Coaching Journal- Cooper 1

Coaching Journal

Christopher W. Cooper

PL & Technology Innovation (ITEC 7460)

Kennesaw State University

Ed. S. Instructional Technology, Fall 2017

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Coaching Journal 1: 10-12-2017

Strategies

My first coaching session took place with Ms. Bortles, a new social studies teacher as

Dacula High School who is a first year teacher. I was able to enroll Ms. Bortles through the one-

to-one interview process described my Knight (2007). I felt that the one-to-one interview was

important because it, “provides teachers a chance to see you not as a professional developer, some

expert coming in, but as someone like them (Knight, 2007).” At the start of the interview I

explained the approach that I would be using throughout our coaching sessions, which was the

partnership approach to coaching. I felt that this was important because as Knight explains, ICs

can explain their partnership approach to coaching, listening to teachers’ concerns, and explain

that as coaches they are there to help, not evaluate (Knight, 2007). I wanted to make it clear to

Ms. Bortles that she had choices in everything that we did and that I wanted the coaching sessions

to be designed to help her in the areas that she felt would best serve her needs as a new teacher.

For our first meeting we discussed what Ms. Bortles was looking to accomplish from our

coaching sessions. It became very obvious that she was concerned with the expectations of our

school, which is providing students with student centered instruction, while constantly assessing

students to check for understanding, and differentiating instruction for each student’s needs. She

made it clear that she wanted to conduct assessments that would provide adequate data that she

could use to differentiate instruction. She also stated that she wished to become better at using

technology to provide differentiation for her school. After listening to Ms. Bortles concerns, I

provided her with a survey to determine how comfortable she was with using technology. I

explained to her that I would be able to use that information to drive the next coaching session.
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We also established the best time to conduct our coaching sessions, which we determined would

be Thursday during our common planning period.

Skills and Affective Changes

The biggest observation that I made during our first coaching session was how reluctant

Ms. Bortles was about answering questions and asking questions. At first this was very frustrating

for me because she had volunteered for the coaching sessions and I felt like she did not want to

participate. As we continued to look at things that I felt would help her become successful in the

classroom and be able to carry out the expectations established by our administrators, I realized

that she was uncomfortable discussing things that she was not familiar with. I concluded that she

did not want to be embarrassed by what she was unfamiliar with. It was really difficult for her to

share what she felt her strengths and weaknesses were. I finally started sharing with her what my

strengths and weaknesses were and I put a lot more focus on my weaknesses. This seemed to make

her less reluctant to talk to me about her strengths and weaknesses and she became more open as

our conversations continued.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

One of the biggest challenges that I face is being able to find classroom resources that meet

the needs of Ms. Bortles and her students. Ms. Bortles teachers resource World History and she

has expressed that many of her students are reluctant to change. Making changes to her daily

classroom procedures could pose a challenge for Ms. Bortles and her students. Another challenge

that I face is time management with us meeting during our planning period. As a course team

leader for US History, I have to make sure that I meet the needs of my US History course team and

plan effective coaching sessions for Ms. Bortles. Although I have been a course team leader for

several years now, this will be the first time I will have to manage a course team and coach a
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colleague at the same time. Another challenge will be implementing the strategies that we have

studies in Knight’s book. I want to be sure that I am effectively taking a partnership approach and

I am addressing the culture of DHS throughout my coaching sessions.

Coaching Session 2: 10-19-2017

Strategies

In the first coaching session Ms. Bortles mentioned that she wanted help meeting the

expectations of the school administration, which is incorporating technology into the classroom

that promotes student centered instruction, differentiation to meet individual needs and constant

assessment to check for mastery. With this in mind, I decided to introduce Ms. Bortles to an

assessment strategy called Schoolnet that I use to administer quizzes and exams. The reason I

chose Schoolnet was because you can tie each question into the class standards and it provides

very detailed reports to create differentiation to meet the needs of individual students. For this

session, I decided to use the model, you watch me (2007). During our meeting I showed Ms.

Bortles how to create a quiz for my US History students. I linked each question to the standards

for US History that we had covered for that quiz. Next I had Ms. Bortles enter an old quiz from

her World History class into Schoolnet and she linked the standards that went with each question

so that she would know how to create an assessment on Schoolnet. The next thing that we did was

look at the data that we received from once students has completed a quiz. For this I used the data

from a previous quiz that my US History had taken. We were able to look back and see what

questions each student had missed and the standards that those questions were tied to. I showed

her how to view the standards that were covered by each question and determine which area

students would need additional help. To model her resource classes, we only looked at eight of

my student’s results. This gave her a realistic look at what it would be like to shift through the
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data from her students since she has no more than eight students in her resource classes. As we

looked at the results of my eight students I completed a data sheet that would show me which

standard each student needed to remediate over. After modeling this activity for Ms. Bortles I

selected eight more of my US History students and had her complete the data sheet over the

standards. She was excited about being able to quickly determine which standards each student

needed additional help over.

Skill and Affective Changes

It was evident from our meeting that Ms. Bortles was excited about the data that Schoolnet

would provide her as an assessment tool. She had a good understanding of how to upload questions

and attach the standards to the individual questions. She also had a good grasp on how to assess

the data provided to try to differentiate instruction. She did express that she was nervous about

her ability to be able at create lessons using technology to engage students to meet their individual

needs. Ms. Bortles was much more comfortable asking questions during our second coaching

session and seemed eager to continue to learn, which was exciting for me as a first time coach.

