Using teacher observation to guide improvements

______________________________________________________________________ Wilson, Nance S. (2011). Using teacher observation to guide improvements. American Reading Forum Annual Yearbook [Online], Vol. 31. ______________________________________________________________________ Using teacher observation to guide improvements Nance S. Wilson Lourdes University Introduction Take a look at successful athletes, companies, and schools and you will find a commonality that may surprise you. They have all had coaches. Although, in business they are often called consultants, they serve the same role as a coach, a person who is hired to give advice and support in order to help an individual or group improve. Typically, teachers and schools look to improve student achievement through activities such as professional development and specific program implementation. These opportunities may come from graduate course work, professional conferences, or consultant led teacher‐institute days. These conventional forms of professional development are ineffective as they are often led by outside experts who tell teachers what to do; but are not part of the school in which the teacher is working. An alternative to the outside expert is staff development provided by a site‐based instructional coach (Gamse, Jacob, Horst, Boulay, & Unlu, 2008; Guskey, 2002). Coaches engage teachers in job‐embedded conversations to improve research‐based instructional practices (Knight, 2009). In the past decade, the instructional coaching model has become better defined (Sailors & Shanklin, 2010). The rise of coaching as professional development is focused on involving participants in job‐ embedded on‐going professional development that is interactive, collaborate, and reflective (Duffy, 2005; Joyce & Showers, 2002; Whitcomb, Borko, & Liston, 2009). Furthermore, the use of an instructional coach who is embeded in classroom practice and focused on research‐based approaches is more effective in improving student achievement (Russo, 2004). American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI There are many kinds of instructional coaches but the literacy coach (LC) serves schools’ needs when they are focused on improving students’ literacy. The literacy coach, like other instructional coaches, is embedded in the school and thus is able to have a powerful impact upon teaching and student achievement. Effective coaching calls for the coach to be in the classroom with teachers; coaching through problem-solving, planning lessons, providing feedback, and facilitating student learning on-site. Research indicates that this model of instructional coaching improves the quality of instructional practice and student learning (Vanderburg & Stephens, 2010; Wei, Darling-Hammond, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009). The coach must use a combination of behaviors that shift between responsiveness to teachers’ needs and directive to achieve coaching goals (Ippolito, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to present a study that focuses on the interactions between a coach and teacher that led to changes in the teacher’s instructional practices. The study took place at a private school on the southeastern coast of the United States. The overall goal of the study was to produce a detailed case study of the interactions between a coach and one of the teachers. Detailed case studies help to tap into the coach teacher interactions that lead to changes in instructional practice. This study used case study methodology. “A case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 2003, p. 13). The use of case study methods of inquiry are particularly appropriate for studies considering teachers and teacher knowledge because they help researchers develop a better understanding of the teacher and her decisions (Wilson & Gudmundsdottir, 1987). This method allows for an in-depth analysis of the details of the role of coach as well as the interaction between the coach and the teacher. Data was collected through the use of field notes of meetings and classroom observations. The data was analyzed using a recursive approach to determine first a preliminary set of themes based on instructional techniques then adding additional themes to identify changes in teaching techniques over time. These changes were then analyzed against the notes to identify any connections that might exist. The findings presented are derived from this examination and are illustrative of the power of coaching. Context The study took place at a medium sized Pre-K to twelfth grade private school in the southeastern United States. The school is eleven years old with a high socio-economic-student population, yet as measured on the state standardized assessment, there is a wide variability in student achievement. American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI The work reported in this study is the result of two years of the coach’s work with the teacher. The Literacy Coach (LC) is a university educator who has been affiliated with the school over a period of two years. The Literacy Coach was under contract with the school to provide professional development to teachers as determined through an analysis of school needs. The initial work of the coach involved getting to know the teachers, school, curriculum, and student achievement. Her responsibilities included planning and conducting professional development on literacy topics, and supporting teachers’ application of the learning to their teaching. The coach worked with all of the teachers at the school. This paper uses a case study of Carol, a fifth grade teacher, to highlight how building rapport plus observation, debriefing, and support led to instructional changes. The focus was on an initiative to improve students’ reading comprehension as measured by the CTP-4 (Educational Records Bureau/Comprehensive Testing Program 4) standardized test of student progress. Building Rapport In order to build rapport the coach spent time with teachers through a variety of informal interactions to build an understanding of the school’s culture and professional development wants and needs. The LC joined teachers in their planning meetings, hallway conversations, and lunch duties. She talked with them about their teaching, students, and families. These interactions included a series of informal meetings for the LC and Carol to get to know each other. Through the informal conversations, the LC hoped to learn about the culture of the school as well as the teaching practices currently employed. Carol (pseudonym), a fifth grade teacher, was approached by the LC because she had over twenty-five years of teaching experience and had been at the school since it’s inception. Carol invited the coach to visit her classroom to “help an old dog learn new tricks.” Together, Carol and the LC examined student sub-scores on reading comprehension for the CTP-4 (Educational Records Bureau/Comprehensive Testing Program 4). They examined these for strengths and weaknesses in students’ knowledge. For instance, main idea was identified as a weakness, as the scores were lower on this sub-test than on others for Carol’s students. She reviewed the expectations for this area, which included: “use explicit information to identify the main idea or primary purpose of a text or part of a text; and understand connections between and among explicit pieces of information from a passage” (Educational Records Bureau/Comprehensive Testing Program 4). Then Carol and the LC discussed instructional techniques American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI for main idea. Carol explained, “that she had her students go back into the text to support their answers as a part of regular classroom practice.” This discussion continued focused on examining other sub-scores and areas for improvement. The LC facilitated another session with Carol, the goal of which was to address the instructional and reading strategies that would assist her in guiding students to meet expectations. To facilitate this discussion the coach modeled a description of a reading strategy along with a teacher’s implementation plan for instructing the students in the strategy (see Table 1). Table 1. Modeling the link between expectation, strategy, and implementation Expectation use implicit information from a passage to make inferences about the motives or behaviors of characters Strategy Readers are able to think inferentially when they connect their background knowledge of information, ideas, and experiences with text. Teach the different kinds of inferences • Coherence inferences • Elaborative inferences • Local inferences. • Global inferences. • On-line inferences • Off-line inferences Source www.dcsf .gov.uk/r esearch/ data/uplo adfiles/D CSFRR031.p df Implementation Plan Model the different types of inferences and the mental steps that teachers do to enact the different inferences. Give students copies of the different kinds of inferences and ask them to be aware of the types of inferences they make and how they made them. The research evidence reviewed suggested that, in order to be good at inferencing, pupils need to: 1. be an active reader who wants to make sense of the text 2. monitor comprehension and repair misunderstandings 3. have a rich vocabulary 4. have a competent working memory Inferencing skills are also facilitated by: 1. having a wide background knowledge 2. sharing the same cultural background as that assumed by the text. Some of these factors are more pertinent to certain types of inference than others. For example, having a wide background knowledge does not influence the ability to draw coherence inferences to the same degree as it does elaborative or global inferences. Although the characteristics of good inferencers have been identified, there is limited research evidence to suggest how teachers could best improve the inferencing abilities of their pupils. After the presentation of the types of inferences and modeling of each by the LC, Carol talked about using a graphic organizer such as a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast elements from two texts. Carol also addressed the expectation of using “explicit information to identify the main idea or primary purpose of a text or part of a text” (Educational Records Bureau Comprehensive Testing Program 4) determined that she would use the “coming-to-consensus” process (Beers & Howell, 2003) across a variety of texts to model, guide, and support students in identifying the details that support main idea. American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI Observation, Debriefing and Continued Support Following the focused discussions on student data and instructional needs the coach and Carol moved their discussions to the classroom. These discussions continued to focus on reading comprehension instruction with an emphasis on the instructional strategies employed. There were a total of six observation and debriefing sessions with Carol. Each observation lasted between 35 and 60 minutes of the integrated Language Arts/Social Studies block and the debriefing sessions lasted between 10 minutes and 45 minutes. The lessons observed all focused on a reading strategy, thus discussions focused on the instructional strategies such as modeling and teaching questioning. For each of the observations, an observation tool was utilized. The tool specifically addressed instructional strategies that have been demonstrated as effective for improving comprehension (Wilson, 2009). The observations were recorded using a template created in File Maker Pro designed to capture teacher/student actions during literature instruction. The template combined the use of check boxes with a place for formal field notes of instruction. The first section of the observation tool focused on instructional behaviors. The instructional behaviors highlighted teaching techniques that have shown success in the teaching of reading comprehension. The areas of instructional behaviors included modeling and questioning of students. Modeling thinking processes is an instructional technique that is key to making the invisible task of reading comprehension visible and thus improving students’ comprehension (Roehler & Duffy, 1991; Tovani, 2004; Wilheim, 2001). When teachers model for students they make the mental processes that we use to solve problems visible. The observation tool includes an evaluation of modeling by noting key aspects of the modeling process (see Figure 1). The LC marked the instructional behaviors observed during Carol’s instruction. Figure 1. Instructional Behavior: Modeling        Modeling comprehension process Describing learning strategies Modeling when and why to use a strategy Teacher sharing thinking Teacher sharing how to solve a problem Teacher demonstrating how to do a procedure Other…… American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI The other areas of the observation tool looked at the instructional interactions teachers had with students. Within the goal of improving students’ reading comprehension the tool looked at the types of questions asked, the way in which the questions were asked, the opportunities provided for students to reflect and discuss strategy implementation (see Figure 2). The first section, Initiate Respond Feedback, focuses on the traditional evaluation pattern of classrooms where the teacher calls on a student, the student responds, and the teacher comments (Cazden 1998). This model is ineffective (Van Bramer, 2004) thus it was hoped that more of an interactive model of questioning would be used. This model is focused on building understanding through conversation rather than judgment of knowledge (Van Bramer, 2004). In this model the teacher poses a question gives students time for reflection and allows discussion of responses between students as conclusions are drawn as a community. Figure 2: Instructor behaviors: Questioning  Initiate Respond Feedback     Lecture Question asked/evaluated Prior knowledge asked/evaluated Interactive Questioning       Question asked Scaffolding provided by the teacher Listening to & watching students Providing students time for reflection Probing students for more detailed response Asking students to support response Following each observation, Carol and the LC met for 30 minutes discussing the instructional behaviors used throughout the lesson. These debriefing sessions were focused on what was observed and recorded using both the observation tool and traditional field notes. The results of the debriefing sessions appear powerful when examining Carol’s initial instructional behaviors and those following the observation/debriefing cycle. American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI Focus 1: Modeling thinking vs. Modeling Procedures When the professional development sessions began Carol was observed demonstrating procedures to her students rather than strategies. For instance, T: Let’s talk about how to complete this inference activity. First look at the sentence “Some Native Americans build homes of wood where they lived year round.” Then infer what this means about other Native Americans; it means others had homes made of resources other than wood and move around (October 2009). This observation demonstrated a modeling of the procedure needed to infer but not the thinking processes that lead to the development of the inference. The debriefing session following this observation asked Carol how she felt the lesson inferencing went. Carol responded that it was still early in the year and she felt that as a first lesson the topic it went okay. The coach then asked Carol what she does when making an inference and Carol discussed using the text and background knowledge to draw a conclusion. The coach then showed Carol the six items in the observation tool on modeling (see figure 1) and they discussed how each looks in the classroom and helps students to learn strategies. This discussion continued informally throughout the next few weeks