Standard 8.2 | Needs Assessments & Adult Learning
Design and implement professional learning based on needs assessments and the theories and frameworks for adult learning. (PSC-IT 8.2)
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Contextualization
I began my coaching journey with a 4th grade co-worker, Ms. Carol Love. We met to begin our coaching relationship where we discussed what the process would look like. This artifact shows the needs assessment I completed prior to designing the professional learning along with evidence of the theories and/or frameworks on which my professional learning is designed. This was based on the coaching strategies and theories presented in the book, The Impact Cycle, by Jim Knight. Below is the coaching journal with some embedded artifacts.
Design and implement professional learning based on needs assessments and the theories and frameworks for adult learning. (PSC-IT 8.2)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contextualization
I began my coaching journey with a 4th grade co-worker, Ms. Carol Love. We met to begin our coaching relationship where we discussed what the process would look like. This artifact shows the needs assessment I completed prior to designing the professional learning along with evidence of the theories and/or frameworks on which my professional learning is designed. This was based on the coaching strategies and theories presented in the book, The Impact Cycle, by Jim Knight. Below is the coaching journal with some embedded artifacts.
Coaching Journal 1
January 29, 2023
Coach: Mari Mullen, 5th Grade Interventionist
Teacher: Carol Love, 4th Grade General Education Teacher
Teacher Background: Carol received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a Master of Education from Georgia State University. Carol has over 25 years of experience working in diverse learning communities. She returned to the position as a classroom teacher after 2020 (virtual learning). She did not use or receive training relevant for classroom teachers on new digital platforms from Cobb County School District.
Relationship: co-workers since 2015
Teacher’s Goal for Coaching Session: The Cobb Teaching and Learning System, CTLS, is a digital learning environment provided by Cobb County School District to support student learning, engage parents, and empower teachers. Carol would like to take a closer look at ways to effectively use the platform.
Initial thoughts/feelings – Coach: I embark on this journey feeling both nervous and excited. I have had the pleasure to teach on the same team as Carol, and I have tremendous respect for what she does. She is one of those few educators that were truly born to teach. She has incredible rapport with her students, is extremely knowledgeable of her craft, and yet is always eager to learn even more. I am looking forward to sharing what I can and in the process, growing and learning as well.
Initial thoughts/feelings – Teacher: I am looking forward to an overview of ways to utilize CTLS to enhance the education experiences and communication with students and families. I use the basic components of the platform for curriculum planning, announcements, assessments, but I know there is so much more. I look forward to a deep dive into the program and how it can engage learners and extend meaningful and rigorous learning experiences beyond the four walls of our classroom. This year, students have 1:1 devices, so it is paramount to me to pursue this as a professional goal.
Coaching Journal 2
February 17, 2023
For her book of the week, Carol chose Trombone Shorty, a picture book biography written by musician Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and illustrated by Bryan Collier. Students listened to a read-aloud video on YouTube on the interactive board and when the story was done, they wrote down facts from the read-aloud. During that 30-minute window observation, I used a timer to rate how engaging the learning activity was on the Engagement Form provided in The Impact Cycle (Knight, 2017). From a scale from 1 to 7, 1 being noncompliant and 7 engaged, I rated the lesson at 6 and 7. After Carol viewed her video, she scored it a 5, 7 and 6 noting that the lesson had some off-task behavior at the beginning of the read-aloud.
As previously noted, the Cobb Teaching and Learning System, CTLS, is a digital learning environment provided by Cobb County School District to support student learning, engage parents, and empower teachers. Carol’s goal is to use this platform more effectively by exploring its many features and in turn increase her students’ engagement. As we discussed it in further detail off camera, I realized that her goal certainly is a PEERS goal according to Jim Knight (2017). Using the Checklist: Peers Goals from the text, the goal is Powerful since it will make a difference in the students’ lives to not only be engaged in their learning but to also become proficient in using the CTLS platform as they will continue using it through middle school and high school. The goal is Easy because it is clear why it is Powerful and there are lots of resources to be used making it easier to understand and achieve. It is also Emotionally Compelling as it was clear that Carol is passionate about enriching classroom discussions and values a literacy rich environment. The goal is Reachable as we can measure students’ engagement in subsequent observations and their understanding and usage of the platform using learner analytics. And lastly, the goal is Student-Focused as it is centered on their increased engagement.
