[MUSIC]. Welcome to Week One of Coaching Teachers promoting changes that stick. I'm Orin Gutlerner the Director of the Match Teacher Residency Program in Boston. I'll be your instructor for the next five weeks and we're going to start off with a story. Meet Miss McRookie teacher. She's a brand new high school math teacher and it shows. She's enthusiastic, optimistic, and like many young teachers, she can't stop talking about her job. >> It's going great. I mean, last week when you came to observe me was a little bit rocky. Most days are actually kind of rocky. But that's okay, I always knew this was going to be really hard in the beginning, but I'm just really really happy to be here. Well first of all I'm not supposed to talk about this. I'm sorry, my friends told me I'm not supposed to talk about work, but I really wanted to share this with you. Because I had an awesome lesson today. It was really fun the kids got to do an activity and one of the kids who normally really struggles. He has a really tough time in math. He always gets down on himself. Today, Malik killed it. He did such an amazing job. And all the other kids were snapping for him and feeling so so proud. And it was just such an awesome moment, I just really wish you could have been there to see it. It was so great. >> Teachers love talking about their work. New teachers in particular, just can't get enough of it. And part of the reason why is because teaching is kind of an isolated job, you do it behind a closed door with students all day long. Fortunately for Miss McRookie she has exactly what she needs, an instructional coach. Someone who's going to sit down with her regularly about the work. Meet Mr. Good Coach. He has a really strong reputation as a teacher, he has a great rapport with his colleagues. Tons of experience. And he's known to be a really good communicator. Looks like Miss McRookie is done with her lesson and she's about to sit down for her first coaching session. Let's listen in. >> I gotta tell you. This school is lucky to have you, all right? There are plenty of rough edges, I know that. And there are always going to be rough edges. But, the, the passion and the. You, you don't need to write this down, okay? Look, I, I want you to know that the passion and the enthusiasm that you're bringing to your students. That is going to produce inspiration and. You know, I used to do the same thing all the time. I didn't even notice I was doing it. There was this kid named Andy, oh, god. Oh I haven't thought of Andy in so long. Oh, and did you notice that you were like planted in the same spot for like ten minutes, and if right in the middle of the lesson. >> Yeah, I guess you're right, yeah. >> Hey, look it happens, you know, it happens. >> I know. >> You get in a groove there, and it's your spot and you go to have a teachers spot. [INAUDIBLE] >> Right. You're planting. I think that's [INAUDIBLE]. >> Yeah, it is. >> You know, I find that, at a certain point, you just have to put the tests down. You gotta, you gotta cap the red pen. [SOUND] >> I know. >> And you gotta go to sleep. >> I know. >> You're not doing anybody any favors. >> Yeah. >> By overextending yourself. >> Yeah. >> And what if you get sick? >> I know, you're right. You're totally right. I know. >> Wow, what good coaching session. I mean, this Mr. Good Coach is so knowledgeable about instruction and there's so much to talk about. And this McRookie teacher is just eager now, she's hanging on his every word. She's going to be really happy. She'll tell her principal, thank you so much for getting me a coach, I feel really supported. And the principal will in turn tell the superintendent, thank you so much for investing in instructional coaching. And everyone's happy. Everyone wins. Except for one thing. Actually not so sure how effective that coaching session was. And by effective, we man, did it produce lasting changes in Miss McRookies practice? In such a way that it will have a positive impact on how much her students learn from her. He gave her tons of ideas to work on. Probably too many. And those ideas while they were all really good ones were in no way organized in a framework. That would help Miss McRookie teacher understand some long term goals or vision she's working toward. And finally those ideas were in no way prioritized. It's not clear what Miss McRookie teacher should work on first to improve tomorrow. That's the basis for this weeks lecture. We're going to paint some broad strokes about our key ideas around what constitutes not good coaching but effective coaching. Because at the end of the day while Ms McRookie teacher might feel really validated and supported in that conversation. We're actually not sure what will change in her practice. By the way, if you're taking this MOOC you probably know lots of the reasons why teacher coaching, doesn't always happen. It's really expensive. Sometimes, it's just given to the principal to do and that's one really busy person, and lot's of teachers to get to. There's no doubt that there are lots of structural and institutional barriers to starting a teacher coaching program. But that's not what this MOOC is about. This MOOC is about how to make teacher coaching effective, once it's already in place. But just having a teacher coaching program in place isn't necessarily going to create the changes you want to see in your teachers. With that in mind we wanted to study the impact of our approach to teacher coaching. It's a model that we've developed here at Boston working with our new teachers in the Match Teacher Residency Program. That we've actually brought down to the great city of New Orleans, where we coach more experienced teachers in the classroom. So, we've reached