Good Instruction is Good Instruction: Using Evidence to Support Instructional Coaches

By Kulsum Vahkaria

I am a coach who coaches coaches who coach coaches who coach teachers. Try saying that 5 times fast!

These multiple levels of meta-coaching have evolved over time at the organization where I work, as we have seen, repeatedly, how much need there is for structured and consistent development for the individuals who can sometimes feel caught in the middle. Instructional coaches aren’t “in the trenches”, working with students, but they’re also not leaders, making decisions and evaluating best practices. They have the potential to have an enormous, direct influence on the quality of instruction at a school, but often aren’t given intentional and individualized support.

However, developing systems of support for instructional coaches doesn’t require recreating the wheel. Good instruction is good instruction, and we can parallel the expectations of what coaches do for teachers to provide support to coaches themselves. If you are a leader, providing individualized support to your coaches - you can employ many of the best practices that you want coaches to employ with teachers! 

Today, I want to really hone in on one of those strategies: using evidence to inform your coaching. We often advocate that coaches use evidence to inform their work with teachers (how well did students master a particular learning objective? How actively engaged were students in class? How often were students on task? etc.). It’s critical that we do the same for our coaches.

Below, I have outlined three pieces of evidence that have become foundational to the support I provide to coaches, and how I often use them within a coaching session! 

#1. Instead of “Teacher Talk Time” → Coach Talk Time

An easy way for coaches to measure how student-centered a classroom is, is by listening to who’s talking. If the teacher is talking for a majority of the class, then students are probably not bearing a majority of the cognitive lift. The same rule applies to coaching sessions: If the coach is talking for a majority of their session, then the teacher is probably not doing the cognitive lift, and the chances that the teacher implements the strategies discussed in the session are diminished.

How could you use this evidence to support an instructional coach?

Tell the coach what percent of the time they talked in comparison to what percent of the time the teacher talked. Go through the session, and pinpoint 3-5 moments that would have increased teacher engagement. Together, draft reflective questions the coach might ask the teacher in each of those instances to help the teacher internalize and own the content of the coaching session.

#2. Instead of “Student Practice At-Bats” → Teacher Practice At-Bats

Increasing student practice time is consistently a focus for coaches that work with teachers. How do we get students to practice a skill multiple times, in different ways, and with consistent feedback, before ever providing them a summative assessment? Well, for teachers, their “summative assessment” is the moment they step into the classroom to teach live in front of a group of students. Their moment to practice is in their coaching session! It’s critical that a teacher gets several opportunities to practice a skill before they leave a session.

How could you use this evidence to support an instructional coach?

Share with a coach how many “at-bats” the teacher got within the coaching session. Take a moment and have the coach reflect on the impact of practice for the teacher’s success. Then, together plan how you might include multiple opportunities for practicing the same skill within a coaching session. Roleplay your plan, with you acting as the teacher, so the coach gets the opportunity to practice implementing practice!

#3. Instead of “% of Lesson Focused on a Learning Objective” → % of Lesson Focused on One Action Step

Many of us have seen the impact of a jam-packed lesson plan. Students have a few minutes to internalize one concept, before the teacher jumps to the next thing. The lesson is filled to the brim with new content, and students are only able to skim the surface of each new thing they learn, without taking the time to deeply internalize, understand, and analyze any one thing.

This is no different in coaching sessions. I recently sat in on a coaching session where a coach recommended to an overwhelmed teacher, struggling with classroom culture, that she 1) change the points system she was using to provide incentives for her class, 2) restructure her entry routine, and 3) begin implementing positive phone calls home. The teacher left the meeting less confident, and feeling like she had no control over the behavior of her students. Had the coach focused on one strategy deeply - working with the teacher to plan it, discussing its potential to impact student behavior, and practicing how to implement it - the teacher would very likely have left with a different mentality. 

How could you use this evidence to support an instructional coach?
Count how many strategies or skills a coach recommends during one coaching session with a teacher. Together, decide which is the highest leverage: which one of these strategies or skills would have the most impact on students if done first? Then, plan how to reshape the coaching meeting to focus deeply on only that one, specific strategy.

The list of evidence that you could collect about a coaching meeting is long, but these are a great starting point! Presenting this data is not only a great tool to seed the way in which we support coaches, it also provides a new, objective lens to look at how coaching works. It creates space for consistency amongst the support that all teachers receive. For example, if all coaches are expected to be talking for less than 50% of their coaching meetings, then we can be assured there is some consistency in how much cognitive lift each teacher is taking when engaging in work with their coach. I’m curious to hear what other data you collect about coaching sessions that informs the work that you do with coaches. Share in the comments! 

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