Criteria 1: Coaching Strategies
The coaching strategy in the first part of The Impact Cycle, Identify, is questioning. Though it is part of all the stages, questioning plays a crucial role in this first stage as a partnership must be born for coaching to be effective. To begin with creating a welcoming environment, Carol dictated what setting she wanted for our conversations and to video record and she chose her classroom. Being that we have worked together off and on since 2015, trust was already established in our partnership. When it comes to listening, I have learned from previous coaching experiences, that it is undoubtedly as Knight (2017) states “an essential communication skill.” Tied to listening, clarity plays an equally important role in this coaching strategy. By clarifying questions and asking for more information, coaches can be sure that they get an accurate, complete picture of what the collaborating teacher is thinking. Knight’s (2017) final suggestions for questioning are to learn rather than judge and to keep ourselves out of the answers. This is where it is paramount to allow the collaborating teacher to express their thoughts without judgement, to look at things from multiple perspectives and to avoid inserting our own beliefs and opinions in their answers.
Criteria 2: Skill and Affective Changes
Carol has over 25 years of teaching experience and that is evident when observing her. She has a passion for literacy and strongly believes that the time she spends together with her students should be intentional. She gets excited when students can make connections about their learning, such as her ELL student relating to the read-aloud. She believes in a literacy rich environment where open discussions can take place. Her goal is to be able to use the technology available to better host these discussions and boost student engagement. By achieving this goal, her students would easily meet most if not all the ISTE student standards. The first two standards that focus on a student being an Empowered Learner and a Digital Citizen can be achieved by having students access CTLS to look for answers to their questions or to make posts on a discussion board.
Being that this was our first session, the criteria for seeing changes do not apply. Since our next steps include making time to meet and planning for hands on practical uses of the CTLS platform to improve student engagement, an update will be made in the next Coaching Journal. One of Carol’s follow up activities seen at the end of the video was a writing assignment where students chose a place they would like to visit. A follow-up suggestion I made for that assignment was that students can create a digital travel brochure and address the following ISTE standards with it: Knowledge Constructor, Innovative Designer, Computational Thinker, and Creative Communicator. Such activity would also increase the LoTi level to possibly a LoTi 5: Expansion if the student products use outside experts or have an outside audience.
Criteria 3: Reflection on the Challenges and Solutions
As I watched our recording, it was evident that I felt nervous and uncomfortable to be in front of the camera. Off camera, Carol and I had many great conversations about her classroom, her love for literacy, her students and the transitions in and out of the classroom for different services and how exciting it is to have the opportunity to collaborate on this together. One possible solution would be to record some of those more natural conversations by placing the camera on a tripod and to sit further away from it. Another area I would like to work on as a coach is to incorporate the AWE question – ‘And What Else?’ during our conversations (Knight, 2017). This would make my listening and questioning more effective and can be achieved by printing the checklist and having it in front of me during our discussions. Another area to address is my decision to omit question 8 from The Identify Questions. The reason that I omitted this question which asked: “If you could hit that goal, would it really matter to you?” is because it was evident throughout our conversation and her answers, that Carol is truly committed to achieving this goal and how much she values seeing her students grow.
Coaching Journal 3
April 1, 2023
To recap our last coaching session, Carol and I identified that her PEERS goal is to use the district’s digital learning platform, CTLS, more effectively by exploring its many features and in turn increase her students’ engagement. Due to unforeseen circumstances, a colleague, Ashley Bartho, joined our first meeting of this coaching session. During the session, we established that Ashley would have a bigger focus on the digital platform part of the goal since she can do so virtually, from her local school. My coaching focus with Carol will remain in-line with our initial goal, but other technology pieces were discussed and shared in the session.
For our coteaching modeling activity, Carol chose to continue her lesson on I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, a picture book celebrating the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, written by Debbie Levy. Since we are on different grade levels, our schedules have had many conflicts. When we were finally able to model the lesson, she pointed out that some of the students present could not be recorded since their families did not consent. As a result, we met to recap our coteaching experience on the same day after school. Below you will see some of the components and student answers from our activity.
