New studies highlight benefits of teacher coaching

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A set of studies released in this month's special issue of The Elementary School Journal reveals the powerful effect that the coaching of teachers can have on both teachers and students.

"Many in the field have trusted that intuitive feeling that putting a knowledgeable coach in a classroom to work with a teacher will result in improved teacher practices and increased student learning," write the issue's guest editors, Misty Sailors of The University of Texas at San Antonio and Nancy L. Shanklin of University of Colorado, Denver. "The jury of these researchers and the peer reviewers of their work has delivered its verdict: while coaching may be new, it is no longer unproven."

The eight research articles included in the issue span multiple subject areas and grade levels, and suggest that teacher coaching programs could be an important part of efforts to increase teaching quality in the coming years, the editors say.

Long-Term Gains in Student Reading Achievement: A literacy program with a strong coaching component helped increase student literacy learning by 16 percent in its first year, 28 percent in its second year, and 32 percent in the third, according to a study tracking students from kindergarten through second grade in 17 schools. "[T]his study contributes important new evidence of the potential for literacy coaching to yield improvements in student literacy outcomes," the researchers write. --Gina Biancarosa, Anthony S. Bryk, and Emily R. Dexter, "Assessing the Value-Added Effects of Literacy Collaborative Professional Development on Student Learning."

Coaching Benefits New Teachers: High teacher turnover is a problem in many urban school districts and can disrupt professional development efforts. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University investigated the effect of coaching on new teachers in a high-turnover school. The study found that schools with coaching programs saw significant improvement in measures of teacher practices and student outcomes compared to schools without coaching programs. The findings suggest that new teachers benefit from going to work at schools with strong coaching programs in place, and that coaching programs could have an added benefit in high-turnover urban schools. --Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Helen E. Garnier, Richard Correnti, Brian Junker, and Donna DiPrima Bickel, "Investigating the Effectiveness of a Comprehensive Literacy Coaching Program in Schools with High Teacher Mobility."

Advantages of Coaching over Traditional Professional Development: Susan Neuman and Tanya Wright of the University of Michigan compare the effectiveness of university-based coursework and coaching as means of professional development for early childhood educators. On measures of classroom environment that supports literacy learning, teachers in the study who received coaching outperformed teachers who received coursework. "In sum, coaching appears to improve a number of quality practices in language and development for early childhood educators," the researchers write. "It reaches teachers where they are, demonstrating that quantitative changes in language and literacy development in the short term are possible when professional development is targeted, individualized, and applicable to its audience." --Susan B. Neuman and Tanya S. Wright, "Promoting Language and Literacy Development for Early Childhood Educators: A Mixed-Methods Study of Coursework and Coaching."

What Coaches Do and How Teachers React: A study by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh explores what coaches do, how teachers perceive that work, and how coaching affects student learning. The study found that coaching activities fall into five broad categories: "working with teachers (individually or in groups), planning and organizing that supported the work with teachers, management or administrative tasks, school-related meetings and outreach to parents or community, and working with students in assessment or instruction." Most teachers involved in the study had positive perceptions of coaches' work, the study found. Moreover, in schools where coaches spend more time coaching (as opposed to administrative or planning tasks), a higher percentage of students demonstrate proficiency in reading, the study found. --Rita M. Bean, Jason A. Draper, Virginia Hall, Jill Vandermolen, Naomi Zigmond, "Coaches and Coaching in Reading First Schools: A Reality Check."

What Teachers Value in a Coach: Michelle Vanderburg and Diane Stevens of the University of South Carolina used interviews with 35 teachers who had participated in coaching programs to find out what teachers value about the work of coaches. "Patterns in the data suggest the teachers valued how the coaches created a space for collaboration, provided ongoing support, and taught about research-based instructional strategies," the authors write. "Teachers credited their coach with helping them try new teaching practices, incorporate more authentic assessments, ground their decisions in professional literature, and create curriculum that was more student centered." --Michelle Vanderburg and Diane Stephens, "The Impact of Literacy Coaches: What Teachers Value and How Teachers Change."

Balancing the Relationship with Teachers: Jacy Ippolito from Salem State College investigated the way coaches balance two potentially competing roles as they work with teachers: being responsive and being directive. "Responsive relationships are those in which coaches focus on teacher self-reflection, thereby allowing teachers' and students' needs to guide the coaching process," Ippolito writes. "Directive relationships are those in which coaches assume the role of expert and are assertive about what instructional practices teachers must implement." The research found that coaches flip between the two roles frequently during the course of a single coaching session, often using established protocols to balance the two. --Jacy Ippolito, "Three Ways That Literacy Coaches Balance Responsive and Directive Relationships with Teachers."

