A Model for Improving Clinical Practice: Using Observational Data to Support Clinical Teacher Candidate Effectiveness Judith Smith, Kristen Cuthrell, Joy Stapleton, Vivian Martin Covington, College of Education, Jason Brinkley, Department of Biostatistics, East Carolina University Abstract The traditional triad model includes a teacher candidate, a clinical teacher, and a university supervisor. The purpose of this study was to add a new person to the teacher candidateship model, the instructional coach, and to investigate the following research question: what impact does instructional coaching have on the use of effective instructional practices in the clinical teacher candidateship? Over a two year period teacher candidates increased their use of instructional strategies. Introduction This model for improving clinical practice enhanced the curriculum and student teacher candidateship experiences within the Elementary Education, Middle Grades, and Special Education programs along with a complementary data-collection system for supporting the evaluative/iterative refinement of the model itself for capturing the performance of teacher candidates. The Elementary Education, Middle Grades, and Special Education programs have strategically placed major components of a curriculum reform module series (ISLES) in the teacher education program. Beginning with an early field experience course and continuing through their teacher preparation coursework to teacher candidateship, candidates gain declarative and procedural knowledge for incorporating ten specific research-based instructional strategies into their teaching to actively engage students in instruction in a manner that improves student achievement. Within the operational model developed, project-funded instructional coaches were added to the traditional triad of clinical teacher, teacher candidate, and supervisor to provide support of the use of the strategies in classroom settings. Analysis of Results This study utilized a variety of quantitative statistical methods to examine, summarize, and evaluate clinical teacher candidate data over a two-year period. The goal of the research was to examine the impact of curriculum reform supported by instructional coaching on the use of effective instructional practices in the clinical teacher candidateship. A combination of Fisher’s Exact Test for group differences and t-tests for differences in means were used to determine if there were differences in between year one and year two cohorts. In addition to bivariate tests, a multiple regression was fit using the total number of instructional practices as the outcome and gender, area, content, and cohort year as independent variables. While almost all the categories in the Instructional Practice domain increased, this increase was statistically significant to at least the p<.05 level in 9 of the 26 categories or in 35% of the categories in the focus on instruction domain. The categories included topics like coaching, discussion, presentations, providing directions/instruction, questions and answers, technology, compare/contrast, formative assessment, and individual and whole group instruction. The other areas of significant increases can also be linked to the expanded use of instructional practices by the teacher candidates. Categories like listening, speaking, writing, interacting with the environment, and having work at the knowledge, comprehension and application level all increased significantly. These topics are all related to students being engaged in the learning process. As the literature on effective teaching frameworks support, greater engagement leads to increased student achievement. More detail about the other categories in the walkthrough are provided in the paper. Materials and Methods Instructional coaches observed teacher candidates three times for minute episodes during the first fifteen week semester of the senior year and collected baseline data using the Teachscape CWT Standard Look FORS instrument determined by the local public school partner. Coaches used the Teachscape form as a checklist to observe teacher candidates in five areas: 1) curriculum including learning objectives and grade-level standards, 2) instruction identifying instructional practices, grouping format and research-based instructional strategies, 3) the learner that includes identifying student actions and instructional materials as well as determining levels of student work and level of class engagement, 4) classroom environment, and 5) the needs of all learners. Instructional coaches observed the teacher candidates to determine if there was evidence of appropriate instruction in all five areas, as well as, to document teacher candidates’ use of specific ISLES instructional practices in each of the teacher candidates’ teaching episodes. Conclusions Conclusions from the study of the model reveal that though some decreases emerged, there was a significant increase in the use of instructional practices used by teacher candidates who were supported by instructional coaches. Gain scores show an increase of 3 in the number of instructional practices used during a lesson observation. Even when adjusting for all of the different variables, a multiple regression shows an increase of 3 instructional practices per lesson observation. The use of multiple instructional practices in lesson instruction shows a heightened level of complexity in the instructional decision making of teacher candidates. This complex decision can be attributed to the instructional coaches through the encouragement and scaffolding provided in individual mentoring, observations, and professional development. It is the authors’ conclusion that instructional coaches had a significant impact on teacher candidate instructional practices The significance of this initiative consisted of addressing the need for improving the curriculum and teacher candidateship experiences of teacher candidates while supporting their teachers and teacher candidate supervisors through a design that incorporated the use of evidence-based instructional strategies within a developmental framework. This framework also included building evaluative capacity for collecting the effectiveness data for initially iteratively refining and eventually conducting a continuing evaluation of the model effectiveness. Table 1. Observation Walkthrough Results. P-Values are the result of Fisher’s Exact Test on Independent Samples. Level of significance alpha of 0.05 used for all statistical testing. References National Research Council. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school (expanded edition). Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning. J.D. Bransford, A.L., Brown, A., & R.R. Cocking (Eds.), Washington, DC: National Academy Press.PT3 Group at Vanderbilt.(2003). Three Amigos: Using anchored modular inquiry to help prepare future teachers. Educational Technology: Research and Development, 51(1), Schwartz, D.L., Lin, X., Brophy, S., & Bransford, J.D. (1999b). Toward the Development of flexibly adaptive instructional designs. In C. Reigeluth (Eds.), Instructional-Design Theories and Models: New Paradigms of Instructional Theory, Vol. II (pp ) Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychology processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Focus on Instruction Baseline No Reforms Year 2 Reforms BeginDifferencep-value Instructional Practices Coaching4%43%39% Discussion11%68%57%< Hands-on Experience25%36%11% Learning Centers4%11%7% Lecture4%13%9% Modeling46%64%18% Opportunities for Practice64%79%15% Presentation7%68%61%< Providing Directions/Instructions50%91%41%< Questions & Answers43%87%44%< Technology11%32%21% Testing0%2% 1.00 ISLES Instructional Practices Organizers Advance Organizers Graphic Organizers Concept Learning Compare and Contrast Examples and nonexamples Question and Reivew Higher level questions that ask for explanations GamesGroupingThink Pair ShareJigsawAssessmentFormativeSummative Figure 3. ISLES Instructional Strategies