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Alternative Models for Effective Instructional Coaching: Learning in the Time of Coronavirus, Cost-Awareness, and Social Responsibility

Thu, April 29, 6:15 to 7:45am PDT (6:15 to 7:45am PDT), Zoom Room, 112

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Ministries of education and technical assistance programs have been striving for years to devise instructional coaching systems that effectively reach teachers. Coaching – skilled educators “paired with individual teachers to provide hands-on, ongoing support on matters of curriculum and pedagogical practice” (Republic of South Africa Basic Education Department, 2017) – has been repeatedly shown to have greater impact on teacher change and student achievement than training alone (Neuman & Cunningham, 2009; Darling-Hammond, Hyler & Gardner, 2017; Quintero, 2019). A recent meta-analysis of 60 studies of diverse coaching programs primarily from early literacy programs in the U.S. corroborated this conclusion (Kraft, Blazar and Hogan, 2018). Growing evidence suggests that coaching is also important in low-resource contexts of different kinds (Kotze, Fleisch, & Taylor, 2019; Piper & Simmons Zuilkowski, 2015).
Much less certain is how to achieve effective instructional coaching at scale. This is particularly difficult in situational, economic and geographic contexts that make teachers hard to reach with the requisite frequency and quality needed to change teacher practice and student outcomes. Low- and middle-income countries often have too few personnel with the basic profile and ascribed authority to serve as coaches. They also struggle to cover personnel costs and travel expenses if coaches are off-site. Time and logistics are also challenging; on-site staff such as school directors who perform coaching on top of their standard duties – which often include teaching their own class – struggle to observe and work with multiple teachers. Off-site coaches struggle to visit teachers, especially those in remote areas. Finally, quality requires coaches with experience in the classroom, deep knowledge of the desired instructional approaches, the ability to build trusting relationships with teachers, and ongoing training and support themselves.

“Virtual coaching” is under scrutiny as a possible alternative to face-to-face coaching, reaching more teachers with a smaller number of skilled coaches. Virtual coaching can take many forms, usually including phone calls to discuss the teacher’s experiences, challenges, and goals. It often includes additional modalities such as instant messaging to help teachers with challenges and for coaches to check whether teachers are on track; sharing and discussion of instructional videos, sometimes including clips of the teacher’s own practice; and coach-assigned self-study of other materials based on teacher needs. Because the virtual modality often requires fewer coaches, administrators can select the most highly qualified personnel and provide them with more specialized training. However, the major trade-off is the lack of direct observation in the classroom.

Early research on virtual coaching has been promising. In the same meta-study cited above, the authors found no significant difference between coaching delivered in person or virtually, although they cautioned that the standard errors size do not make the findings conclusive (Kraft, Blazar and Hogan, 2018). In 2019, a team in South Africa experimented with virtual coaching that used tele-coaching and additional tools, and after one year they found no discernable difference in effects between virtual and in-person coaching (Kotze, Fleisch, & Taylor, 2019). In both, students were found to have better English listening comprehension, and the virtual coaching cost less.

Nevertheless, the latest research suggests that the effectiveness of virtual coaching may falter over time. In a follow-up study, the South Africa team found that after three years, the gains for students with teachers receiving virtual coaching were much less – a difference of nearly 0.2 SD – than those with teachers coached in-person, and virtual coaching had no effect on student reading (Cilliers, 2020). Furthermore, students of teachers with virtual coaching had lower home language literacy, thought to be because virtual coaching took time away from home language instruction. Additionally, while “the use of technology did not preclude effectiveness, …in-person contact enabled more accountability and support” (ibid). Finally, while the on-site coaching program costs about 23 percent more, the magnitude of the returns made it more cost-effective.
Now, COVID-19 disruptions have brought many to take a closer look at virtual coaching. Longer term, some initiatives are integrating lessons from recent studies and are exploring hybrid modalities: coaches who provide virtual support and also meet with and see their teachers at work during the year. Highly trained offsite coaches can also work virtually with on-site coaches who can provide input from direct observation to inform virtual coaching sessions that in turn reinforce onsite coaching. Learning from these offsite coaches may also provide scaffolding to on-site personnel to improve their own coaching.
This panel will present the latest learning from four cases each using some form of virtual coaching to improve teacher practice for early grade reading, particularly as “pandemic pivots” but also in looking to the long term. These cases cover a diverse set of contexts from West Africa, Southern Africa and Central Asia; each will present its coaching model and then applied research or other learning to address a range of points such as: structuring rapid testing of different coaching models; early findings related to fidelity and challenges of implementation; teacher participation and satisfaction with virtual coaching; preliminary findings on the effectiveness of virtual coaching as measured by changes in teacher knowledge and instruction; early work to test the cost-effectiveness of different models; and overarching considerations of sustainability.

These questions are timely and relevant topic for multiple CIES audiences and relates directly to the 2021 conference theme. While the pandemic is an obvious disruptor that has forced and accelerated innovation now, education systems require solutions that can be systematized and sustained at scale, flexible enough to respond to new developments, and adapted to serve marginalized populations who need special attention. Further, the need for coaching “will only increase as schools start to re-open after closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic” given the many challenges that will be waiting in the classroom then (Cilliers et al, 2020, p.2). Finally, research on different coaching modalities also lays bare a critical social responsibility imperative : technical assistance programs must focus on solutions that host governments can sustain with their own resources and that can be used to seek greater equality in educational services and outcomes.

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