Coaching Journal – Lee 1

Coaching Journal

Lin-Chiou Lee

Kennesaw State University

Dr. Anissa Vega

Fall 2018
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1st Coaching Session: 9-27-2018

Strategies

Prior to this session; through my Technology Use and Needs Adopter Survey, I started to

gather information about Mrs. Morrow’s current technology integration status, her comfort level

with technology use personally and academically, the new technologies she is interested to learn,

and the best time for us to learn and practice together. This very first coaching session was

dedicated as a “one-to-one interview” for Mrs. Morrow and I to “develop that one-to-one

[partnership] relationship” (Knight, 2007, p. 91). We opened up about our own strengths and

weaknesses in technology skills and instructional strategies. Since the majority of current

technology use in her classroom is teacher-directed and intended as extension or enrichment

activities, Mrs. Morrow acknowledged that she would like to design class activities where students

have more opportunities and choices to use technology to demonstrate learning, collaborate with

their classmates, and solve problems with a real world connection (personal communication,

October, 2018). With Mrs. Morrow’s desire wanting to provide more student-centered technology

use, we both agreed to explore various tools to ensure student choices and utilize online pre-

assessments and formative assessments with Google Forms to provide timely feedback.

Towards the end of the meeting, we reviewed the TIM-O-Matrix that will be used to

evaluate Mrs. Morrow’s technology integration level. She understood how the TIM-O matrix

classifies a teacher’s technology use lesson by lesson as active, collaborative, constructive,

authentic, and goal-directed in five different attributes – entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and

transformation. We ended the session by finalizing a time for me to observe her classroom

instruction to best evaluate her current technology integration level using the TIM-O-Scale.

Skill and Affective Changes

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At the very beginning of the session, Mrs. Morrow has expressed her frustration with the

fact that she could not seem to keep up with all the instructional technology tools she has come

across. She also did not want to be pressured to implement technology just because everyone else

was. With these words lingering in the air, I could tell that she was skeptical and reserved to the

idea of us collaborating together even though she has expressed interest to work with me in the

first place. With me reassuring my addition being more of a co-teacher than an evaluator, Mrs.

Morrow has certainly opened up to me more. I did convince her to let me observe and evaluate her

current technology integration level using the TIM-O-Scale because she was also curious to find

out which attribute she falls under – entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, or transformation.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

This coaching session to me was all about the art of persuasion. How do Mrs. Morrow and

I nurture this collaborative relationship as we build it together? How do I continue to empower

Mrs. Morrow in implementing new technology in the classroom under her own volition? The “Peer

Coaching” model seems to be the answer here. I want both of us to be active participants at all

times, working as a team to decide what and how to improve instruction to maximize student

learning while effectively integrating technology. Mrs. Morrow’s needs are always identified and

communicated first before we collectively decide the best coaching steps necessary. Under this

model, Mrs. Morrow is guaranteed to acquire technology integration strategies she can use right

away because they are relevant to her content and instructional beliefs (Beglau, Hare, Foltos,

Gann, James, Jobe, Knight, and Smith, 2011).

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2nd Coaching Session: 10-4-2018

Strategies

During this round of the coaching session, we centered our reflective dialogue around my

classroom observation based on the TIM-O-Scale. Since Mrs. Morrow also had the chance to self-

assess her own instruction through a series of questions in the TIM-O system, she was surprised to

see she was mostly in the Adoption/Entry level for her technology use. After thoroughly and

carefully going over her current technology use based on the TIM-O ratings, Mrs. Morrow seemed

to feel better about my observation and her self-evaluation results and was ready to adjust her

classroom instructions. Since the teacher must “have [the full] say in what she does and does not

do” (Knight, 2007, p. 41), I immediately redirected Mrs. Morrow’s attention to decide which

category of technology use she preferred to work on first. Based on her input, we came up with

ideas to attain the Adaptation level in the active and collaborative categories.

The very first thing Mrs. Morrow would like to do was to maximize the use of Google

Classroom. She could not wait to have her students post their answers to the daily Warmup

question and interact with one another after I showed her how it could be done. Not only Mrs.

Morrow acknowledged that she would mainly technology for direct instruction but also her

TIM-O ratings confirmed the lack of active and collaborative roles of students’ technology use.

