Examining a Coaching Routine to Support Teacher Learning

ABSTRACT

Mathematics specialists tasked with the responsibility of supporting teacher learning face both the opportunity and the challenge of transforming the organization of the school workplace to support educators’ collective, ongoing learning, which is not the norm in most school settings. In this study, we examine a coaching routine called Teacher Time Out (TTO), which was organically developed by a school-based mathematics coach and the teachers with whom she worked. Through the routine, coaches and teachers work through complex, in-the-moment pedagogical decision making while collectively facilitating mathematics discussions among students. The routine thus opens opportunities for educators to learn about ambitious teaching alongside their colleagues. We report findings from an analysis of 360 TTOs that occurred over three years of one coach’s work supporting a school-wide, multi-year instructional reform effort in mathematics teaching and learning. We found that the coaching routine fostered teachers’ collective inquiry into practice, as they engaged with the unpredictability of teaching during real-time instruction with students. We discuss the potential of this routine to support coaching as a lever for organizational reform, reshaping mathematics teaching across many classrooms.

KEYWORDS:

• Mathematics coaching
• professional learning
• elementary mathematics

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Elsewhere, we discuss the role of the principal in the Math Learning Lab professional learning structure (see, Kazemi et al., n.d.), the coach’s role in facilitating Math Learning Labs (Gibbons et al., 2017b), and the history of the university-school partnership between university-based educators and Hilltop educators (Kazemi & Resnick, 2019). While teacher educators from the university were involved in supporting the design and enactment of multiple Math Learning Labs for the first three years of the partnership, this analysis focuses on the coach's participation in and use of TTOs with the teachers at Hilltop.

² The intent of this instructional activity is to support students to “examine number relationships that enable them to identify, to discuss, and to use patterns and the structure of the number system” (Franke et al., 2018, p. 3).

³ Educators who hear about TTO for the first time often wonder what the impact of TTO is on students and their learning. Teachers have reported that students enjoy the experience of having many teachers listen carefully to their thinking and work together within TTOs to make sense of their thinking. Many teachers have commented about how the TTOs do not interfere too much with the pacing of the lesson and appreciate that students get to see their teachers positioned as learners. Before the lesson begins, the team thanks the students in advance for their assistance on this special day and positions them as the true teachers since they will help the team learn.