Compiling the evidence: Coaching, leadership and school improvement' Experiences of graduate student

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Compiling the evidence Coaching, leadership and
school improvement.Experiences of graduate
student learners at the University of Victoria

• Dr. Catherine McGregor
• and Alison Brophey
• University of Victoria
• January 7, 2009

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PURPOSE OF STUDY

• How is school leadership preparation affected by
  a facilitated mentorship experience in which
  experienced and less experienced school
  administrators/teacher leaders are matched over a
  period of about 12 months?
• What benefits accrue to the graduate student
  learner?
• In what ways do these partners attribute career
  or school based successes as leaders to the
  mentorship experience?
• To what extent do these coaching/mentoring
  relationships support wider learning in the
  school context?

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What is CSML?

• Graduate certificate program for school leaders
• Focus initially on filling gap of needed school
  administrators (close to 50 of enrolment are now
  teacher leaders)
• 6 units of credit, ladders into a Masters in
  Education
• Created in partnership with the BC Educational
  Leadership Council
• Has enrolled four cohorts of 20-26 students
• Completed over two summers and distance courses
  between

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Unique elements of CSML program

• Coaching experience
• Focused on leadership inquiry
• Taught by well known and respected professionals
• Intensive, summer only model
• Curriculum is built around practice and
  personal/collective inquiry rather than
  subjects/themes or courses

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CSML (Certificate in School Management and
Leadership) Program elements

• Evidence based model
• Case study research
• Role school principals play in student learning
• Link between research and field focused school
  based work
• Leadership theory related to school improvement
• Distributed forms of leadership
• Power of learning communities and inquiry as
  primary tools for learning leadership

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CSML Principles (continued)

• Networking to support professional learning
• Personally shaped inquiry processes
• Dialogue in self reflective thinking and meaning
  making
• Ethical commitment to a democratic learning
  community
• Knowledge produced and shared by learners and
  teachers
• Equity based practices

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Study Design

• Preliminary work
• Literature review and review of program history
• Consultation with program faculty/staff
• Review of program features and initial goals
• Review of earlier commissioned mentorship report
• Review of agreement with BCELC as primary funder
  of study
• Discussions with interested current and former
  CSML students
• Developing research framework focus of study to
  reflect contemporary literature in school
  leadership and school improvement

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Phases of the research plan

• Attend Coaching training session (August, 2008)
• Online survey (November, 2008 complete)
• Field visits (scheduled for spring, 2009)
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Discussions with colleagues/staff at school level
• Draft report sharing (June 2009)
• Final report (August, 2009)

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Survey Design

• Developed by team of researchers at U Vic
• The lead author developed a series of questions
  designed to focus in on the specific elements of
  the coaching experience
• sought to establish the degree to which the
  coaching partnership shaped emerging leadership
  practices, as identified by participants.
• Dr. Paul Shaw, a collaborator in this research
  study, developed other questions designed to
  probe for particular practices of leadership, and
  in particular, to consider the school or district
  conditions that either enabled or constrained the
  practices of leadership for school improvement

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Survey data collected

• Respondents
• 70 female (reflective of demographic of
  students)
• Total respondents 60
• 95 Caucasian, European descent (3 people self
  identified into other ethnic groups)
• 71 of participants have been teachers for 11
  years or more, with the bulk having spent 11-15
  years teaching
• 50 of participants were current school based
  administrators the second largest group 41
  classroom teachers
• School districts 56.4 rural, 46.3 urban

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Respondents (continued)

• 25 of mentors who have worked in the program
  participated in the survey
• 40 of CSML graduates from the program
  participated
• Highest participation rates from 3rd and 4th
  cohort (most recent graduates and many still
  involved with U Vic Masters program)
• More than half of the participants also identify
  as participants in the Network of Performance
  based schools (a government funded initiative
  focused on using BC Performance Standards in BC
  schools)

