Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EDCS 605
2 May 2018
Introduction
City, Utah. She has been teaching fifth-grade for the last seven years. Prior to that, she taught in
Montrose, Colorado. She has had several different positions in Colorado including spending
several years as an interventionist. Her current position is unique in that she is the English
teacher of the Spanish Dual Immersion program. Her instruction time is divided in half each day
and she has two separate groups of students. She is responsible for teaching them the same
lesson. Her co-teacher, Mr. Marquez, teaches the two groups in Spanish. She currently has two
groups of between 20 and 21 students. In regards to the levels of coaching, Jen would fall under
the Level 2 or Level 3 tier. The majority of the work we did surrounded the Level 2 tier of
coaching.
Pre-Coaching Session
It was nerve racking to prepare of the meeting. Jen and I have worked together for the
past three years and have a very close personal relationship. However, I know that she and I have
some similarities and some differences when we approach our literacy instruction. A lot of my
own experience and expertise comes from tailoring the district purchased basal (Wonders) to fit
my needs in literacy instruction. Jen has a Master’s in curriculum design and focuses a lot of her
efforts on integrating science activities into her literacy instruction. I have used some of her units
and have found them helpful in addressing the needs of students in science. I have also had some
difficulty in implementing the with the same fidelity that she uses as I find it more difficult to
pinpoint skills being taught to students as skills are integrated. (Our coaching conversation
As we sat down in our pre-coaching conversation, we were able to talk about the team
and how we felt literacy instruction was in general. We were able to compare literacy and math
instruction in our team – how assessing skills was (or was not) happening and what to do about
it. The noticeable advantage of this conversation versus one as an actual literacy coach was
twofold. First, the strong relationship and lack of judgement between us allowed for an open and
honest conversation. There was no hesitance to share any information or feelings (both positive
or negative). Second, as I am currently a member of the team, it made it easier to have this
conversation with specific attention paid towards what is going on as a grade-level (thus helping
us talk about future team meetings and things that should happen as a team).
Jen’s biggest concerns surrounded the feeling of not having enough time. This is
something that I feel as a general education teacher when I have my homeroom students all day.
It is difficult for me to imagine needing to hit all of the literacy standards with a reduction in the
amount of time. Jen described the Dual Immersion model in which she teaches some math and
some language arts in English, with the remainder of the day spent learning both math and
language arts in Spanish. It is expected that the skills instruction in Spanish (both in math and
language arts) will transfer to English as well. Jen also talked about how she felt like the team
had a fairly solid plan in math as we had used materials from our math program (Eureka) to
create common formative assessments across the grade level. Unfortunately she (and I would
agree) expressed concerns surrounding our use of common formative assessments in language
arts to gauge the progress of our students. Santos’s class uses the Spanish basal Calle, Jen uses
her integrated science units, Selene and Catherine (the other two fifth grade teachers) use their
own language arts materials (outside of Wonders) and I am the only teacher who uses Wonders
We ultimately decided that our coaching session would focus on the creating of materials
that can be used as a grade level to monitor progress in language arts. These materials would
come based on the materials that are provided within the basal Wonders. We would focus on
some skills based instruction and what that would look like – somehow creating and providing
quick mini lessons that would explicitly teach necessary skills. These mini lessons would allow
her to continue to teach integrated science units – something she was definitely NOT willing to
give up.
Coaching Session
Jen is no stranger to the use of a basal. Her general feelings are that the basal stories are
generally not relatable to our student population. I agreed with Jen that sometimes the content
and context of stories may seem foreign, but was quick to try and turn a problem into an
opportunity as I suggested that we have the opportunity to build some background knowledge for
As we discussed some of her current practices for language arts, we dove deeper into
what the integrated science units look like. Jen has found articles that specifically tie into the
science core and she has created questions and writing activities that accompany the articles –
with a large focus on writing. When I asked her to tell me about the pacing of literacy skills, I
found that the pacing was more centered around the science concepts than the literacy concepts. I
asked her if there were any pitfalls that she experienced without a clearer map of literacy skills
that she intended on covering. We then discussed how as a team, it can be difficult to administer
common formative assessments when we are all teaching different literacy skills. This difficulty
of course was not solely placed on Jen’s shoulders, rather it was more of a grade level discussion
as three of the five teachers on the team are more apt to use their own literacy units than the basal
I then discussed with Jen the use of the district provided pacing map in language arts. The
Language Arts Department has gone through the entire Wonder’s basal and included dates/weeks
for each unit. The benefit of using this pacing map is that it allows teachers to look at the
calendar and know what skills are required for the week. Should a teacher (and I was able to be
an “expert” in using it) decide to administer the weekly test, all of the literacy skills will have
been taught throughout the week. We discussed how perhaps she doesn’t necessarily have to
adhere to the pacing map in that her main texts of the week may be different form the ones in
Wonders, but she could take the skills that are being taught that week and teach those
specifically to her students. When and if we could present this idea to the other members of the
team, it would unify our teaching across the grade level. It is not necessarily the text that is
important, but the skills being taught with the text. Also, I talked about how Wonders has texts
specifically for use with each weekly skill so she could assign these selections as independent
work – or even have them assigned as homework readings to encourage students to read more.
