TERC Blog

Virtual Coaching to Visualize Teaching

Written by Kathryn Habib & Christina Silva | Nov 21, 2024 4:30:07 PM

Reflections of a Virtual Math Coach

 

Introduction: The Visualize Teaching Study 

Teachers need ongoing opportunities to learn ways to improve their teaching. Professional development (PD) aimed at meeting this need has taken different forms but has been a stable and ubiquitous feature of the education system (Hill, 2007). Content-focused instructional coaching has emerged in recent decades as a promising approach to improving the quality of teaching and supporting student learning. 

While research suggests that coaching has a positive impact on instructional quality, the majority of evidence supporting its effectiveness comes from studies of literacy coaching, with less known about the effectiveness of math coaching (Kraft et al., 2018). To help fill this gap, TERC's Visualize Teaching (VisTe) study explores the use of math instructional coaching to help teachers incorporate math argumentation into their teaching. The VisTe team defines math argumentation as the process of finding the mathematical truth through generating cases, conjecturing, justifying, and concluding on the mathematical concept being explored (Knudsen et al., 2018).

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Visualize Teaching, also known as Strengthening Middle School Mathematical Argumentation through Teacher Coaching: Bridging from Professional Development to Classroom Practice, is the fourth in its series of National Science Foundation–funded work. This design-based research project investigates the effectiveness of a PD model created for middle school mathematics teachers and coaches which emphasizes math argumentation. It builds upon 15 years of mathematics education and PD research led by Teresa Lara- Meloy and Jennifer Knudsen. In this iteration of the project, the research team developed and implemented a week-long summer PD workshop for teachers and their coaches in grades 5 through 8. The PD focused on emphasizing how mathematical argumentation can be used to equitably teach students of diverse backgrounds. Over three summers (2021–2023), the project team provided PD to a total of forty middle school teachers and coaches across the United States.

In addition to participating in the summer institute, teachers and coaches were tasked to complete four coaching cycles that implemented math argumentation lessons into their classrooms over a school year. Each coaching cycle was a four-step process (see Figure 1) where teachers:

  1. collaboratively visualized a math argumentation lesson with their coaches (i.e., talked through what students and teachers would do and say);
  2. taught the lesson as it was discussed with their coach and recorded the lesson for future reflection;
  3. watched the recorded lesson and individually reflected on the teacher moves and student moves; and
  4. debriefed with the coach, in-person or virtually, on what they noticed in the recording, what they felt were successes of the lessons, and where they wanted to improve during the next coaching cycle.

Coaching interactions occurred exclusively before and after the lesson (Steps 1 and 4); no coaching took place during the lesson itself. 

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The Teacher–Coach Collaboration 

I (Kathryn Habib) joined the study as an unconventional participant. During the 2022–2023 academic year, I was a graduate student in my second year of a doctoral program in education. Before that, I'd been a middle school math teacher. During my time in the classroom, I participated in the pilot phase of a separate TERC study. A member of the research team with whom I had kept in touch, asked me to join the VisTe study to act as a virtual coach to support teachers if their onsite coach could not meet with them.

I first met Thea and Lucy, a fifth-grade co-teaching team from a small rural school district in the northeastern U.S., during the summer institute for teachers and coaches preceding the 2022–2023 academic year. Thea was Lucy's special education teacher counterpart, providing additional support to students with specific learning needs. Initially, Thea and Lucy were working with a coach employed by their district, as was typical for participants in the VisTe study. However, the departure of their onsite coach mid-year created the need for a virtual coach.

The three of us then embarked on a teacher–coach relationship that was unique within the context of the VisTe study. First, because of its virtual nature. Second, because unlike the site-based coaches, many of whom had extensive teaching experience and between five and 10 years of coaching experience, I had only taught for three years before leaving the classroom to pursue a Ph.D. and had no prior coaching experience.

Navigating Virtual Coaching 

While coaching virtually presented some predictable challenges, it also revealed unexpected opportunities. I was geographically removed from Thea and Lucy's school community, so, unlike the other teachers and coaches involved in the study, who met in person to plan and debrief lessons, as well as interacting informally throughout the school day, my interactions with Thea and Lucy were confined to Zoom.

This limited my ability to contextualize Thea and Lucy's teaching within the day-to-day goings on at the school and in the community. However, not being physically present in the building had its advantages: since I could not engage in administrative tasks or work directly with students, I was able to focus my efforts on helping Thea and Lucy unpack and refine their practice as teachers. 

