in U S Elementary Classrooms Elizabeth A Burroughs Montana State University Department of Mathematical Sciences RCT Conference University of York York UK 11 September 2014 Research contributors ID: 783346
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A Study of Mathematics Coaching in (U. S.) Elementary Classrooms
Elizabeth A. BurroughsMontana State UniversityDepartment of Mathematical SciencesRCT ConferenceUniversity of York, York, U.K.11 September 2014
Slide2Research contributorsPrincipal Investigators
Beth Burroughs, Montana State UniversityJohn Sutton, RMC Research Corp. David Yopp, University of IdahoContributing ResearchersMark Greenwood, Megan Higgs, and Jennifer Luebeck (Montana State University); Brandie Good, Clare
Heidema
, Dan Jesse, and Arlene Mitchell (RMC Research Corp.).
Funded under NSF Award No. 0918326. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Science Foundation.
Slide3ContextI’m a U.S. mathematics education scholar, spending the autumn and spring terms at the University of York in the Department of Education as a Fulbright Scholar.
My home is in Bozeman, Montana, at Montana State University
Slide4Mathematics classroom coaching
A recent development in mathematics professional development for practicing teachers.Built on a foundation of coaching in other professions, like business and medicine.Used by school districts nationwide and encouraged by the U.S. National Mathematics Advisory Panel.There are a variety of educational coaching models coaches might follow.
Slide5Organizing question
What are next steps in mathematics coaching research, professional development, or other collaborations between researchers and coaches?
Slide6Examining Mathematics Coaching
EMC is a 5-year research and development project examining the effects of a coach’s knowledge for coaching on a diverse population of grades K-8 teachers *(K – 8 is students aged 5 – 13, in U.S. elementary and middle schools, or sometimes a K-8 school.)
Slide7Mathematics coach: EMC definition
A mathematics coach is an on-site professional developer who enhances teacher quality through collaboration, focusing on research-based, reform-based, and standards-based instructional strategies and mathematics content that include the why, what, and how of teaching mathematics.
Slide8Coaching cycle for EMC Project
There are three distinct parts to each coaching cycle designed to examine mathematics instruction. Pre-Lesson Conference (~15 minutes) Lesson Observation (entire class period) Post-Lesson Conference (~30 minutes)Coaches conduct 8 cycles per year, with 4 focused on number and operations.*
Slide9Limitations
* This is not a study of coaching as an intervention (although it does produce some results along those lines).Though we gave guidelines, school and district priorities superseded our research wishes. What this leaves is a study of coaching as it is enacted. Certainly this introduces limitations to our findings, but increases our inferential abilities.
Slide10EMC research hypothesis
The effectiveness of a mathematics classroom coach is linked to several domains of knowledge. Coaching knowledge and mathematics content knowledge both contribute to a coach’s effectiveness as measured by positive impact on teacher practice, attitudes, and knowledge
.
Slide11Knowledge domains
Coaching Knowledge
Knowledge of Student Learning
Knowledge of Teacher Learning
Mathematics Content Knowledge
Slide12Impacts of EMC study
Understanding of knowledge needed for effective mathematics coaching.Understanding of what practices contribute to effective mathematics coaching.Instruments to evaluate and monitor mathematics coaching
Slide13Research design
An observational design will answer: To what extent does a coach’s depth of content knowledge in coaching knowledge and mathematics content knowledge correlate to coaching effectiveness? An
experimental
design randomly assigns coaches to one of two groups to answer: To what extent does professional development targeting these two knowledge domains
improve coaching effectiveness
? and To what extent are the effects of the targeted professional development explained by increases in knowledge?
