Introduction
In this study, I set out to investigate the nature of teachers’ advancement toward instruction effectiveness in the context of a video aided coaching model. I was prompted to conduct this study by the pressing need for innovative, impactful, and intensive literacy coaching models that can support teachers in their implementation of highly effective instruction. As reflected in persistent trends of low literacy achievement represented in national literacy assessment results (NAEP, 2018), this need is especially critical for novice teachers who teach in schools that serve low-income and less
advantaged communities. Extant evidence shows that through coaching, teachers can advance in their expertise, and in turn, provide the highly effective instruction that leads to student achievement.
Professional development that promotes authentic teacher growth requires
opportunities for learning that are contextualized, sustained, and cognitively engaging for the facilitator and the learner (Darling-Hammond & Richardson, 2009; Shulman, 1986; Wei, et al., 2010). Additionally, expert teachers display reflective dispositions toward their instruction and routinely consider the relationship between their instructional choices and student learning (Berliner, 1988; Schön, 1983; Shulman, 1986). Given that, effective professional development models provide opportunity and support for the development of these reflective habits of mind. This study was framed in these principles.
affordances that positions teachers as observers of their own instruction, a position that promotes teachers’ active engagement in reflection and analysis (Marsh & Mitchell, 2014; Sherin & van Es, 2005). When teachers are provided opportunity to reflect and analyze their own instruction, they are more likely to employ suggestions aimed at improving their practice (Tripp & Rich, 2012). This study contributes to the coaching literature in that it investigated the growth of in-service, early career, urban, middle school literacy teachers in the context of a collaborative, co-viewing model of video- aided model. Additionally, the study design quantified teachers’ uptake of coaching that occurred during collaborative viewing and analysis of teachers’ instructional videos.
At the end of the six cycles of video aided coaching, each teacher advanced toward expertise in the articulation of highly effective literacy instruction. This advancement was not a direct trajectory, nor was it evenly distributed across the
represented instructional domains. Rather, instances of effective implementation of focal strategies were understood as evidence of a teacher’s capacity while fluctuating rating scores suggested the need for further support to achieve routinely effective
implementation.
The impetus for this study was to develop a coaching model that supported a more comprehensive uptake of complex, multidimensional instructional practices (e.g.,
cognitive strategy instruction, writing process, facilitating text-based discussions) aimed at developing adolescent students’ literacy. The findings of the present study aligned with similar research. Teachers incorporate aspects of complex instructional practices more or less readily than others (Sailors & Price, 2010; Pomerantz & Pierce, 2013; Teemant et al.,
2011). Researchers found teachers less frequently provided explanations of procedural knowledge (as Beth, but unlike Angela), facilitative feedback (as Corrie), or but more readily provided explanations of useful comprehension strategies (as Beth) (Pomerantz & Pierce, 2013; Sailors & Price, 2010). Overall, the present study aligns with these
coaching studies; teachers achieved effective implementation on some aspects of coached instruction, and little or no growth in others.
In the following sections, I continue to situate the findings of this study in the literature of effective professional development and the affordances of video aided instructional coaching models. I organize the discussion in the phases of video – aided literacy coaching: revisiting instruction, reflecting with a more knowledgeable other, and refining instruction (Shulman, 1987) through co-planning and practice. I conclude with implications for practice, considerations for future research, and limitations of the present study.
Reliving the Instruction
Researchers report that when teachers view videos of their own instruction, they are able to see their teaching from a new perspective, that of a critical observer. With that, teachers are able to see features of their instruction that may have gone unnoticed during teaching and as a result, see for themselves the need for change in their own practice (Borko et al., 2008; Sherin & van Es, 2009; Tripp & Rich, 2012). Because these observations are made in the context of their own classrooms, curriculum and students, teachers are more likely to regard subsequent feedback and suggestions as trustworthy, and in turn, more likely to act on them (Tripp & Rich, 2012).
The results of the present study align with these findings. First, as evidenced by the frequency counts and reflections made during co-viewing sessions, the teachers responded to viewing videos of their instruction in similar ways as described in previous studies (Ermeling, 2010; Tripp & Rich, 2012). Teachers made consequential observations and make causal connections between instructional choices and students’ learning
outcomes (Ermeling, 2010). Researchers contend that it is this opportunity to see their instruction that accounts for the uptake of new practices (Sherin & van Es, 2005),
Moreover, video analysis provides opportunity for teachers view their own instruction outside the simultaneous demands of delivery the instruction – an affordance particularly important for novice teachers for whom instruction requires the greater portion of their cognitive focus.
Second, when teachers video record their instruction, they essentially create a detailed text that can be revisited and reviewed for multiple reasons (Brophy, 2004; Gelfuso & Dennis, 2014). The present study confirms Rosaen et al.’s (2008) conclusion that this replaying capability of video allows teachers and coaches to make more detailed, complex, and specific observations than memory-based recollections of the instruction may allow. It was also helpful in recognizing opportunities to increase the productive and high quality talk among students. Beth’s comment echoes this idea,
One of the first videos that we watched there was a lot of me talking, a lot of teacher talk. To be able to see that rather than just hear it, hey tone down on the teacher instruction, focus more on student, I was able to actually tone down on that and focus more on figuring out ways for students to actually engage in social