Research suggests that coaches' daily work can vary considerably across contexts (Mudzimiri et al., 2014) and often includes attending to administrative and logistical priorities in addition to working directly with teachers to support teacher learning (Campbell & Griffin, 2017). The time coaches spend advancing district priorities, managing student data, and supporting the day-to-day functioning of the school can limit their ability to focus on teacher learning and can undermine the teacher–coach relationship, as it detracts from the time spent working one-on-one together (Walpole & Blamey, 2008). Evidence suggests that when coaches spend more of their time working directly with teachers, this benefits both the teacher-coach relationship and student learning outcomes (Bean et al., 2010; Harbour et al., 2021). In our experience, virtual coaching acted as a natural barrier against the demands that can compete with coaches' work directly with teachers. Despite my limited knowledge of the local context and the challenge of establishing rapport through Zoom, Thea, Lucy, and I built a productive teacher–coach relationship. 

Another benefit of not being physically present in Thea and Lucy's school had to do with the way teachers perceive coaches' positioning within the traditional school hierarchy. Although a coach's role is typically non-evaluative, coaches often work closely with administrators to advance school and district goals. When teachers view coaches as administrative agents, this can undermine the teacher–coach relationship and inhibit teachers' willingness to take pedagogical risks (West, 2009). 

In contrast, coaching that attends to teachers' individual needs as learners has been shown to support teacher learning toward more effective instructional practices (Cross Francis et al.,2023). Given that I was not on site, regularly interacting with administration, nor was I employed by Thea and Lucy's district, they didn't perceive me as having any formal authority. This contributed to a collaborative environment in which they felt comfortable trying out new approaches to teaching math. 

For example, one of the main goals of the VisTe project is to support teachers in facilitating student-led discourse, which can be a challenge because it gives students more control over the lesson. During several of our discussions, Thea, Lucy, and I talked about the obstacles they felt got in the way of student-to- student discourse, as well as its importance to student learning. Following our conversations, Thea and Lucy felt more comfortable taking risks to incorporate more and longer opportunities for students to work on math tasks in groups and to invite more student participation in whole-class discussions. 

The Role of Classroom Experience in Coaching

At the start of the study, I was concerned about how my relative lack of classroom teaching experience would impact my ability to support Thea and Lucy's learning and our teacher–coach relationship. Research suggests that teachers with extensive experience may, at times, exhibit greater resistance toward coaching (Jacobs et al., 2018). Furthermore, I had never worked as a coach, though I had been coached during my time in the classroom and was engaged in research on coaching as a doctoral student. Despite evidence that deficits in expertise need not function as a barrier to improving teaching through coaching, and that when coaches adopt an inquiry stance toward instruction, it can even be an asset (Wilder, 2014), I wondered if I would have anything valuable to offer to two highly experienced teachers.

All these factors led me to approach my coaching role with the mindset of a learner. As it turned out, several advantages emerged from this dynamic. It established Thea and Lucy as the authorities on their own teaching, while I served as a mirror, helping them see parts of their practice with fresh eyes.

My work as a doctoral student allowed me to bring ideas from the research I was learning about into our coaching conversations. In one planning session, we talked about the deep and flexible knowledge of mathematical concepts teachers must have in order to interpret and respond to students' evolving understandings, a specialized form of knowledge conceptualized as Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT; Loewenberg Ball et al., 2008). Thea and Lucy enjoyed discussing what researchers are learning about the nature of the mathematical knowledge that underpins their everyday teaching practices.

Conclusion 

Despite the challenges posed by our unique circumstances, I believe that our triad was a success. We learned a great deal from each other, and we developed a strong sense of community. This contributed to a positive and supportive learning environment that helped Thea and Lucy refine their practice as teachers and helped me grow as a coach. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of the VisTe study and hope that our experience will provide valuable insights for other teachers and coaches who are working together to improve student learning.

Given my positive experience with participating in this research project and utilizing the Visualize Teaching PD model, I recommend that other schools consider integrating this model into their PD plan. For more information about how to access these materials, please contact: teresa_larameloy@ terc.edu.