Criteria 1: Coaching Strategies
The second stage of The Impact Cycle is Learn. This part of the process focuses on teaching strategies. Coaches organized these different strategies in a concept known as the “Big Four” which includes content planning, formative assessment, instruction, and community building. According to Knight (2017), instructional coaches begin by creating an instructional playbook, then they share checklists and finally model the chosen strategies. In our coaching session, the content was chosen by Ms. Love as she has already been working with her students on different topics for Women’s History Month. Based on our conversations, I decided that the best Checklist to focus on was Jigsaw. This checklist allows for students to cooperatively learn and work as they are dependent on each other’s understanding. The recordings of their learning can be seen in the pictures above.
When it came time to model the strategy, Carol was offered explanations of all five ways modeling can occur: visiting another class, watching a video of the strategy, in her classroom with students present, in her classroom without her students present, or co-teaching. Since Carol was already familiar with the strategy, she decided that co-teaching would be a great way to see the strategy in action but also participate in the instruction. By reviewing the Co-Teaching Planning Form, Carol and I carefully laid out the plan on how to collaborate on this activity. We did not run into a parity issue since discussed the process beforehand (Knight, 2017). Carol introduced the lesson; I reviewed the strategy step-by-step and then we broke out and assisted students in small groups. Due to intervention and ESOL pull-out groups, we were left with a small number of students. This allowed us to give a lot of individual attention to the students and assist them while they used the strategy.
Criteria 2: Skill and Affective Changes
This co-teaching session gave me an opportunity to view Carol’s love for literacy once again. One of her favorite websites is Epic! as it provides her with a way to assign independent reading opportunities to her students. The site provides extra support such as a Read-to-Me and Dictionary, that allows Carol to intentionally assign books to struggling readers and students who are not native English speakers. Upon a closer review of the benefits of Epic!, I found that it has a collection of digital citizenship resources that addresses the ISTE standards in grades K-6. Carol plans on utilizing those resources in her Health content in future lessons. A suggestion I proposed was for Carol to combine the modeled strategy of jigsaw with the Epic! resources on digital citizenship.
For example, she can start out by dividing her students into six cooperative groups. Here, they can be assigned an Epic! book from the Keep Yourself Safe on the Internet collection. In their groups, students will read their assigned book and become the "expert" on that topic and prepare to report back to others about it. Then groups are reorganized into different cooperative groups with students who read different books so that each new group has students from each category of topics. Then, they report back to classmates what they learned and record their answers on note sheets. Such an activity would be LoTi Level 4: Integration. With some tweaking and additional use of technology, it can achieve a LoTi 5: Expansion if the student products use outside experts or have an outside audience.
Criteria 3: Reflection on the Challenges and Solutions
Knight (2017) states that the biggest challenge is that checklists can be boring and one-sided. However, I did not encounter this since Carol was familiar with the teaching strategy that was being described by the checklist. Our dialogue showed how there may be variations to the strategy, but the overall structure is the same. My biggest challenge was because of the scheduling conflicts. Carol teaches 4th grade, and I am a 5th grade Interventionist. Our lunches and planning periods do not coincide. In addition, this was the week before spring break, 5th grade had two field trips I had to chaperone, and the school had an alternative schedule for Cultural Arts Day. The other challenge was realizing that out of the students that were present, a few did not have the consent to be on camera. As a result, we pivoted, co-taught the lesson without recording but debriefed the same day, right after school. For our final coaching session, Carol and I plan to time our session in such a way that we can record the students.
Coaching Journal 4
April 13, 2023
We left off in our previous coaching session by reviewing the PEERS goal of increasing student engagement using technology with a focus on our district’s digital learning platform, CTLS. After modeling using the Checklist: Jigsaw using the co-teaching model, Carol and I planned for the implementation of the jigsaw strategy. For this final coaching session, I had the opportunity to see Carol once again in action and debrief on the incredible changes we observed. Her implementation of the strategy began by reading the Book of the Week, On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein written by Jennifer Berne and illustrated by Vladimir Radunsky. Other biographies about Albert Einstein were available for student use on the Epic! website and linked on the learning platform, CTLS, for easy access. The video mainly includes Carol to not capture students who did not have consent to be on video. The pictures were also cropped to ensure privacy.