Going from Teacher to Coach: Researchers from the University of Missouri and Penn State University followed a group of first-year mathematics coaches to see how they settled into their new roles. The researchers found four components to a new coach's identity: "coach as supporter of teachers, coach as supporter of students, coach as learner, and coach as supporter of the school-at-large." These roles were shaped not only by the coaches themselves, but also by teachers and principals. --Kathryn B. Chval, Fran Arbaugh, John K. Lannin, Delinda van Garderen, Liza Cummings, Anne T. Estapa, Maryann E. Huey, "The Transition from Experienced Teacher to Mathematics Coach: Establishing a New Identity."

What Coaches Do Right: Researchers from the University of Delaware, University of Virginia, and Georgia Department of Education identify several specific aspects of teacher coaching that have a significant influence on teaching practice. The study could help create a framework to evaluate teacher coaching programs. --Sharon Walpole, Michael C. McKenna, Ximena Uribe-Zarain, and David Lamitina, "The Relationships between Coaching and Instruction in the Primary Grades: Evidence from High-Poverty Schools."

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NCEE Releases Final Report on Two Adolescent Literacy Programs

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There is substantial interest in helping the more than 70 percent of students who arrive in high school with reading skills that are below “proficient” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) demonstration evaluated two supplemental literacy programs – Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL) and Xtreme Reading (XR) – targeted to ninth grade students whose reading skills were at least two years below grade level.

Over two years, about 6,000 eligible students in 34 high schools from 10 districts were randomly assigned to enroll in the year-long ERO class or remain in a regularly scheduled elective class (non-ERO group). At the end of 9th grade, both groups were assessed using a standardized, nationally normed reading test, and participated in surveys about their reading activities and behaviors. School records were used to examine the effect of the literacy programs on academic performance during the program year (9th grade) and a year afterwards.

The study found:

• Taken together, the ERO supplemental literacy programs improved students’ reading comprehension skills during the 9th grade, corresponding to an improvement from the 23rd to the 25th percentile. However, 77 percent of students assigned to the ERO class were still reading 2 or more years behind grade level at the end of the 9th grade.

• During the 9th grade, the ERO program also had a positive impact on students’ academic performance in core subject areas, including their grades and credit accumulation. Students in the ERO group scored higher on their states’ English/Language Arts and mathematics assessment than did those in the non-ERO group.

• The ERO program effects did not continue beyond the program year. While there were statistically significant and positive impacts on students’ GPA, credit accumulation and state test scores in 9th grade, the impacts were not significant the following school year. When analyzed separately, the RAAL program significantly improved students’ reading comprehension during the 9th grade year while the XR program did not have a statistically significant impact on reading comprehension. Impacts on other outcomes were similar for the two programs.

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Study: Teasing about weight can affect pre-teens profoundly

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Results are a signal for more early identification, intervention efforts at schools, researchers say

Schoolyard taunts of any type can potentially damage a child's sense of self-confidence. But a new study suggests that a particular kind of teasing – about weight – can have distinctive and significant effects on how pre-teens perceive their own bodies.

The research, among the first to specifically examine the impact of weight-based criticism on pre-adolescents, also hints that the practice can cause other health and emotional issues for its victims.

"We tend to think of adolescence as the time when kids become sensitive about their body image, but our findings suggest that the seeds of body dissatisfaction are actually being sown much earlier," said Timothy D. Nelson, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the study's lead author. "Criticism of weight, in particular, can contribute to issues that go beyond general problems with self-esteem."

For the study, Nelson and his colleagues surveyed hundreds of public school students whose average age was 10.8 years. They collected participants' heights and weights and calculated their Body Mass Index, then examined the relationships between weight-related criticism and children's perceptions of themselves.

Their results showed that overweight pre-teens who endured weight-based criticism tended to judge their bodies more harshly and were less satisfied with their body sizes than students who weren't teased about their weight.

The effects of weight-based teasing were significant even when researchers removed the effects of students' BMI from their analysis in an attempt to separate the relative contributions of physical reality and children's social interactions to their body perceptions, Nelson said.

Because children who develop such negative views of their bodies are at higher risk for internalizing problems, developing irregular eating behaviors and ongoing victimization, researchers said these results should be a signal for more early identification and intervention efforts at schools.

"In a way, weight-related criticism is one of the last socially acceptable forms of criticism," Nelson said. "There's often a sense that overweight people 'deserve' it, or that if they are continually prodded about their weight, they'll do something about it.

"In fact, our research suggests that this kind of criticism tends to increase the victim's body dissatisfaction, which has been shown to be a factor in poorer outcomes with pediatric weight management programs. It becomes something of a vicious cycle."

The study notes that children's views of their bodies are a complex interaction between physical reality and socially influenced perceptions. Peer criticism about weight is an important social factor that could affect how pre-adolescents interpret the physical reality of their bodies, Nelson said.

The findings, Nelson said, should be relevant to understanding the consequences of weight-related criticism and considering interventions with preadolescents who are frequent targets of the taunts.

"While weight-related criticism is identifiable, programs targeting it are limited," he said. "Early identification of children who are targets of frequent and chronic weight-based criticism may also be important in reducing it and its harmful effects."

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