Ms. Bortles expressed that she was very thankful that I walked her through the process of creating

an assessment on Schoolnet and felt that me modeling it for her was the best way to teach her to

use the tool.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

The main challenge for this session was for me to pace myself and not go to fast. I had to

make sure that when I was modeling how to upload an assessment into Schoolnet, I went slow and

emphasized the importance of each step. I typically upload the assessments very quickly since I

am used to using the tool. I had to remind myself to slow down since this was my first time

coaching someone through the process. I stressed to Ms. Bortles that she needed to stop me if I
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started to move too quickly. I also did not anticipate some of the questions that she asked me

during the coaching session, such as could she collaborate with other teachers on the assessment

tool. Although I knew how to collaborate with other teachers, I did not think about mentioning it

and I had to go back to the beginning to show her how to add other teachers and share the

assessment with collaborating teachers.

The next thing that I did not account for was how excited Ms. Bortles would be to discuss

how to use the data from the assessment to remediate. Given the short amount of time that we had

to meet, I was not able to share many ideas about remediation with her during our session. Having

planned to create remediation and extension activities in the next coaching session, I was

unprepared to go into it during that session. To prepare for our next session, I asked Ms. Bortles

to prepare several resources is she was not already familiar with them. The resources I asked her

to explore were Quizlet, Popplet, and Storyboard. I explained to her those were often tools that I

used to provide remediation and extension activities in my class. She seemed very excited to

further research those tools.

Coaching Session 3: 10-26-2017

Strategies

In our previous meeting I had given Ms. Bortles several resources to explore that we would

use to create remediation and enrichment activities. It was obvious from our information that Ms.

Bortles provided me that she had researched each tool and was excite to use them in her classroom.

Knowing that we were going to be making remediation activities to meet the various needs of

students, I had Ms. Bortles give her students a 15 question quiz over their current content. Ms.

Bortles had 3 target standards that she quizzed over, with each having several sub-standards. I

allowed Ms. Bortles to choose which of the resources that she had explored that she felt most
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comfortable using for the remediation, and she choose Quizlet. I then told her that we needed to

make three study sets on Quizlet for each of the three standards that she had quizzed over. Students

would study the study set that they needed remediation on a Chromebook by using flashcards,

matching, or gravity. Once they felt that they were familiar with the study set, they would then

take the test over the study set on Quizlet and report their score to Ms. Bortles. Ms. Bortles and I

then looked at the data and charted the questions that each of her students missed to determine

which standards they needed remediation on. This would allow us to easily assign the remediation

to her students. Ms. Bortles was excited about the remediation activity but had one student who

had make a 93 on their quiz and clearly did not need remediation. I suggested we make and

enrichment assignment for that student using one of the other tools that she had explored. Ms.

Bortles elected to use Popplet to have the student create a concept map over the three standards

that she had quizzed over. I explained to her that she could post the concept map on their classes

eClass page and other students could use it as a study guide. It was important for me to allow Ms.

Bortles to choose the tools that we used for enrichment and remediation to show that we both had

a voice in this experience, which is an important piece to the partnership approach (Knight, 2007).

Once we created the remediation activities, I again used the “you watch me” observation

model from Knight (2007). I explained to her that I would come to her class the next day and

teach her fifth period resource class during my lunch. I told her that I wanted her to complete an

observation sheet on me which I provided for her. The observation sheet provided her an

opportunity to record the things she liked about the lesson, things she didn’t like and things that

were not clear. Before starting the lesson with Ms. Bortles students I explained to them that I was

working as a partner with Ms. Bortles on a lesson and that I needed her to observe me teach, to

help me learn from the experience. At the conclusion of the lesson, Ms. Bortles and I agreed to
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meet that afternoon during our common planning period. I wanted to meet as soon as possible

which is Knight says is very important (Knight, 2007). We started the meeting by talking about

the observation sheet that she had completed during the lesson. Ms. Bortles was very excited about

the lesson and was eager to carry out the lesson as well.

Skills and Affective Changes

The biggest surprise that for me during our coaching sessions was the change of attitude

that Ms. Bortles had during three short sessions. I was excited to see her move from being very

reluctant to try new things to become eager to implement new resources in her classroom and use

data to drive her instruction. She admitted that she thought that differentiating instruction to meet

the needs of each of her students would be much more elaborate than making different study sets

on Quizlet to assign to the ones that certain students needed. She also was excited that she could

provide enrichment activities to her students who quickly grasped the concepts in her class without

feeling like she was providing them extra work. Ms. Bortles also expressed that she was confident

creating her own lessons and carrying them out herself.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

One of the biggest challenges for me during this coaching session was to allow Ms. Bortles

to decide which resource tools to use to enrich and remediate. I had to remind myself numerous

times that it was a partnership and that I wanted her to have a voice. I was also determined to

show her how she could quickly use the tool that she choose to provide enrichment or remediation

regardless of which tools she chose. I did not want to create a scenario where I said no, we should

really pick another one, that does not work well for remediation. I felt like that would turn her off

from the idea of differentiating her lesson using the data she received from Schoolnet.
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After completing the three coaching sessions, I feel much more confident in my ability to coach

collogues in my building. I admit that I was intimidated at first, but become more comfortable

with each session. I do believe that Ms. Bortles being a new teacher made it a little easier for me,

and I think that it would be more difficult working with a seasoned teacher who was set in their

ways.
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References

Knight, J. (2007). Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Cowin Press.