Wardlaw 820 Main Street College of Education University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208
Phone: 803-777-6241 Fax: 803-777-3193
7. > [email protected] 03/15/07 11:00 AM >>> Thanks so much for suggesting an on-line discussion. I have also taught courses with coaching components and am happy to share on or off the listserv. But personally, I'd love to hear what others have done, and what the successes and challenges have been.
Lori Helman
8. From: NRC Members Listserv on behalf of Sebastian Wren Sent: Thu 3/15/2007 9:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Literacy Coaching
Literacy coaching intrigues me as a model of professional development, but I would definitely frame coaching in the larger context of instructional leadership. I recently started working as a literacy coach serving two schools in my local school district so that I could experience the current realities of schools (under pressure to improve test scores) and the coaching model first-hand. What I am finding is very much what I expected to find - the effectiveness of the coach depends almost entirely on the actions of the principal of the school.
In a nutshell, I would argue that (1) if the coach has certain qualities, and (2) if the principal has certain qualities, and (3) if the coach and principal work together effectively toward clearly articulated goals, then this model of professional development can be quite useful in creating significant, sustainable improvement in classroom literacy instruction. However, when any of those three conditions are not met, then the coaching model usually becomes more of a bane than a boon.
In other words, I would not be too quick to create an army of literacy coaches without first considering how those coaches will work with other instructional leaders (primarily the principal). I'm not sure how that helps you in teaching a course on coaching, but it is a caveat worth making public at every opportunity.
Cheers.
______Sebastian Wren, Ph.D. http://BalancedReading.com
>>> [email protected] 03/15/07 11:45 AM >>> 9. A discussion about teaching courses on literacy coaching could be very valuable. If people thought it would be better, another idea would be for this to move to becoming a forum on the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse website.
Some of you are aware, and others may not be, that the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse is a joint project of IRA and NCTE. The URL is as follows, and people could then click on forums. http://www.literacycoachingonline.org
Like Sebastian, I am personally coming to believe that the relationship between a literacy/instructional coach and the principal is important to the success of a coaching program. In fact, I started the first forum on this topic. You may want to read my entry that reviews what various books on coaching have to say about this topic and then the discussion coaches and would-be coaches had.
I hesitated to start in this place because of the dangers of a coach being put in an evaluative role by a principal. Yet, this relationship done well seems to really move literacy coaching forward in a school to being a positive form of professional development. I'll wait for a few more people to give opinions before setting up a new forum in the LCC site on teaching coaching courses.
Literacy coaching is an important topic for the NRC community to consider. Bill is right that continued research is needed. In the website, we are trying to gather what is currently known and raise research questions that need to be addressed. Discussions of methodologies that would help to give insights are also needed.
10. Hi, nancy and all, I am attaching our latest outline of the coach's role which is connected to research we have done in CPS on the indicators of school change with Lizanne De Stefano and Matthew Hanson of the University of Illinois. We are presenting those indicators, a whole set of which involve the principal and the infrastructure of the school, at AERA, so people might like to come. [I will post this PDF separately.-NLS]
Best, Camille Blachowicz
11. On Mar 16, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Dorothy Strickland wrote:
> Thanks Camille. This is great! Thank goodness it confirms much of what > I do and extends it. Each time I look at what others are doing, I > realize how much I have to learn. As I mentioned in a previous e-mail, > my concern has been with my ability to help prospective and practicing > coaches with the affective side of all of this -- which I am now > calling the "helping" side. The Art of Helping in the 21st Century, > by Robert R. Carkhuff Human Resources Dev. Press, was recommended to > me by counseling folks. It is NOT something I require my students to > read, though I recommend it. I use it for my own professional > development as a teacher educator and try to infuse the ideas > throughout the course. I am learning that all the knowledge and > experience in the world does not make a naturally "helping" person. I > have seen coaches get into strained and even adversarial relationships > with those they are supposed to coach, thus making a moderately bad > situation worse. Dorothy
12. Having been involved in coaching for the past 26 years (had a coach, was a coach, and have coordinated coaches for the past 20 years), there are several critical aspects I believe for fostering success. After my first several years of coordinating my previous district's 50 coaches, I realized they had little instructional supervision expertise and needed to know how to "coach" their colleagues. We first worked with the Cognitive Coaching book by Costa and Garmston. The then, seven-day training (now eight) made a huge difference in coaches' success. When I went to my current district, we used the same trainers (from the Center for Cognitive Coaching) and again it made a huge difference.