We then moved into a discussion about how she doesn’t necessarily have to re-create the
wheel with her science units. A major concern is finding the time to create additional curriculum
to hit these skills. I suggested that she add the skills to her science units as it made sense, but that
mini lessons have the potential to accomplish explicit skills instruction without a ton of
additional work creating curriculum. Wonders has an introductory story, a main selection, a
paired selection, and leveled readers for small groups. The introductory story and the paired
selection are generally pretty short and are still designed to hit the weekly literacy skill. Also, the
small text book includes explicit instructions on how to accomplish the weekly skill. These pages
could be taught to the whole class and then the skill could be tested.
Assessment of the skills doesn’t have to be tedious either! The district provides access to
the online assessment that accompanies the Wonders basal! There are really two options. One is
to cut and paste the questions from the weekly test that specifically assess the weekly skill – then
print this out and give it to students or create a custom test in the online assessment center of the
Wonders program. The creation of custom online tests seemed a little complicated as you had to
search for the individual questions, so making paper and pencil tests seemed to make the most
sense. Then, in order to compare the results, teachers could then quickly put their scores into the
district data management system called Illuminate. While it can be frustrating to be asked to do
one more thing, the results would allow stakeholders, from the principal to literacy coach to team
to quickly see how the grade level was doing. The system also allows us to pull data based on
certain criteria, such as: English language learners, gender, race, etc.
Jen and I spent a bit of time looking at and exploring the online resources available and
how to best make them work for us. We quickly learned to create and share assessments in the
Post-Coaching Session
Jen and I were able to talk about our coaching session and share with our team. The team
seems amicable to following the district pacing guide (in terms of skills) to help generate better
data. Jen and I have talked about how she is using the texts available to her in the Wonders basal
to teach mini lessons in whole group settings based on the skill of the week. The mini lessons are
explicit and short. Any students she finds that is struggling works on another of the weekly
Wonders texts to reinforce the skill in a smaller setting. The team plans to continue the use of the
district pacing map next year as well. The huge benefit being that we as a team will be able to
think of, find, and share activities relating to that specific skill. Another huge benefit that I had
not considered prior to this experience is that the literacy coach will be better able to support us
Reflection
I loved this experience for the organic conversation that I may have never had with her if
I wasn’t completing this assignment. It created more of a bond between us as we discussed how
to best help her accomplish the explicit teaching of skills without having to recreate her language
arts instruction. It was not awkward and neither of us was afraid to share what we truly felt about
the subject matter. This reinforces the idea that the building of relationships with the teachers
The biggest challenge for me was getting over my feelings of inadequacy. I had to realize
that while I may not have all of the answers, I had enough to contribute positively to the
conversation. It is intimidating when entering the room (even with a friend) when she has many
more years experience and education than I do. But once I got over the idea that I had nothing to
I learned that I’m not sure that coaching is where I would like to spend my time. While
easy for Jen and I to sit down and discuss our literacy instruction, I can imagine being on the
outside and trying to bring some of my ideas into the scenario. It is difficult to build relationships
with adults (for me) and without a solid relationship, it is pointless to attempt to make changes or
additions to anyone as they will not take the advice seriously. It may cause a teacher to pause for
a second and reflect, but not on the same level as if it came from a trusted friend.
I believe Jen and I were able to live my beliefs about coaching. Where the coach should
have some expertise to share but doesn’t necessarily have to have all of the answers. We had an
open conversation that was free of judgement and our end goal was only to be helpful. I
understood going into the conversation that my vision of what it could/should look like would
differ from Jen’s. That she would take what we talked about and apply it in her own style to her
students. While this coaching experience was challenging, it was definitely a positive overall
experience.
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