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Coaches as Lead Learners
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How do you formally support learning for new or
emerging teacher leaders?
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How do you informally support learning for
emerging or new teacher leaders.
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Structures or processes you use to for supporting
learning and teaching in your work context
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Other characteristics of Coaches

• 22/25 subscribe to educational journals such as
  ASCD, Phi Delta Kappan, Journal of Staff
  Development.
• Women (95)
• 23/25 identified a range of professional
  activities they engage in to support their own
  continued learning
• 40 participate actively in work related to
  assessment for learning
• 50 identified critical dialogues about learning
  as central to their work as educational leaders
• 2/3rds of the coaches were recruited by
  instructors in the program

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How these coaches support leadership
development 3 categories

• Facilitating the emergence of new spaces for
  leadership to emerge
• A teacher comes up with an idea to improve
  student learning, I stand and support them
  thereby allowing them to opportunity to further
  learn and lead
• Allowing them to come up with their ideas when
  they are brought to the discussion
• Asking them to share ideas and learning with
  staff in staff meetings and on professional
  development days

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Sharing existing responsibilities or roles
in the school (formal task distribution)

• Giving teachers the opportunity to make
  important decisions about program development
• Creating a district teamand facilitating
  their ability to run workshops for teachers in
  their specialty areas
• having teaches take on the leadership of teams
  attending assessment for learning workshops
• Encouraging individual staff members to lead
  initiatives
• Having different staff members run different
  sections ofmeetings

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Modeling learning and leadership so teachers can
learn by example

• Leading by example, volunteering both at the
  School and in the community
• Connecting students to community events, Linking
  teachers through learning inquiries, Initiating
  change through teacher-leaders, and acknowledging
  their contribution

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The Coaching partnership

• While close to 90 of the coaches were not
  familiar with the coaching process used by Dr.
  Robertson, nearly all followed the structure to a
  large degree (75 of the times they met as
  coaches and learners)
• 60 of the time, these coaches report that they
  followed the reciprocal shared learning model.
  This means that both the coach and the learner
  shared their experiences, challenges, and issues
  to assist them in resolving issues

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The Coaching Cycle as reported by CSML learners
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The usefulness of the coaching structure

• 14/19 respondents say they used the reflective
  questioning and active listening either all or
  75 of the time, in order to give their learner
  95 of the time to focus on their own issue and
  how to resolve it.
• The GROW model (what is your GOAL? What is the
  REALITY? What are the OPTIONS? WRAP UP) was also
  used as the primary structure to guide this
  learning conversation (75-100 of the time this
  was used by 10 out of 17 coaches)

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The Coachs voice

• Whenever possible I tried to have at least one
  site visit and set up a reciprocal opportunity as
  well I think the site visits were invaluable for
  the learner and certainly clarified my vision of
  the learner-in-action
• The CSML learner introduced me to new resources.
  After actively listening to the CSML leaner, I
  often reflected on the gaps between what I do and
  what I believe I should do. This was helpful.
• As we communicated mostly by email it was
  important to reread assignments and ask questions
  when I was unsure. If we needed to talk to one
  another that was also an option. We connected
  each week, even when we were busy, so that we
  both knew what was happening in our professional
  and personal lives. This helped when planning for
  the big assignments
• Because both of my mentoring experienced
  required travel, we met infrequently and were
  often rushed by circumstances. I found it
  impossible to use this model GROW, SMART over
  the telephone or internet. I feel I requires the
  coaching partnership to be physically together
  there is so much to learn from body language and
  voice inflection

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What benefits does coaching bring to you as coach?
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The Coachs voice

• Providing knowledge, but also learning from my
  learner that learning never stops
• Developing a relationship with another teacher
  leader
• The ability to learn from a colleague. I am an
  experienced school principal and was able to walk
  with my colleague as she took on that role for
  the first time
• We have so much to learn from each other

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CSML Learners Metaphors of their experiences as
leaders

