1. Junior High School Literacy Coaching: Coaches’ Roles and Student Achievement Leslie S. Rush LRA 2013 University of WyomingDallas, TX

2. 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

3. Wyoming Population Density

4. 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?

5. 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)

6. 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)

7. 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.

8. 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;

9. 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

10. Methods of Data Analysis Coding and categorization (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003) Development of situational maps (Clarke, 2005) Case development (Yin, 2009) Repeated measures ANOVA

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. Findings Focus on literacy Mediation of literacy through internal and external forces Impact of coaching on student achievement

14. Focus on Literacy Finding #1

15. Focus on Literacy My work with an IF has focused particularly on teaching literacy skills within my classroom or content area. Strongly Disagree1 Disagree2 Agree25 Strongly Agree11 Teacher Survey:

16. 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.”

17. 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.”

18. 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:

19. 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.”

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. Mediation of Literacy Through Internal and External Forces Finding #2

23. 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

25. Jennifer: We had to maneuver a little bit. Kaitlyn: We had to be a little manipulative. Jennifer: We had to be a little sneaky.

28. Impact of Coaching on Student Achievement Finding #3

30. 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

31. 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