We reviewed several of the performance tasks she had used and planned to implement before

brainstorming ways for students to differentiate their process of demonstrating their

understanding based on Mrs. Morrow’s comfort level of offering student choices. We ended the

session by arranging two separate class periods for me to observe her as I co-teach and facilitate

her classroom instruction using the technology tools we both agreed on.

Skill and Affective Changes

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Mrs. Morrow was definitely shocked when she saw her technology integration level was

lower than what she expected. After the initial shock, she immediately was ready to dig deeper into

the why by sharing what I did not get the chance to observe. On top of my suggestions, Mrs.

Morrow was eager to contribute to our discussions what she thought might also work before we

went over how to make them work. I felt that Mrs. Morrow and I were true partners because we

actively worked as a team to decide what and how to improve instruction.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

This coaching session to me was all about fostering that partnership relationship to ensure

true collaboration. It was definitely easier said than done. I constantly needed to make sure that I

did not “tell” Mrs. Morrow how to use the tools I suggested to improve her instruction because I

was not there to evaluate her and tell her what to do. My biggest challenge was to figure out how

to appropriately demonstrate all the tools without overselling them so that Mrs. Morrow would see

the value of making the switch on her own. The answer here was to keep that perfect balance

between coaching and the “partnership philosophy” based on “equality, choice, voice, dialogue,

reflection, praxis, and reciprocity” with Mrs. Morrow to ensure effective communication

before, during, and after the implementation (Knight, 2007, pp. 24-26 & 29). My continuous

effort will be to make sure that Mrs. Morrow receives the right amount of support from me without

being forceful.
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3rd Coaching Session: 10-22-2018

Strategies

Mrs. Morrow began the session by self-assessing herself again using the TIM-O-Scale.

Based on her results and my observations, we continued to have our reflective conversation about

my coaching and her technology practice. To increase students’ active and collaborative roles in

their own learning, I suggested it was time for us to boost communication of the prioritized

standards identified by the county so that students could better understand what they must know

and how they are expected to demonstrate their understanding throughout the course.

Mrs. Morrow and I took a closer look at utilizing the ACFTL (American Council on the

Teaching of Foreign Languages) progress indicators with her students. We would be working on

fully digitizing these standards within Google Forms so that every student could use this online

performance checklist to either self-evaluate or knew how Mrs. Morrow would be evaluating him

or her in speaking and writing throughout the entire course. We divided up the work between the

two of us and would continue the collaboration through Google Forms. We ended the session by

deciding to meet up in three weeks to discuss how to implement this ACFTL checklist.

Skill and Affective Changes

Based on my interaction with Mrs. Morrow, she was definitely open to new innovations

under her own timeline and excited to experiment with newly-acquired technologies even though it

might not be successful at times. Even though Mrs. Morrow might not be the technology savvy

teacher who would volunteer to mentor and provide technology training to others, she was

definitely a key player to gradually move those who are slow or isolate themselves within the

traditional instructional methods to reach the technology integration thresholds set forth by the

school. Mrs. Morrow told me she was glad that she went out of her comfort zone by
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collaborating with me and would highly recommend other Spanish teachers to take a chance

with me as well.

Reflection on Challenges and Solution

This coaching session to me was all about continuing that reflective conversation about

practices. How do I continue to show Mrs. Morrow that I am a valuable asset to her teaching? How

do I continue to make my opinions and expertise relevant to her teaching philosophy? I really

enjoyed being a teaching partner to Mrs. Morrow because I have also learned a lot from her during

this process. Being an instructional coach is like being the ultimate mind reader and problem

solver. However, I know that I cannot solve the problem unless I start to listen very carefully and

work very closely to my colleagues. As an instructional coach, I am forever grateful for all the

teachers who are willing to go out of their comfort zones and decide to try something new. My

next step is to get more teachers on board to make that switch with me.
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References

Floria Center for Instructional Technology. The Technology Integration Matrix. Retrieved from

https://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix/.

Knight, Jim. Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction. Thousand

Oaks: Corwin Press, 2007. Print.

Orr, G. (2003). Diffusion of innovations, by Everett Rogers (1995). Retrieved October, 4, 2018

from https://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm.