Coaching Journal - Vaughn 1

Coaching Journal

Jessica Vaughn

PL & Technology Innovation (ITEC 7460)

Kennesaw State University

Ed.S. Instructional Technology, Spring 2017

Coaching Journal - Vaughn 2

Preliminary Session: March 1, 2017

Strategies

This meeting was part of the initial interview with Ms. Wicks, a high school math teacher

at Marietta High School. I met with Ms. Wicks after she took the survey and we discussed her

interests, needs and current level of technology integration. Ms. Wicks is very willing to try new

things, especially with technology, as long as resources are available.

In our first session, I wanted to develop a partnership, as explained in Jim Knights book

Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction (2007). Ms. Wicks

and I already have a strong working relationship. We have taught several courses together and

worked on the same Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) several times in the past. I knew

that coaching Ms. Wicks would be mutually beneficial and we would be able to start quickly and

easily. Even thought we had an established working relationship, I still took the time in our first

session to explain instructional coaching as a partnership. I did not want her to feel that I had

intentions of being a boss or forcing her into using instructional techniques or strategies that she

was not interested in trying. It is important to allow teachers to agree to the principles the coach

is hoping to share. Knight (2007) calls this the enrollment process. One of the most effective

ways to get teachers on board is with one-on-one interviews (Knight, 2007). I wanted Ms. Wicks

to communicate her needs and feel like she had control in the direction of our coaching sessions.

In this first session, I primarily listened to Ms. Wicks. Using her feedback from the initial

surveys and our one-to-one interview it was determined that she wanted to implement more of

the available features from the Learning Management System (LMS), itslearning. The district

recently purchased itslearning for all teachers and students. A small group of math teachers are
Coaching Journal - Vaughn 3

part of the pilot for learning and sharing the features of the LMS. The Algebra 1 PLC chair was

part of the initial pilot group, and developed a page for sharing resources for the PLC. The use of

this page created interest in some of the other Algebra 1 teachers and some have tried to explore

and create some pages. Ms. Wicks was one of the teacher that received a little exposure, and

wanted to learn more. I was lucky enough to be added to the pilot group by expressing interest. I

was able to attend a district wide training, and I have implemented many of the features in my

classroom. Ms. Wicks knew about my experiences, and that is what she was focused on learning

during our coaching sessions. She explained that she wanted to incorporate assessments and

assignments into her webpages that she already used for her classes. She specifically wanted to

create assessments that aligned to standards and allowed her to track student progress linked

directly to the course standards. This gave us a great direction to dive further into our coaching.

Skill and Affective Changes

Ms. Wicks and I were actually friends before we started teaching together. I was afraid

that coaching her would be awkward. We are peers and I did not want her to perceive my

coaching as trying to be pushy or bossy. I think she initially took my offer to coach as a

superficial assignment that I had to complete, and she was willing to do me a favor. However,

after our first session and interview, she quickly changed her perspective and appeared to be

eager to get started on implementing the itslearning features that I was planning on helping her

use in her classroom. She was very willing to work together for the benefit of her classroom and

her students. After our first session, she stopped me several times in the hall to make sure I was

still planning on meeting with her the following week.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

Coaching Journal - Vaughn 4

I was excited that Ms. Wicks was eager to learn about the features of the LMS. I wanted

to develop a partnership approach and I think it started as a great success. I was nervous to begin

coaching, which is why I decided to work with a colleague that is also a friend. While this could

have turned into an awkward experience, she was very receptive to the coaching, and it truly

ended up being a mutually beneficial experience. I was afraid that our one-to-one interview

conversations would feel forced, but it was not. We both realized the positive impact that

coaching could have, and the results were great. I knew that I wanted Ms. Wicks to lead the

direction of our coaching, but I didnt know how to lead her without feeling like I was being

pushy. As we began talking with a goal in mind, she was able to list all the features of itslearning

that she wanted to learn more about. I then had time to brush up on the features and make some

sample pages that I could share with her. I am glad that my first experience coaching someone

went so smoothly.