Criteria 1: Coaching Strategies
The final stage of The Impact Cycle is the Improve Stage. The four steps of the Improve Stage as outlined by Knight (2017) include: “Confirm Direction, Review Progress, Invent Improvements and Plan Next Actions.” Carol implemented the jigsaw strategy, but made some modifications to it. The student groups were chosen randomly, but they did not change. Students rotated to the different stations to complete the expected task. The five tasks were:
The strategy was incredibly effective as students were 100% engaged in the activity. After the jigsaw activity was complete, students had the opportunity to go back to the digital learning platform, CTLS, for additional activities. For starters, they had access to other books on Epic! if they wished to learn more about the topic, Albert Einstein. In addition, the culminating activity was for students to share their thoughts, questions and final reflections on the subject using Padlet.
Criteria 2: Skill and Affective Changes
Carol embraced all our coaching sessions and change was easy to see. After each session she added to her strategy, and it culminated with excellent results. One hundred percent of her students were engaged in the activity. They were eager to learn more, to discover more, and to participate in every aspect of the lesson, from the jigsaw group activity to the online reflection. By incorporating technology in the lesson, Carol was able to ensure that many of the ISTE standards were addressed. Students were Empowered Learners, Digital Citizens, Knowledge Constructors, and Creative Communicators all in one activity. Since this learning environment was technology rich, students collaborated with peers and were able to share their product, the Padlet, with other audiences, this activity reached a LoTi 5: Expansion.
Criteria 3: Reflection on the Challenges and Solutions
Our session ended with us planning some next steps since the original goal was met. A suggestion that we plan on exploring further is for Carol to use the Checklist: Jigsaw in other subject areas such as math. Of course, time is our biggest challenge. Since we are not on the same grade level and I am not in an official coaching position, scheduling to collaborate is a challenge. In addition, as we approach the end of the school year, schedules will further be changed for standardized testing and end of the year activities. However, we are both committed to the goal and to her students’ continued success. In the next few days we will sit down and complete the Next Steps Planning Form to guide us for the rest of the year.
January 29, 2023
Coach: Mari Mullen, 5th Grade Interventionist
Teacher: Carol Love, 4th Grade General Education Teacher
Teacher Background: Carol received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a Master of Education from Georgia State University. Carol has over 25 years of experience working in diverse learning communities. She returned to the position as a classroom teacher after 2020 (virtual learning). She did not use or receive training relevant for classroom teachers on new digital platforms from Cobb County School District.
Relationship: co-workers since 2015
Teacher’s Goal for Coaching Session: The Cobb Teaching and Learning System, CTLS, is a digital learning environment provided by Cobb County School District to support student learning, engage parents, and empower teachers. Carol would like to take a closer look at ways to effectively use the platform.
Initial thoughts/feelings – Coach: I embark on this journey feeling both nervous and excited. I have had the pleasure to teach on the same team as Carol, and I have tremendous respect for what she does. She is one of those few educators that were truly born to teach. She has incredible rapport with her students, is extremely knowledgeable of her craft, and yet is always eager to learn even more. I am looking forward to sharing what I can and in the process, growing and learning as well.
Initial thoughts/feelings – Teacher: I am looking forward to an overview of ways to utilize CTLS to enhance the education experiences and communication with students and families. I use the basic components of the platform for curriculum planning, announcements, assessments, but I know there is so much more. I look forward to a deep dive into the program and how it can engage learners and extend meaningful and rigorous learning experiences beyond the four walls of our classroom. This year, students have 1:1 devices, so it is paramount to me to pursue this as a professional goal.