Another important consideration is having a district selection committee to screen potential coaches. Principals then select from this group. I meet with coaches monthly and the meetings are all instructional. We spend all our time learning together. We place coaches at-risk when we don't provide sufficient professional development for them.
Recently, Cris Tovani did an action lab with two classroom models in my district. I also brought in Cris' coach who works with her in CO. The model was very powerful--first Cris in the classroom and then the debriefing by her coach following the lesson. Virtually every word Cris said was captured by the coach so a transcript could be produced as a basis for the debriefing and coaching experience. Lately, we have been capturing coaches' words or teachers' words to students during demonstration lessons and sorting them according to Johnston's categories in Choice Words. This has proven to be a very powerful way to be intentional in our teaching and coaching. I believe that the culture in which coaching occurs and the language of coaching will be important areas to study in the future.
Judy Wallis judy wallis [[email protected]]
13. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a source for obtaining videos of teaching that I could use in my class. Diane, I like your idea of having videos that the coaches in class have made of themselves teaching as well as videos of other teachers that they don't know to discuss. Kathy Wilson
Kathleen Wilson, Ph.D. Dept. of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education Co-Director of the Great Plains Institute for Reading and Writing and the UNL Reading Center 114E Henzlik Hall College of Education and Human Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-0355 (402) 472-5970 (402) 472-2837 fax
14. Diane Stephens A post-script about teaching coaches as part of the South Carolina Reading Initiative: When we first started, we provided 9 graduate credit hours in reading for three years to all coaches (that is, 27 credit hours over the three years). We soon realized that the coaches did not have as strong a background as we had imagined (a requirement to be a coach was to have an MEd) and also that many of the best practices we wanted coaches to teach teachers were practices they had not engaged in themselves (e.g. flexible, focused small group instruction). We therefore added a partner teaching year at the beginning so that coaches could be studying with us and trying out what they learned in classrooms. Most recently, as part of Reading First, we offered a summer school for children with coaches paired up as teacher and coach in the classroom. I think ideally we would build this into all initiatives. The other recent change, again in Reading First, has been to offer a course on coaching and a content course each academic year (rather than offer two content courses a year). In this way, we get to spend half of our contact time working on coaching. This work includes such things as having coaches video-tape themselves leading a study group or conferring with a teacher and bringing that in for coaching rounds (described in an earlier email by DeFord). We also show videos of teachers they don't know and we talk about what we thought (uncensored), what our teaching point might be and what language we would use to get that teaching point on the floor in a way that is supportive and generative. We also spend a considerable amount of time trying out things that the coaches might use in study group. One week for example we looked at Burke interviews and talked about children's understanding of the reading process and the instructional implications (whole group, small group and one-on- one) of those ideas. I think you would find across all versions of SCRI (Reading First, K-5, ML and HS) help with coaching is woven into nearly every session and whenever possible, that help is very hands on, e.g. how to gain entry to a classroom, how to help a teacher who says she does not want help, how to help a teacher help a child one-on-one, how to help a teacher help a small group of children, etc. We use footage of SC classroom teachers that we have collected over the years. We don't use commercial footage as most of the time it has been too carefully edited. lt is intended to be the capstone course for our P-12 Reading Specialist Endorsement program. The conversation on coaching has been a windfall of wonderful ideas as is the literacy coaching website! Thanks to all of you. 15. From: NRC Members Listserv on behalf of Beth Herman Sent: Fri 3/16/2007 12:52 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Literacy Coaching I am new to NRC and the listserv and I have been waiting for the right time to join in. It seemed timely to jump in now, as I have been a literacy coaching for about 3 years, and have some ideas and thoughts about the model(s), possible modifications to the models, and some thoughts on coursework. In addition to coaching full-time, I am finishing up year one of my Ed.D. program. At this point I am trying to narrow my dissertation topic down, and have considered researching literacy coaching. I have been unsure of exactly what to research about coaching, as the model is relatively new, and there are many variables. In Nancy Shanklin's email, she mentioned proposing some research questions that need to be addressed. I would be most interested to hear the questions that are lingering about literacy coaching. I look forward to further discussions. Beth Herman-Davis Literacy Coach Arts & Communication