Junior High School Literacy Coaching:

Coaches’ Roles and Student Achievement

Leslie S. Rush LRA 2013University of Wyoming Dallas, TX

Instructional Facilitator Program in Wyoming

State funded program, in which IFs are to work with teachers to improve instructional practices.

Began in 2006

Almost all of the 48 school districts employ at least one Instructional Facilitator

Wyoming Population Density

Research Question Larger study:

What are the roles and responsibilities of Instructional Facilitators at the secondary level?

This part of the study: How do school structures and the work of

literacy coaches interact at the middle school level?

What is the impact of coaching on student achievement?

Theoretical Framework Situative perspective (Clarke, 2005; Greeno,

2003; Lave & Wenger, 1991) that looks at individual practices within contextualized settings Richardson (1990): “to understand teacher

learning, we must study it within these multiple contexts, taking into account both the individual teacher-learners and the social systems in which they are participants..” (p. 4)

Literature on Coaching Elementary school coaching studies have

examined coaching in Reading First (Deussen et al, 2007) and Literacy Collaborative initiative (Atteberry et al, 2008; Biancarosa, Bryk, & Dexter, 2010; Hough, 2008)

Literature on Coaching Secondary school coaching studies have

examined roles adopted by coaches (Blamey, Meyer, & Walpole, 2009; Rush, 2013; Smith, 2007): Teachers could benefit from a clearer definition

of coaches; roles; Coaches’ embeddedness in school/district

professional development structures make a difference in recruitment;

Coaches’ roles may be school-wide or instructional, and the addition of administrative roles hinders the instructional work.

Methods of Data Collection: Qualitative

Over 100 hours of observation of literacy coaches at Longcreek Middle School (pseudonym)

Shadowed coaches at leadership team meetings, PLC meetings, individual coaching sessions, group professional development sessions presented by the coaches, professional development provided FOR coaches in the district, all-school faculty meetings, and meetings with outside consultants, as well as informal conversations with a variety of people.

Interviews with the two coaches, the principal and 6 teachers who volunteered to be interviewed about their work with the two coaches in the building; collected survey data from teachers on their work with the coaches in their building;

Methods of Data Collection:

Quantitative Measures of Academic Progress (MAP)

scores for all students at LMS – three tests X three times over the academic year

Coaches’ rating of time spent working one-on-one with teachers at LMS

Methods of Data Analysis

Coding and categorization (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003)

Development of situational maps (Clarke, 2005)

Case development (Yin, 2009)

Repeated measures ANOVA

Context Longcreek Middle School

Student population is 60% free and reduced lunch, 55% Caucasian, 30% Hispanic, 15% other ethnic groups, including African-American, Native American, and students who did not identify themselves.

Structure of professional

development at LMS One-on-one coaching conversations with teachers

Coaches provide staff development in regard to content area instruction to the whole staff on a weekly basis during weekly professional development sessions.

Coaches are members of the building leadership team to help collaboratively plan school improvement efforts.

The leadership team consists of the six PLC team teacher leaders, three building principals, and both instructional coaches.

Findings Focus on literacy

Mediation of literacy through internal and external forces

Impact of coaching on student achievement

Focus on LiteracyFinding #1

Focus on Literacy

My work with an IF has focused particularly on teaching literacy skills within my classroom or content area.

Strongly Disagree 1

Disagree 2

Agree 25

Strongly Agree 11

Teacher Survey:

Focus on Literacy Teacher Focus-Group Interviews:

a) a focus on professional development in the building, b) freewheeling consultants for teachers, and c) an emphasis on helping teachers teach literacy.

“Coaches – their role as I see it is to be the content literacy ambassadors – to take what they know about literacy and to match it to each of the content areas.”

“Now we have consultants who are specifically geared to our school and what it needs. Our coaches can pinpoint what each teacher needs and tie it to content. And tie it all to literacy.”

Focus on Literacy Interview with coaches (Kaitlyn and

Jennifer): Kaitlyn: naming strategies for teachers, so that

they can begin to see how they are already using literacy in their instruction and so that they can begin explicitly talking about this with their students.

Jennifer: her focus on literacy as 95% of her work at LMS. “All of the professional development work is about literacy, all of the weekly staff development, the thinking strategies, it’s all about content area literacy really.”

Focus on Literacy PLC Team Meetings

More of a muddled picture Team leaders get the focus on literacy Some teachers do understand literacy, while

others do not:

Focus on Disciplinary Literacies

geography teacher:

This year we’re doing background knowledge. It’s a lot to do, and do geography as well. Every year there’s something new we’re supposed to focus on. It seems like I’m at the beginning point every year.”

Focus on Disciplinary Literacies

science teacher:

I had to shift my thoughts to make having my kids reading a graph or a diagram, instead of knowing that this is a mitochondria. To focus on the process skills that we use in science. When we focus on the process, they actually learn the content kind of the backdoor way.

Focus on Disciplinary Literacies

Weekly Professional Development Sessions On collecting materials, planning, and

instructing for disciplinary literacy within content areas.

The choice of what strategies to focus on and how to focus on them was made by the leadership team, in collaboration with the building principal and the coaches.

Mode for the professional development sessions was to delve deeply and thoroughly into one type of strategy, spending several weeks working on different aspects of that strategy, before moving on to the next.

Mediation of Literacy Through Internal and External Forces

Finding #2

Mediation

External factors Contractor 1: contracted to work with LMS

through grant funding obtained by the principal. The focus of the work with Contractor 1 was on building school leadership while at the same time reforming instructional practice.

Contractor 2: contracted to work with LMS and with other schools in the district on developing a lab classroom program, with some degree of focus on literacy instruction through the workshop model of instruction.

School district: adoption of Pearson et al’s (Pearson, Roehler, Dole, & Duffy, 1992) thinking strategies

Jennifer: We had to maneuver a little bit.

Kaitlyn: We had to be a little manipulative.

Jennifer: We had to be a little sneaky.

Impact of Coaching on Student Achievement

Finding #3

Test 1 Test 2 Test 3210

212

214

216

218

220

222

MinimalSomeModerateExtensive

Discussion School structure and flexibility within that structure

Schedule, leadership team and PLCs, coaches’ role in the building leadership

Knowledge and agency of the coach Coaches’ knowledge of how they can perform within differing

contexts Coaches’ knowledge of trends in the field of literacy Coaches’ agency to put that knowledge into a frame that

would appease the contractors and the district

Potential for impact on student achievement Need better measures for student achievement The rating scale for teachers in a building has potential,

although this is rather complicated in secondary school settings

Implications Schools, coaches and principals:

Support structures in place Knowledge of current literacy research Power, agency and freedom

Future Research Other successful models? Connect to teacher practice