Coaching Session 2: March 8, 2017 2:45-3:45

Strategies

At this point, Ms. Wicks was definitely on board. She was eager to learn about

assessments and assignments in itslearning. She had already been using the platform for a

webpage. She was using it more as a blog and had very little interactive features for her students.

She shared important files with her students, and kept a daily agenda. It was a great resource for

her students, but we both knew she could implement more that engages the students. I wanted to

help Ms. Wicks deepen two of the Big Four, which is a framework for organizing interventions

and providing focus to coaching sessions (Knight, 2007). The Big Four include coaching on

behavior, content knowledge, direct instruction, and formative assessment. Ms. Wicks felt

comfortable with behavior and content knowledge in her classroom. Our focus was going to be
Coaching Journal - Vaughn 5

direct instruction and formative assessment, using itslearning. One of the disadvantages of our

coaching sessions was timing. Our time is spread very thin, and I did not want to become a

nuisance on her time. We both have many PLC meetings, committee meetings, and duties that

take planning time. After school is also spent tutoring and in parent meetings. I knew that I had

to maximize our hourly after school time. The most important thing I did for our sessions was to

be prepared ahead of time. To prepare for this session, I created some examples of assignments

and assessments in itslearning. Assignments allow students to submit files electronically. The

teacher can open and provide feedback on the platform. Assessments allows for more

computerized feedback. Different types of questions can be created, and most can be

automatically scored. These assessments and assignments can be linked to the standards for the

course and progress toward each standard can be monitored. During this session, I focused on

showing how assignments could be used. This feature ended up being less useful to Ms. Wicks

as a math teacher. We dont often have students submit documents. It is difficult and time

consuming for students to learn to type mathematical symbols correctly. There were two

suggestions that I had for Ms. Wicks to use itslearning assignments in her classroom: written

responses, and formal projects. In her IB Math course, she encourages students to practice

mathematical communication. She incorporates explanations and written responses along with

mathematics. This course also requires a formal project in which students select a topic of their

choice, investigate it mathematically, and discuss their results. These projects must be typed. Ms.

Wicks decided to set up a link for these project to be submitted directly on itslearning, rather

than having her students email their projects to her. In previous years, she experienced a mess of

projects as almost 90 students emailed files to her. Itslearning was a great solution to this

organization concern. She was very excited to see that not only were all the files stored and
Coaching Journal - Vaughn 6

organized easily on the platform, she could easily record her feedback to each student. She was

thrilled not to have to carry large stacks of paper around while they were being graded. These

two uses of itslearning helped her get organized and streamline a process that has been difficult

in the past. It was also great for students as they could immediately see the feedback from their

instructor. Both The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and the International

Baccalaureate encourage certain standards across all the specific math content. Encouraging

more writing and communication about mathematics is one of these important standards.

Implementing assignments in itslearning will assist Ms. Wicks in assigning, organizing, and

assessing the students on communication of mathematics. It is even possible for students to be

grouped and provide peer feedback on itslearning. Ms. Wicks was very excited to see examples

of these types of assignments and discuss ways to make them useful in her classroom.

Skill and Affective Changes

The IB Math project has always been a huge task on IB math teachers. Ms. Wicks was

very appreciative of the information I was able to provide for her. She will be implementing the

assignment feature in the next few weeks. Her students are about to begin their projects, and she

will incorporate an assignment link on itslearning for each of the project deadlines. This will help

her and her students stay organized and get quicker feedback. It will make her webpage more

interactive.

When we actually began creating the assignment, Ms. Wicks had to build pages and

decide where best to locate the assignment feature. Her webpage resembled a blog with a long

running list of daily entries. If she posted it as a blog entry, her students would have a hard time

finding it as she continued to add new postings. I showed her a few examples that I had created,

and in discussing how she envisioned her students using her page we were able to make some
Coaching Journal - Vaughn 7

small adjustments and make her page more user friendly, and easier for her students to return to

the most important links. The solution was for her to make more pages and link from her main

page. Now only a column of her webpage is current announcements and another column has

more permanent links that will not get lost on her page as she adds new material. She was

excited about the change and felt it was much better for her organizational purposes and it will

be easier for her students to navigate.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

At MHS, we are lucky to have common planning time per department. Our coaching

sessions had to take place during our planning or after school. I was disappointed that I would

not get to model or observe Ms. Wicks, but we were able to have plenty of time to share and

discuss the strategies of using the itslearning features in our weekly after school meetings.