culminating in an inference activity of quite a different nature. T: “What does it mean to infer?” Who should we visit if we don’t know what it means -- we think it means something like to inform or gain knowledge. “Infer to draw a conclusion after considering all the facts” for example... Let’s use A. He had a runny nose yesterday and now he is not in school today what can I infer about A. He is home sick. Notice how I used what I knew about A with what I know about stuffy noses to infer that he is sick. Now moving on to our lesson on World War II. First let’s review our prior knowledge; yesterday what was one of the things that we learned about women. You can look in your book on page 342. S: “It says millions joined the work force” T: Okay, so if we have all this information what do you think we can infer about women during World War II. What can we infer about why millions of woman joined the work force? S: The men were off fighting so the women had to work. T: Is there anything we can infer about the types of jobs women had. Since, I know the men were off fighting and I see a picture of a woman holding a blowtorch and the book is making a big deal about woman working. I can infer that women worked jobs previously held by men”. Notice how in the second inference lesson the teacher described inference and shared her thinking during inferencing. This change was significant American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI because it reflects a move toward research based instructional strategy. The two examples showed a change in classroom practice that might not have occurred had Carol not been open about the coaching and willing to participate in more than observation; but also in debriefing. In addition to the formal debriefing, Carol was known to stop the coach and informally share classroom stories and ask for feedback. Although not formally documented, these conversations seem significant in light of the change in student achievement. Focus 2: Teacher questioning to build student independence The type of talk in the classroom is a factor in student learning. The Initiate Response Feedback (IRF) model where the teacher asks a question and a student responds then the teacher provides feedback and then moves on to the next question has been demonstrated as ineffective (Van Bramer, 2004). When the professional development initiative began Carol was observed as asking students to orally respond and listen. T: In your group, use your text to come up with three adjectives that describe Satchel Piage (about 3 minutes pass)….Think about what in the story tells you he is confident? What did he do that shows he is confident?” (October 2009) In this example the teacher assigned the students a task, gave them time to do it; but then interrupts with the answer she was looking for, that the character was “confident.” After the comments on what he did to show he was confident, the teacher asked the students a new question about the text, ignoring the remainder of adjectives the students may have come up with. Following this lesson, the debriefing session focused on how Carol thought the lesson went and what she thought could be worked on. She mentioned that students were not as involved in the discussions as she had hoped. This initiated a discussion on how questioning behavior that coaches is different from IRF. The changes in the teacher’s discussion practice was confirmed in the next observation: T: “Let’s look at this book and you will notice that you have a lot of the same vocabulary we have been discussing. Let’s read this page and then think about what this paragraph tells us he is doing? (waits 1 minute) S: He is selling things on the street. T: So what vocab. word can we use? (waits 30 seconds before calling on student) S: Peddler T: Why? (waits 10 seconds before calling on a student) American Reading Forum Yearbook – 2011 – Volume XXXI S: Because he is 10 years old and selling things on the street and traveling to sell the things. (November 2009) In this exchange, we may notice how the teacher provides wait time for the students to answer questions, gives them support in making connections, and scaffolds their response versus simply evaluating them or supplying the answers herself. A month later, Carol further demonstrated her move away from IRF to more coaching behavior in a discussion about minorities during World War II. T: “Prior to World War II how did the people of the United States feel about minorities?” Kids stare blankly at teacher -- she gives them ideas about slavery. “So, Prior to World War II how did the people of the United States feel about minorities?” S: They didn’t like them. S: They were prejudiced. They thought blacks should be slaves. In this final example the IRF classroom pattern has evolved productively from Teacher-Teacher, where Carol answered her own questions to TeacherStudent-Teacher-Student or the classic IRF pattern, and finally, to a TeacherStudent-Student pattern more characteristic of true discussion where students may respond to each other as well as to the teacher. This authentic change in classroom instructional strategies resulted from the productive interactions of the teacher and the LC. Reflections Throughout the work between the Literacy Coach and Carol, dialogue was center stage. 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