Katherine Collier

EDSL 506/509
12/6/2020

Support Process for a New Teacher

This year I am an Instructional Coach at Baldi Middle School for the second year. At Baldi
Instructional Coaching is a strategy of providing individualized professional development to teachers
through a cycle of observations and feedback. Each teaching staff member at Baldi is assigned an
instructional coach who could be an administrator or fellow teacher. Each instructional coach has
undergone at least one year of training in Instructional Coaching. The goal is for coach and teacher to
develop a relationship in which instructional practices, student work, and problem-solving can be
discussed. I am a peer coach of a 6th grade ELA and SS teacher, Meghan, who is in her 3rd year of
teaching, and is new to teaching this grade level and content at Baldi. In the instructional coaching model
we use at Baldi there are a series of stages:
● Stage 1: Classroom Vision document
○ This document is something every teacher at Baldi fills out. It captures their vision for
their classroom for the school year and is grounded in the Essential Pillars for Effective
Instruction (this year these are digital pillars). It is also centered around the teacher’s
values so that they can create a vision statement that they fully believe in. From there, the
teacher brainstorms ways to bring the vision to life and drafts their own PD goal. For
those in a PDP year, like Meghan, this PD goal meets the expectations as outlined by the
District. The one attached is for this year’s virtual start to the school year:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yHMhJJZ9QGEmgfQ1u-l15hCvzgi9UIDC8jIXPx
Tx3wo/edit?usp=sharing
● Stage 2: Shared PD goal
○ Once the Classroom Vision document is shared with the coach, myself, we meet to
discuss the classroom vision and discuss coaching generally for the year.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10LJpYX8iUQgOgEXpj75C9t9GsLkyBQe0cBlHZ
Nww5wI/edit?usp=sharing
○ Using that discussion, the coach engages in drafting a PD goal that the coach and coachee
discuss and come to consensus on. This PD goal then grounds the rest of the work.
○ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EUUIi4_7HPAPIRcWj9Y0gsO8NoKj3dBitTE-p_h
ZcrM/edit?usp=sharing
● Stage 3: Continuous Observation and Feedback Cycle
○ With the PD goal in mind, the coach engages in a weekly observation and feedback
routine. For example, I observe Meghan for roughly 30-40 minutes of her ELA virtual
block and take low inference notes. I have observed her four times this school year. As an
example, here are my notes from 11/5:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16FduYdublTNSn077HxQFEyEOOvOCyXXmwbC
m3Ot4pzY/edit?usp=sharing
Then the following week, I plan the feedback meeting engaging in the 6 steps and
planning each section prior to the meeting. I have met with Meghan three times for

1
 feedback meetings. By praising and probing, my goal is to get the teacher to the action
step I have in mind. However, in this meeting, we co-realized that Meghan had already
accomplished the PD goal we had set at the start of the year! Therefore, the “Plan Ahead”
section has our brainstorm of where she actually wants to focus her instruction and my
coaching for Quarter 2, which will still be virtual. We are currently in the process of
designing this goal and have been emailing about it before another feedback meeting with
her which will be later in December. One of the things I plan to bring to this feedback
meeting are strategies for small group instruction virtually and outside resources about
how to create roles when students engage in break out rooms so that students can be held
accountable for the work done there.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KZirAUJWABW7eDEzZqpnr038EQq-DCk6Hv6y
YmGsjN0/edit?usp=sharing
● Review PD goal throughout the year and reevaluate/alter it as needed
○ This step is embodied in my reflection above and I imagine our goal may fluctuate and
change as the year goes on- at this point SDP says we may be hybrid in February!

Overall, in this process so far, Meghan is clearly a very reflective teacher and commented that she
can harp on the negative and forget the positives of a lesson. Meghan also mentioned that she felt that she
was happy to see me as her coach as she has felt intimidated in the past by having Mr. Mina, a member of
the administration team, be her coach. Here she referenced some of the concerns teachers express when
administration has the dual role of coach AND evaluator, namely that she felt that any of his feedback as a
coach seemed, to her, as a judgment and indication that she was not a good teacher since he also does her
informals/formals where he rates her as a teacher using Danielson (Stone & Lang, 2017 and Daresh, 2007,
Chapter 16). In her case, she always felt on edge and nervous with an administration as her coach. With
her candidness and openness throughout coaching this year, I also found myself multiple times using the
sentence starters that Dr. Mata and Lauren Miller discussed in one of our UPenn weekends. The focus of
the talk was on dialogue, and I heard myself using the acknowledge/clarify stems of “You’re
thinking/feeling ____” or “I heard you say ____”, combined with the pauses they recommended one takes
in coaching discussions (lecture, 9/13/2020). This has routinely allowed her the opportunity to confirm or
deny my understanding of her thoughts and we were able to deepen our discussion through carefully
pondering what she said and then my response to it (Dr. Mata and Lauren Miller, lecture, 9/13/2020).
Ultimately, I have learned the importance of fostering teachers as leaders in the school
community and setting up systems like Instructional Coaching. In Meghan’s case, it is so valuable to her
this virtual school year, especially social-emotionally, that she is not being coached by an administrator,
and instead a peer. In addition, diving deeper into a reflection of my role, as a peer coach, I have felt this
to be a very powerful experience to be able to see what other amazing teachers in our school are doing, to
then reflect on my practice and engage in some techniques and strategies that I would not have thought of
otherwise. It is vital as a future school leader that, as Dr. Dawson commented on a journal of mine, I “help
establish a culture of trustful relationships that focuses on excellence in teaching and learning. It requires
time, commitment and energy. It is a commitment that is never ending because continuous learning is at
the center of what everyone in the school does” (journal feedback, 9/20/2020).