However, I tried to be very cautious of her time. I know teachers are pulled in many different

directions, and even though our meetings were useful, I did not want to take up too much of her

time. Even the best discussions can get too long, and I did not want her turned off to the idea of

working with me again in the future.

Coaching Session 3: March 15, 2017 2:45-3:45

Strategies

In our third session, I shifted the focus of our work to assessments, which is the fourth

strategy of the Big Four (Knight, 2007). Ms. Wicks wanted to learn how to use the assessment

feature of itslearning. When we first began discussing the feature, she was not aware of all that it

was capable of providing her. She knew that she could write questions, students could answer

those questions directly on the webpage, and the program would even score the responses
Coaching Journal - Vaughn 8

automatically. What she did not know was that she could upload all of the standards for her

course and tag each question with the appropriate standards. Not only would students

immediately receive their feedback, Ms. Wicks could track progress toward all standards in her

course, giving her a tremendous amount of information, with very little work on her part. Every

teachers dream is to reduce the time spent while gaining even more data about their students.

She was hooked on the possibilities and genuinely excited to get started with assessments on

itslearning.

In our third session I demonstrated how to upload standards for her courses, how to create

assessments, and how to assign assessments to her students. We discussed the different settings

for assessments, and I let her explore and create her first assessment. Our third session was more

hands on, and by creating it herself, she will likely remember how to do it herself for future uses.

Skill and Affective Changes

The third session seemed to be the most beneficial for Ms. Wicks. She was eager to get

started creating assessments for her students. She was prepared with a topic, and in our session

she got hands on experience with creating and assigning assessments for her students. Her first

itslearning assessment was planned for the following class. She secured a set of laptops for her

class and implemented the assessment the next day. I spoke with her briefly following her

implementation of the assessment and she said it worked wonderfully. She was more

appreciative of the assessment session because she implemented what she learned immediately,

unlike our previous weekly meeting in which we discussed the assignment feature. She wont be

ready to use an assignment for a few more weeks, and while she felt it was useful, it was not

quite as pertinent since she had not yet seen it in action. I loved seeing her excitement after using

the assessment feature with her students. She was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to
Coaching Journal - Vaughn 9

administer. She did explain that the set up was the time consuming part, especially since she had

to save and upload images for each question, but the results were automatic, and she had more

data than if she would have had to grade each quiz by hand. She is now able to make an

immediate decision about how to progress in the next class based on the results of the individual

standards she assessed.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

In this third session I felt well prepared with samples and suggestions. I had a lot to offer

Ms. Wicks, but I still let her lead the direction of our session. I explained the capabilities of

assessments and what I had prepared, and presented it to her, still letting her decide the direction

of our training. I did not want to spend our hour talking to her, I wanted her to feel like she had

choices in the session. After exploring my samples, I let her create assessments on her own. I

served as a sounding board, and a technical advisor, reminding her how to link and provide

shortcuts when I could. I felt more like a coach in this session than a director. Our session was

rewarding. It was an improvement from session two, because it was more hands on for Ms.

Wicks. She created assessments that were to be used immediately in her class, so she found it

more pertinent to her needs. I think she greatly appreciated what she learned, and I did too.

Overall, I truly enjoyed coaching Ms. Wicks. She was an eager participant and we truly

worked in a partnership. Our sessions were informal, but packed full of useful information. I am

glad that I did not simply present her with information, but I assisted her in creating her own

tools specific to her classroom and her needs.

Coaching Journal - Vaughn 10

References

Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving

instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.