A final note concerns the relationship between teachers and researchers. While there has long been a tension between education research and practice, my experience working with TERC researchers as both a teacher and a coach was overwhelmingly positive. The research team actively sought feedback from teachers and coaches (e.g., through daily surveys during the summer workshop and during regular check-ins over Zoom throughout the school year) and incorporated participants' suggestions into the study's design. This, along with their availability and responsiveness, made me and the teachers I worked with feel that our ideas were valued and respected, creating a relationship of trust and mutual understanding between teachers and researchers, essential for bridging the gap between education research and practice.

Recommendations 

The following recommendations may be useful for school administrators and practitioners who work with middle school math teachers. 

Consider employing virtual coaches who are external to the school. This type of role facilitates a focus on coaches' interactions with teachers, rather than with administrators, and builds a relationship of trust that helps teachers feel more comfortable taking pedagogical risks. In cases where coaches are district-employed and/or site-based, position coaches as supporters and advocates of teacher learning, rather than as evaluators or administrative agents. 

Consider having pairs of teachers work with a coach together, particularly if they co-teach. Thea and Lucy each had unique perspectives on their shared group of students and what teaching approaches and strategies might best support their learning. This expanded the insights that emerged from our joint coaching sessions. Evidence supports the idea that this kind of teacher co-learning bodes well for improving instruction (Avalos, 2011). 

Consider prioritizing coaching tasks and excluding managerial tasks (e.g., handling student data) from coaches' workload. Protecting time for coaches to engage in full coaching cycles with teachers enhances the effectiveness of coaching (Saclarides & Lubienski, 2020).

Bios

Kathryn Habib is a doctoral student in Culture, Curriculum and Teacher Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on preservice elementary teachers' mathematics identities and the role of initial teacher education in preparing preservice elementary teachers to teach mathematics effectively.

Christina B. Silva (she/her) is a Researcher at TERC. She began her career in STEM education research through her participation in an internship program at TERC offered to undergraduate students who are underrepresented in STEM education. Her research primarily focuses on the lived experiences of people of color, particularly women and girls of color, in STEM education and professions. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Simmons University.

Acknowledgments

This article is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers DRL-2000545 and DGE-2439854. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors thank the coaches and teachers who participated in the Visualize Teaching professional development and study. The authors also thank the Visualize Teaching team, Dionne Cross Francis, Anna Gustaveson, Boran Yu, Pavneet Kaur Bharaj, Anna Hinden for their feedback and input on the material reported in this article.

References 

Avalos, B. (2011). Teacher professional development in teaching and teacher education over ten years. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(1), 10–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2010.08.007

Bean, R. M., Draper, J. A., Hall, V., Vandermolen, J., & Zigmond, N. (2010). Coaches and coaching in reading first schools: A reality check. The Elementary School Journal, 111(1), 87–114. https:// doi.org/10.1086/653471

Campbell, P. F., & Griffin, M. J. (2017). Reflections on the promise and complexity of mathematics coaching. The Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 46, 163–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jmathb.2016.12.007

Cross Francis, D., Bharaj, P. K., Habib, K., Hinden, A., & Gustaveson, A. (2023). Holistic individualized coaching: Foregrounding teachers' psychological and affective attributes to support learning. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences— ICLS 2023, pp. 2021–2022. International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Harbour, K. E., Saclarides, E. S., Adelson, J. L., & Karp, K. S. (2021). Exploring relationships among responsibilities of mathematics coaches and specialists and student achievement. International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, 16(2), em0640. https://doi. org/10.29333/iejme/10907

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Knudsen, J., Stevens, H. S., Lara-Meloy, T., Kim, H. J., Schechtman, N., & Shechtman, N. (2017). Mathematical argumentation in middle school-the what, why, and how: A step-by-step guide with activities, games, and lesson planning tools. Corwin Press.

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Mudzimiri, R., Burroughs, E. A., Luebeck, J., Sutton, J., & Yopp, D. (2014). A look inside mathematics coaching: Roles, content, and dynamics. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(53), n53. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common core state standards for mathematics. https://corestandards.org/wpcontent/ uploads/2023/09/Math_Standards1.pdf

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West, L. (2009). Content coaching. In J. Knight (Ed.), Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives (pp.113–144). Corwin Press.

Wilder, P. (2014). Coaching heavy as a disciplinary outsider: Negotiating disciplinary literacy for adolescents. The High School Journal, 97(3), 159–179. https://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2014.0003

 

Read the entire issue: Hands On Fall 2024