out to a researcher, Matt Craft, who's now at Brown University to study the impact of our model. We sent our trusty TA Ross down to Providence to interview Matt about his research findings. >> Hi, I'm Matt Craft. I'm an assistant professor at Brown University. And in 2011, I started working with MATCH to evaluate their teacher coaching program down in New Orleans. >> [UNKNOWN] And what did the site look like, how was it, how was it organized? >> So the big goal was, to be able to determine whether or not match coaching made a difference for teachers and students. And so in order to do that we conducted an randomized control trial. >> And, and, were there any clear findings at the end? >> So the study is actually still on going. We are currently collecting data on our third cohort of teachers that are participating in this randomized trial. In the first year, we've found striking results that coaching made a big difference on teachers practices. >> Mm-hm. >> Whether or not we asked principals to rate their teachers, whether or not we asked students on a survey to evaluate. The effectiveness of their teachers or, whether or not we ask, outside observers, to come in, and rate teachers on their instruction practices. All of those different ways of evaluating teachers point in the same direction, those teachers who receive the coaching were more effective. At the end of that first year of the student coaching. >> You got different results, when you look at the second cohort, right? >> That's right, so in the second year, Match expanded the coaching model to scale up and coach a, around 50 teachers. And so, we had to recruit more teachers and then we had to serve more teachers who were randomized through Steve. >> Right. >> The actual coaching. We found that coaching really didn't seem to move the needle for this second group. >> Mm-hm. >> And so, we're continuing to explore why that might be. Some of the leading reasons that we're looking at are the degree to which the dosage that the teachers received. >> Mm-hm. >> In terms of the number of total days and weeks of coaching was reduced by about one total week out of four. And. >> So that's significant. >> That's right so there is a real change in dosage, there is also a change in the total amount of teachers that each coach was assigned to teach. And we're were wondering whether or not that shift might have led to these differences in our second cohort. >> Okay, so if you look at that in particular that first year that first cohort that you studied down in New Orleans. Are you in a position to make any judgements about, you know, what, in particular, was effective. About, you know, the type of inter-, intervention, coaching intervention they got? >> Right. So, academics are always reticent to, to kind of speculate and generalize. >> [LAUGH] >> But I know that there are teachers and principals, and people on the ground that need to do this work. And so, you know, we're of course eager to learn about the results from our third cohort. But when you look at the first year results and you combine those with a couple very well done and compelling studies of other coaching programs. We see a lot of growing and positive evidence about the efficacy of coaching. And in the case of Match, I think that the, the power was in the things that we've talked about. That really demarcate strong PD, which is highly intense. Full day, several sessions over the summer, aligning teachers with the goals and framework. Having a common language to talk about improvement, setting individualized goals. And being able to sustain those improvement processes over the course of an entire year. Being able to work with a coach in a way that allowed you to iterate and practice. And then get immediate feedback the next day on what you practiced. So that it wasn't something that you thought of and then didn't know whether or not you were able to implement a new strategy successfully. You know, and, and I think another thing that matters is that all the teachers who participated really wanted to be coached. >> Yeah. >> And so they were open and eager and committed. This was an intense process, this was not for the faint hearted. >> Mm-hm. All right this is the last last question. As an academic are you in a position to say whether Orin Gutlerner is too nerdy to effectively coach the coaches? >> Yeah, so I can say with real precision that my, my confidence interval around this statement is quite small. That, that Orin's overall interaction with folks really could, could use a strong intervention. >> [LAUGH]. >> Thanks for that, Matt. We totally agree with you that teacher coaching has huge potential, but also that not all teacher coaching is created equal. In an effort to try to boil down the big elements of our approach to teacher coaching. We created a formula. Now, if you know anything about us here at Match Education, you know that we love formulas. If you took our last MOOC, this will look familiar to you. But not the rigorously scientific formulas, but ones that guys like Matt, with the pocket protectors have been using since high school. But formulas that just help us get our head around big concepts related to teaching and learning. So here comes our effective coaching formula. Get ready to write this down. It's going to be on the test. Teacher change as generated by coaching is equal to the clarity of the instructional vision times the quality of feedback times 1 minus the fixed mindset tax. Now, clearly, these variables are going to take a bit of explanation. Stick around. Click into our next lecture video, where we start to break down these variables. So you can begin to understand the ingredients of effective teacher coaching. [BLANK_AUDIO]
