Coaching the coach: building a school-based coach's capacity for deep mathematics discussions
| Author(s) | Brown, Amy | |
| Date Accessioned | 2023-08-21T23:05:42Z | |
| Date Available | 2023-08-21T23:05:42Z | |
| Publication Date | 2023 | |
| SWORD Update | 2023-06-26T19:10:22Z | |
| Abstract | Seaford School District has allocated significant resources and launched multiple initiatives to increase the achievement of Seaford Middle School mathematics students. These included adopting high quality instructional materials, hiring a school-based mathematics coach, purchasing curriculum materials, ensuring collaborative grade level planning time, and scheduling time for the school-based coach/ administration/ district leader to collaborate. Despite these initiatives and resources, nearly three-fourths of Seaford Middle School students scored below or well below the math proficiency level on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test between 2018 and 2021. ☐ Seaford School District partnered with PDCE in the fall of 2021 with two goals for the partnership: to support teachers to develop knowledge, skills, and mindsets around strong mathematics instruction to implement their problem-based high-quality instructional materials, and to support district and school leaders, including the school-based mathematics coach, in developing knowledge, skills, and mindsets around strong mathematics instruction and support the high-quality implementation of Illustrative Mathematics. As the PDCE Instructional Specialist assigned to this partnership, I focused on curriculum-specific professional learning in the form of content-focused coaching cycles and purposeful PLC planning meetings. ☐ Researchers posit that growth in a coach’s capacity to facilitate deep and specific lesson-planning conversations with teachers predicts improvement in creating opportunities for students to engage in cognitive thinking (Russell et al., 2017; Russell et al., 2020; Stein et al., 2021). We anticipated that supporting the school-based mathematics coach to have deep, mathematically rich lesson-planning conversations with her teachers would have an impact on how teachers planned and implemented their lessons. We hoped that this shift would in turn have an impact on student achievement. ☐ During the three-month study, I audio recorded three planning discussions between Ms. Boyce, Seaford Middle School’s mathematics coach, and myself and three discussions Ms. Boyce facilitated with a team of five 6th-grade mathematics teachers and myself. In specialist-coach planning sessions, I engaged Ms. Boyce in deep, specific discussions about each lesson’s mathematical goals, student thinking, and pedagogy. These discussions were intentionally designed to build her capacity to support teachers in planning goal-focused, student-responsive lessons. Following the specialist-coach discussions, Ms. Boyce facilitated lesson planning discussions with 6th-grade mathematics teachers focusing on the mathematical point of the lesson, student thinking, and teaching strategies that elicit, build on, and extend student thinking. I attended, contributing to the discussion strategically as needed. ☐ Through data analysis, I found evidence of a possible relationship between the depth and specificity of specialist-coach conversations and that of the coach-teacher conversations. Ms. Boyce’s planning documents became increasingly more detailed. | |
| Advisor | Muirhead, Faith | |
| Degree | D.Ed. | |
| Department | University of Delaware, School of Education | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.58088/8ymp-8m77 | |
| Unique Identifier | 1398310657 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/33173 | |
| Language | en | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | |
| URI | https://login.udel.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/coaching-coach-building-school-based-s-capacity/docview/2832665900/se-2?accountid=10457 | |
| Keywords | Coaching | |
| Keywords | Mathematics discussions | |
| Keywords | Math proficiency level | |
| Keywords | Student-responsive lessons | |
| Keywords | Teaching strategies | |
| Title | Coaching the coach: building a school-based coach's capacity for deep mathematics discussions | |
| Type | Thesis |