Impacting Education
Educators nationwide are looking for ways to improve their practice and make the most significant impact on their students. One way districts are aiding teacher improvement is through the implementation of academic coaches. The district where I have the opportunity to teach has a reading coach, math coach, and technology coach. While this is not necessarily the norm, these coaches make an incredible impact on educators; therefore, the impacts trickle down to students, too. The goal of these coaches is to teach educators new strategies to implement to increase student content understanding.
Jim Knight, an expert on instructional coaching, outlines the "impact cycle" in his book, The Impact Cycle. This cycle involves three components: identify, learn, and improve. Coaches are encouraged to identify the learning goal with the educator. Coaches then come alongside the educator to teach and learn how to best meet the goal. Lastly, the educator will implement the learned strategies to improve their practice (Knight, 2018, p. 9). When this cycle is combined with good practices, instructional coaches can transform how educators engage their students.
Nugent et al. (2023) recently researched the characteristics of an effective instructional coach. The research concluded that "(a) the coach–teacher relationship quality predicted the level of teacher engagement in coaching and their instructional reflection and (b) the quality of coaching strategies predicted the overall quality of the classroom instruction" (para. 2). With coaching strategies having a significant influence on the success of the coaching cycle, let's discuss one strategy that instructional coaches can implement into their coaching cycles.
Using the strategy of modeling can increase the success of coaching cycles. Knight (2018) discusses the importance of coaches modeling teaching strategies for students. He states, "teachers told us that it was not enough to hear about strategies; they also needed to see them in action" (p. 116). There are several ways instructional coaches can use modeling with their educator, as seen in the graphic below. This graphic describes various ways to model because modeling is not a "one size fits all" approach. Some educators prefer to partner with their instructional coach through co-teaching models, while others prefer to sit back and watch the instructional coach teach in their classroom. The use of various model strategies emphasizes the importance of instructional coaches knowing their educators and having clear communication with them to determine which modeling strategy will best fit the educator's needs and preferences.
Model by Meredith BarkerThe video below, created by SMART Technologies, describes how technology enables instructional strategies. Interestingly, SMART Technologies describes how technology like the SMART board or projector can quickly transform the classroom to allow students to be the teachers. When students become the teacher, they become models of the academic content. As concluded in the research from Nugent et al. (2023), when students are able to model strategies and ideas, it enforces their own understanding and the understanding of those around them.
Are you looking for more resources for instructional coaching strategies? Check out this article for ten strategies you can implement in your coaching cycles!
References
Knight, J. (2018). The Impact Cycle: What instructional coaches should do to foster powerful improvements in teaching. Corwin Press.
Nugent, G., Houston, J., Kunz, G., & Chen, D. (2023). Analysis of instructional coaching: what, why and how. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 12(4), 402–423. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmce-08-2022-0066
SMART Technologies. (2016, February 8). How classroom technology enables instructional strategies [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EO3NYPwIqg
