Cloud Coaching

Web-based learning holds promise, especially for districts with limited resources

Web-based coaching shows significant promise for linking teachers to highly expert practitioners. This is especially important in districts that cannot afford to hire full-time school-based coaches or to train and support coaches to be experts in all content areas. Web-based coaching also offers special affordances that may not be available in face-to-face coaching. In particular, the opportunity for coaches and teachers to reflect on video together is a powerful way to focus attention on the student thinking shown in classroom interactions and small but significant instructional decisions. While web-based teacher professional development shows a great deal of potential for improving practice, research is in the early stages of determining how to best design these experiences to further teaching and learning. Here we describe what we

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Authors

Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Donna DiPrima Bickel, Dena-Zook-Howell, Richard Correnti, Marguerite Walsh

Lindsay Clare Matsumura ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education and a research scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center. Donna DiPrima Bickel ([email protected]) and Dena Zook-Howell ([email protected]) are fellows of the Institute for Learning at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Richard Correnti ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education and a research scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center. Marguerite Walsh ([email protected]) is a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education.

Coaching conversation

Coach: If you begin with a really open-ended question like, “So, what are we learning here? What is the author telling us about this war?,” the kids have to start to talk about the war. They have to make some claims about it.

Johnson: I got more into those questions after the first chapter. “What was he thinking when that happened? How does this new information affect Salva?” I think those are more the open ones that you’re thinking about.

Coach: Sometimes, when we’re asking a question, we’re actually inserting some of the answer in our question, like how does such and such affect Salva? If we do that, we’re actually alerting them to the fact that something affected Salva. If we just say, “What are we learning here?” or “What’s happening here?” or “What new information is the author telling us?,” then they have to come up with the fact that something has affected Salva. The students might not have realized that, and that’s information for us as teachers that something just went right over their heads. We’re learning that something we thought was going to be really easy for them to digest is not.

Johnson: I see a pattern here. The online workshop facilitator talked about the same thing. We’re so used to asking what we believe is open-ended, because to me open-ended is where they have to give you information, not just a yes/no. But you’re asking for them to really delve into what’s going on. I guess I’m looking for more concrete information.

Coach: You want that concrete information to come from the kids.

Johnson: I want them to think more rigorously or get into it but I also want to make sure that they understand the fundamental things that are going on that they may not.

References

Beck, I.L. & McKeown, M.G. (2006). Improving comprehension with Questioning the Author: A fresh and expanded view of a powerful approach. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Bickel, D.B., Berstein-Danis, T., & Matsumura, L.C. (2015). Clear goal, clear results: Content-focused routines support learning for everyone — including coaches. JSD, 36(1), 34-39.

Matsumura, L.C., Garnier, H.E., & Spybrook, J. (2013). Literacy coaching, reading comprehension instruction and student achievement: A mediation model. Learning and Instruction, 25, 35-48.