Magnet Academy Beaverton Public Schools 11375 SW Center Street Beaverton, OR 97005 503-672-3700 16. To: There are a couple of books you might want to peruse on the subject: Reading Specialists in the Real World by Vogt and Shearer and Reading Strategies and Practices: A Compendum by Tierney, Readence and Dishner. Hope this helps, Kirk Olgin Glendale College > 17. Beth: I would suggest that you contact Linda Dorn at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The work that she is doing with the Partnerships in Comprehensive Literacy Model and in UALR's post Master's Reading/Literacy Coach graduate certification program frames coaching on a level above and beyond what most coaching models typically consider, including the literature on contingent scaffolding (David Wood), self-direction/independent learning (Donald Meichenbaum and Andrew Biemiller), and apprenticeship (Nancy Rogoff). You can contact her at [email protected] Good luck, Terry Atkinson Associate Professor East Carolina University Greenville, NC 27858 18. Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:32:06 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Literacy Coaching To: [email protected] I am glad to see that a conversation on literacy coaching, and more specifically on the formal education coaches' receive is on the listserv, it is much needed. A group of us submitted an NRC conference proposal to start a study group on literacy coaching to further explore many of these topics. Beth, definitely look at the website given earlier, it has a list of most of the available work that is out there on coaching. You will notice that most of the work is descriptive and "how to". There is much research to be done in the area. I am working on defending my dissertation this spring. My study looks at the situated identities of literacy coaches, how they are positioned in various contexts, how power is always at play in their work and how they negotiate their practices in response. Kristin Rainville Instructor, Literacy Specialist Program Teachers College, Columbia University [email protected] 19. Thanks for the feedback, and best of luck on your dissertation! I am wondering how you were able to document and research your questions that you listed below, as there are so many variables. This is where I am still a bit perplexed with researching the topic of literacy coaching. To all: I had been to LCC repeatedly, but had never truly looked through everything carefully. There was lots and lots of valuable information to use and potentially share with other coaches in my district. One of the items in the library section was important research questions about Literacy Coaching. As I mentioned above, I would be very interested in the questions listed on the LCC. I know that my own experience with lit coaching and the literacy coaches in my district would be valuable information for a dissertation. For my dissertation, one of my main goals is to stay within the realm of literacy, as I plan on becoming a professor of education at the conclusion of my work. Any and all feedback welcomed. Thank you. Beth Herman-Davis Literacy Coach Arts & Communication Magnet Academy Beaverton Public Schools 11375 SW Center Street Beaverton, OR 97005 503-672-3700 20. Beth, Yes, there are a lot of variables, but as a qualitative researcher, my choice of data collection methods & analysis and theoretical frame focus me in. I am not really looking at all the 'variables that effect' coaches or the coaching relationship. Rather, I look closely at a specific literacy (or coaching) event and carefully analyze it (the verbal and nonverbal communication; the Discourses informing the actions, etc.). If you want to talk more about specifics with your ideas you can email me personally at [email protected] All, In NJ with the Office of Early Literacy's Reading Coach Program (which has ceased to exist) we had three weeks of PD/training before coaches went into schools (in July and August) and then on-going PD throughout the year. Week one focused on the "essential elements and effective practices" of teaching literacy; week two on coaching methods and process; week three on topics for meeting the needs of diverse learners--we invited people like Alfred Tatum, Cathy Toll, as well as highlighting the people from NJ--Dorothy Strickland, Alan DeFina, and others. Our coaches were supported by a lead coach, who approved all of their demonstration lesson plans and widely viewed documents, acted as a critical friend reading all of their documents and visited them to provide support on a regular basis. Monthly meetings were held to support coaches in smaller cohorts, and one large PD was held monthly. Videos are a great source for looking closely at coaching relationships and coaching language, as suggested before. We know that coaching is SO MUCH more than content knowledge!! I also like using videos that I have made of my former coaches and colleagues. Since there is still time left in the school year, you may want to video tape some coaches now fro your fall course :) However, there are a few out there published, but they are definitely edited (yet still can be critiqued): -NSDC has an instructional coaching video: Instructional Coaching: School- based Staff Development for Improved Teacher and Student Learning -Stenhouse has Mentoring, Guiding, Coaching, and Sustaining Beginning Teachers -bpe.org has PD With Purpose: Coaching in Boston's Schools Kristin Rainville Instructor, Literacy Specialist Program Teachers College, Columbia Uiversity [email protected]