Slide14Crossover design
Group 1
Group 2
Year 1
2009-10
Provide orientation to EMC coaching model
Year 2
2010-11
Mathematics Content Knowledge
Year 3
2011-12
Coaching Knowledge
Year 4
2012-13
Coaching Knowledge
Year 5
2013-14
Mathematics Content Knowledge
Slide15EMC participants
ColoradoCoaches: 11Teachers: 31IdahoCoaches: 15Teachers: 44
Montana
Coaches: 19
Teachers: 54
N. DakotaCoaches: 3Teachers: 8NebraskaCoaches: 2Teachers: 6WashingtonCoaches: 2Teachers: 4WisconsinCoaches: 4Teachers: 11
Slide16Project variables and measures
Coaching Effectiveness
Slide17Project variables and measures
Implementation of Coaching Model
Coaching beliefs, knowledge, skills, and practice
Coaching Effectiveness
Mathematics
Content Knowledge
Slide18Project variables and measures
Implementation
of Coaching Model
Coaching beliefs, knowledge, skills, and practice
Coaching Effectiveness
Mathematics
Content Knowledge
Teacher Variables
Mathematics
Content Knowledge
Classroom practice
Teacher
anxiety, efficacy, engagement, and preparedness
Coaching emphasis
Coaching impact
Slide19Project variables and measures
Implementation
of Coaching Model
Coaching beliefs, knowledge, skills, and practice
Coaching Effectiveness
Mathematics
Content Knowledge
Teacher Variables
Mathematics
Content Knowledge
Classroom practice
Teacher
anxiety, efficacy, engagement, and preparedness
Coaching emphasis
Coaching impact
Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching
Coach Reflection and Impact
Coaching Knowledge
Survey & Coaching
Skills Inventory
Measures
Teacher Reflection and Impact Survey
Inside the Classroom Observation Protocol
Teacher Survey
Teacher Needs Inventory
Slide20Classroom practices: Observational study
Slide21Research question 1To what extent does a coach’s depth of knowledge in coaching knowledge and mathematics content knowledge influence coaching effectiveness?
Models examine how variation in these aspects of the coaches propagates into teachers’ measures.Four years of data included in the analysis.
Slide22Summary of findings for RQ1Improvements in coaches’ coaching knowledge scores and self-efficacy measure of coaching skills scores are related to increases in teachers’ mathematics knowledge
As coaches learn more about coaching, as measured both by how much they align with what coaching authors recommend and by their self-reports of effectiveness,
c
oached
teachers
perform better on mathematics assessments
Slide23Summary of findings for RQ1Coaches with higher
mathematics for teaching scores are associated with teachers with higher mathematics for teaching scores.We suspect that this is a relic of how teachers were chosen.
Slide24Research question 2To what extent does professional development targeting these two knowledge domains improve coaching effectiveness?
Control for coaching intensity and outside PDEffects are examined on changes in teachers’ mathematics for teaching scores, teachers’ attitudes, and teachers’ practiceHierarchical linear modelsFour years of data
Slide25Summary of findings for RQ2No detected coach-level PD effects on
teacher content knowledge or teacher attitudeSome evidence of PD effects on teacher practice
Math
Coaching
Coaching
Slide26Summary of findings for RQ2For all models, there are changes over time
(Observational results that “coaching works”)Suggestive evidence that changes happened in the different groups at different times; follow-up analyses are being conducted
Slide27Research question 3To what extent are the effects of targeted professional development on coaching effectiveness explained by increases in coaching knowledge and mathematics content knowledge?
Analysis uses 51coaches randomly assigned to PD groups; 5 years of dataAnalysis uses linear modeling, and controls for outside mathematics or coaching training
Slide28Summary of findings for RQ3No evidence for direct effects of professional development on coaches’ mathematics for teaching scores either in terms of differences in groups or differences in changes over time.
There is evidence of a change over time in mathematics for teaching scores of the coaches in the study, with the highest average score in the last year of the study.There is evidence of a time effect and a PD effect on the mean scores of coaching knowledge (that is, increases in coaching knowledge that have an effect at the teacher level can be inferred to result from the PD).
Slide29Some thoughts about experimentsHere, we’re using the model of RCTS, which measure interventions, to measure effects of knowledge
Hope that this is one study to contribute to overall understanding – too complicated to expect a single study to determine causalityOngoing struggle: what gets funded (experiments), but an appropriate next step is qualitative descriptions about what coaching entails in vivo.
Slide30What we learn from participantsCoaches want to learn how to have hard conversations with teachers about mathematics content —
And about student learning.Coaches expend a lot of energy on resistant teachers.Professional development in coaching knowledge is needed, and our model shows promise.
Slide31Organizing question
What are next steps in mathematics coaching research, professional development, or other collaborations between researchers and coaches?
Slide32Thank you!Beth Burroughs
burroughs@math.montana.eduwww.math.montana.edu/~emc