Coaching Journal 2
February 17, 2023
For her book of the week, Carol chose Trombone Shorty, a picture book biography written by musician Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and illustrated by Bryan Collier. Students listened to a read-aloud video on YouTube on the interactive board and when the story was done, they wrote down facts from the read-aloud. During that 30-minute window observation, I used a timer to rate how engaging the learning activity was on the Engagement Form provided in The Impact Cycle (Knight, 2017). From a scale from 1 to 7, 1 being noncompliant and 7 engaged, I rated the lesson at 6 and 7. After Carol viewed her video, she scored it a 5, 7 and 6 noting that the lesson had some off-task behavior at the beginning of the read-aloud.
As previously noted, the Cobb Teaching and Learning System, CTLS, is a digital learning environment provided by Cobb County School District to support student learning, engage parents, and empower teachers. Carol’s goal is to use this platform more effectively by exploring its many features and in turn increase her students’ engagement. As we discussed it in further detail off camera, I realized that her goal certainly is a PEERS goal according to Jim Knight (2017). Using the Checklist: Peers Goals from the text, the goal is Powerful since it will make a difference in the students’ lives to not only be engaged in their learning but to also become proficient in using the CTLS platform as they will continue using it through middle school and high school. The goal is Easy because it is clear why it is Powerful and there are lots of resources to be used making it easier to understand and achieve. It is also Emotionally Compelling as it was clear that Carol is passionate about enriching classroom discussions and values a literacy rich environment. The goal is Reachable as we can measure students’ engagement in subsequent observations and their understanding and usage of the platform using learner analytics. And lastly, the goal is Student-Focused as it is centered on their increased engagement.
Criteria 1: Coaching Strategies
The coaching strategy in the first part of The Impact Cycle, Identify, is questioning. Though it is part of all the stages, questioning plays a crucial role in this first stage as a partnership must be born for coaching to be effective. To begin with creating a welcoming environment, Carol dictated what setting she wanted for our conversations and to video record and she chose her classroom. Being that we have worked together off and on since 2015, trust was already established in our partnership. When it comes to listening, I have learned from previous coaching experiences, that it is undoubtedly as Knight (2017) states “an essential communication skill.” Tied to listening, clarity plays an equally important role in this coaching strategy. By clarifying questions and asking for more information, coaches can be sure that they get an accurate, complete picture of what the collaborating teacher is thinking. Knight’s (2017) final suggestions for questioning are to learn rather than judge and to keep ourselves out of the answers. This is where it is paramount to allow the collaborating teacher to express their thoughts without judgement, to look at things from multiple perspectives and to avoid inserting our own beliefs and opinions in their answers.
Criteria 2: Skill and Affective Changes
Carol has over 25 years of teaching experience and that is evident when observing her. She has a passion for literacy and strongly believes that the time she spends together with her students should be intentional. She gets excited when students can make connections about their learning, such as her ELL student relating to the read-aloud. She believes in a literacy rich environment where open discussions can take place. Her goal is to be able to use the technology available to better host these discussions and boost student engagement. By achieving this goal, her students would easily meet most if not all the ISTE student standards. The first two standards that focus on a student being an Empowered Learner and a Digital Citizen can be achieved by having students access CTLS to look for answers to their questions or to make posts on a discussion board.
Being that this was our first session, the criteria for seeing changes do not apply. Since our next steps include making time to meet and planning for hands on practical uses of the CTLS platform to improve student engagement, an update will be made in the next Coaching Journal. One of Carol’s follow up activities seen at the end of the video was a writing assignment where students chose a place they would like to visit. A follow-up suggestion I made for that assignment was that students can create a digital travel brochure and address the following ISTE standards with it: Knowledge Constructor, Innovative Designer, Computational Thinker, and Creative Communicator. Such activity would also increase the LoTi level to possibly a LoTi 5: Expansion if the student products use outside experts or have an outside audience.
Criteria 3: Reflection on the Challenges and Solutions
As I watched our recording, it was evident that I felt nervous and uncomfortable to be in front of the camera. Off camera, Carol and I had many great conversations about her classroom, her love for literacy, her students and the transitions in and out of the classroom for different services and how exciting it is to have the opportunity to collaborate on this together. One possible solution would be to record some of those more natural conversations by placing the camera on a tripod and to sit further away from it. Another area I would like to work on as a coach is to incorporate the AWE question – ‘And What Else?’ during our conversations (Knight, 2017). This would make my listening and questioning more effective and can be achieved by printing the checklist and having it in front of me during our discussions. Another area to address is my decision to omit question 8 from The Identify Questions. The reason that I omitted this question which asked: “If you could hit that goal, would it really matter to you?” is because it was evident throughout our conversation and her answers, that Carol is truly committed to achieving this goal and how much she values seeing her students grow.
Coaching Journal 3
April 1, 2023
To recap our last coaching session, Carol and I identified that her PEERS goal is to use the district’s digital learning platform, CTLS, more effectively by exploring its many features and in turn increase her students’ engagement. Due to unforeseen circumstances, a colleague, Ashley Bartho, joined our first meeting of this coaching session. During the session, we established that Ashley would have a bigger focus on the digital platform part of the goal since she can do so virtually, from her local school. My coaching focus with Carol will remain in-line with our initial goal, but other technology pieces were discussed and shared in the session.
For our coteaching modeling activity, Carol chose to continue her lesson on I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, a picture book celebrating the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, written by Debbie Levy. Since we are on different grade levels, our schedules have had many conflicts. When we were finally able to model the lesson, she pointed out that some of the students present could not be recorded since their families did not consent. As a result, we met to recap our coteaching experience on the same day after school. Below you will see some of the components and student answers from our activity.
Criteria 1: Coaching Strategies
The second stage of The Impact Cycle is Learn. This part of the process focuses on teaching strategies. Coaches organized these different strategies in a concept known as the “Big Four” which includes content planning, formative assessment, instruction, and community building. According to Knight (2017), instructional coaches begin by creating an instructional playbook, then they share checklists and finally model the chosen strategies. In our coaching session, the content was chosen by Ms. Love as she has already been working with her students on different topics for Women’s History Month. Based on our conversations, I decided that the best Checklist to focus on was Jigsaw. This checklist allows for students to cooperatively learn and work as they are dependent on each other’s understanding. The recordings of their learning can be seen in the pictures above.
When it came time to model the strategy, Carol was offered explanations of all five ways modeling can occur: visiting another class, watching a video of the strategy, in her classroom with students present, in her classroom without her students present, or co-teaching. Since Carol was already familiar with the strategy, she decided that co-teaching would be a great way to see the strategy in action but also participate in the instruction. By reviewing the Co-Teaching Planning Form, Carol and I carefully laid out the plan on how to collaborate on this activity. We did not run into a parity issue since discussed the process beforehand (Knight, 2017). Carol introduced the lesson; I reviewed the strategy step-by-step and then we broke out and assisted students in small groups. Due to intervention and ESOL pull-out groups, we were left with a small number of students. This allowed us to give a lot of individual attention to the students and assist them while they used the strategy.
Criteria 2: Skill and Affective Changes
This co-teaching session gave me an opportunity to view Carol’s love for literacy once again. One of her favorite websites is Epic! as it provides her with a way to assign independent reading opportunities to her students. The site provides extra support such as a Read-to-Me and Dictionary, that allows Carol to intentionally assign books to struggling readers and students who are not native English speakers. Upon a closer review of the benefits of Epic!, I found that it has a collection of digital citizenship resources that addresses the ISTE standards in grades K-6. Carol plans on utilizing those resources in her Health content in future lessons. A suggestion I proposed was for Carol to combine the modeled strategy of jigsaw with the Epic! resources on digital citizenship.
For example, she can start out by dividing her students into six cooperative groups. Here, they can be assigned an Epic! book from the Keep Yourself Safe on the Internet collection. In their groups, students will read their assigned book and become the "expert" on that topic and prepare to report back to others about it. Then groups are reorganized into different cooperative groups with students who read different books so that each new group has students from each category of topics. Then, they report back to classmates what they learned and record their answers on note sheets. Such an activity would be LoTi Level 4: Integration. With some tweaking and additional use of technology, it can achieve a LoTi 5: Expansion if the student products use outside experts or have an outside audience.
Criteria 3: Reflection on the Challenges and Solutions
Knight (2017) states that the biggest challenge is that checklists can be boring and one-sided. However, I did not encounter this since Carol was familiar with the teaching strategy that was being described by the checklist. Our dialogue showed how there may be variations to the strategy, but the overall structure is the same. My biggest challenge was because of the scheduling conflicts. Carol teaches 4th grade, and I am a 5th grade Interventionist. Our lunches and planning periods do not coincide. In addition, this was the week before spring break, 5th grade had two field trips I had to chaperone, and the school had an alternative schedule for Cultural Arts Day. The other challenge was realizing that out of the students that were present, a few did not have the consent to be on camera. As a result, we pivoted, co-taught the lesson without recording but debriefed the same day, right after school. For our final coaching session, Carol and I plan to time our session in such a way that we can record the students.
Coaching Journal 4
April 13, 2023
We left off in our previous coaching session by reviewing the PEERS goal of increasing student engagement using technology with a focus on our district’s digital learning platform, CTLS. After modeling using the Checklist: Jigsaw using the co-teaching model, Carol and I planned for the implementation of the jigsaw strategy. For this final coaching session, I had the opportunity to see Carol once again in action and debrief on the incredible changes we observed. Her implementation of the strategy began by reading the Book of the Week, On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein written by Jennifer Berne and illustrated by Vladimir Radunsky. Other biographies about Albert Einstein were available for student use on the Epic! website and linked on the learning platform, CTLS, for easy access. The video mainly includes Carol to not capture students who did not have consent to be on video. The pictures were also cropped to ensure privacy.
Criteria 1: Coaching Strategies
The final stage of The Impact Cycle is the Improve Stage. The four steps of the Improve Stage as outlined by Knight (2017) include: “Confirm Direction, Review Progress, Invent Improvements and Plan Next Actions.” Carol implemented the jigsaw strategy, but made some modifications to it. The student groups were chosen randomly, but they did not change. Students rotated to the different stations to complete the expected task. The five tasks were:
- After reading the Book of the Week, On a Beam of Light: The Story of Albert Einstein, you should have learned a lot about this important and revolutionary thinker. What did you learn about Einstein?
- What did Albert do to help himself think?
- What do you think Albert’s classmates thought about him? Why?
- Interpret this quote by Albert Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” What does this mean to you? Why do you think this was Einstein’s point of view?
- What are 5 words (character traits) that you think are necessary to cultivate genius?
The strategy was incredibly effective as students were 100% engaged in the activity. After the jigsaw activity was complete, students had the opportunity to go back to the digital learning platform, CTLS, for additional activities. For starters, they had access to other books on Epic! if they wished to learn more about the topic, Albert Einstein. In addition, the culminating activity was for students to share their thoughts, questions and final reflections on the subject using Padlet.
Criteria 2: Skill and Affective Changes
Carol embraced all our coaching sessions and change was easy to see. After each session she added to her strategy, and it culminated with excellent results. One hundred percent of her students were engaged in the activity. They were eager to learn more, to discover more, and to participate in every aspect of the lesson, from the jigsaw group activity to the online reflection. By incorporating technology in the lesson, Carol was able to ensure that many of the ISTE standards were addressed. Students were Empowered Learners, Digital Citizens, Knowledge Constructors, and Creative Communicators all in one activity. Since this learning environment was technology rich, students collaborated with peers and were able to share their product, the Padlet, with other audiences, this activity reached a LoTi 5: Expansion.
Criteria 3: Reflection on the Challenges and Solutions
Our session ended with us planning some next steps since the original goal was met. A suggestion that we plan on exploring further is for Carol to use the Checklist: Jigsaw in other subject areas such as math. Of course, time is our biggest challenge. Since we are not on the same grade level and I am not in an official coaching position, scheduling to collaborate is a challenge. In addition, as we approach the end of the school year, schedules will further be changed for standardized testing and end of the year activities. However, we are both committed to the goal and to her students’ continued success. In the next few days we will sit down and complete the Next Steps Planning Form to guide us for the rest of the year.
Artifacts
Below are the Engagement Forms that were used to evaluate the students' engagement for the coaching sessions. The first two are from the observed teacher's and the coach's view. The final form is from the coach's perspective during the final phase of coaching cycle, Improve.