• No mountain is too big to scale.
• Like an umbrella in a windstorm
• Its a jam session we are all dropping in and
  out, but enjoying the music
• Caught in a deep pool of reflection
• Gathering pollen
• Entering a new world with clarity of vision

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CSML Learner Profile

• 90 women
• mid-career, usually with 10-15 years of teaching
  experience
• 95 of them are heavily involved in other
  professional development activities, including
  working on a Masters degree, taking courses
  through BCELC, engaging in district level PD
  (often leading it), participating as
  learning/literacy coaches, and the NPBS
• 75 mention reading professional material
  regularly
• About 50 practicing school administrators 50
  teacher leaders

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An emphasis on student learning

• 50 of respondents identified formative
  assessment as the key school goal they were
  engaged in working on
• 25 identified strategies for team building to
  improve teaching and learning
• 25 identified the development of professional
  learning communities

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Reflections on the coaching process
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Key components of the coaching process

• Active listening 14
• Giving feedback, not advice 9
• Conducting a focused conversation 9
• Questioning and clarifying questions 7
• Reflection 7
• Building trust 5
• Most important? LISTENING, REFLECTION and TRUST

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How the coaching process has impacted the CSML
learners leadership practices
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Self identified new leadership practices

• Communication
• Decision making
• Relationship building/interpersonal skills
• Team work
• School improvement
• Networking/professional relationship building
• Policy
• Managing student learning
• Inclusion/equity strategies

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Communication new strategies
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Decision making new strategies
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Relationship/interpersonal new strategies
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Team building new strategies
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School improvement new strategies
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Professional contacts new strategies
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Policy development new strategies
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Managing student learning new strategies
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Cultural and social inclusion new strategies
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The most significant benefit of the coaching
partnership was
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Some preliminary/tentative observations

• There appears to be a strong relationship between
  the coaching partnership and the goals of the
  program, and this influences CSML learners
  leadership practices significantly.
• There are two apparent gaps policy development
  and cultural/social inclusion. This will be
  something we will investigate more fully in the
  next stages of the project.

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Preliminary Observations cont.

• There is also an important emphasis on learning
  and ways of distributing leadership, both
  indicators of conditions necessary for leaders to
  influence student learning (Robinson, 2008
  Robinson et al, 2008).

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Distributed leadership making the link to
student achievement

• Harris (2004) and Robinson (2008) both make a
  strong case for linking distributed leadership
  practices with improved student achievement
• Robinsons (2008) discussion of the ways in which
  distributed leadership operates focuses
  researchers attention on how tasks are
  distributed but goes onto consider processes of
  influence, and the use of smart tools (p. xx)
• Coaches and CSML learners responses in this
  survey emphasize all three of these elements.
  This theoretical and analytical lens will guide
  our subsequent work with this data.

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Coaching a Smart tool for leadership and student
learning?

• As Robinson (2008) claims, smart tools are those
  practices and strategies which allow for an
  emphasis on student learning
• We argue that coaching could be considered
  similarly, as it allows leaders to focus on their
  own development and learning while simultaneously
  affirming its purpose as linked to school
  achievement
• This bridges the oft reported theory-practice gap
  typical in many graduate programs designed to
  prepare school leaders
• It also doubles as a tool for distributing
  leadership, given its capacity to influence
  others practices and approaches to teaching and
  learning
• Finding evidence in schools and school districts
  for how this is realized will be a next step.

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Images and References

• http//leadershipcoaching360.com/images/coaching2.
  jpg
• uk.geocities.com/ chamonixtrekking/MtB-5.jpg
• Harris, A. (2004). Distributed leadership and
  school improvement leading or misleading?
  Educational management, Administration and
  Leadership, 32, 1 11-24.
• Robinson, V. (2008). Forging the links between
  distributed leadership and educational outcomes.
  Journal of Educational administration, 46, 2
  241-256.
• Robinson, V., Lloyd, C., Rowe, K. (2008). The
  impact of leadership on student outcomes An
  analysis of differential effects on leadership
  types. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44,
  5 635-674.