Instructional Coaching Through Change: Supporting Teachers in Action

Learn how to effectively leverage instructional coaching relationships to help teachers fulfill their visions for instructional improvement, student engagement, and professional growth.

Overview

As instructional coaches, you are called upon to design solutions to challenges presented to you by the teachers in your charge. As instructional leaders, you are not simply coaching teachers to teach, you are also coaching teachers to learn. This course supports you to define your role and your goals as a coach as you work to help teachers and schools fulfill their visions for their learning communities.

Whether you are beginning as an instructional coach, thinking about becoming one, or have been coaching teachers for twenty years, this course encourages you to reflect deeply about your own practice and continue to build your toolbox of instructional coaching moves. Grounded in research in adult development and responsive coaching models, you will explore five pillars that drive cycles of coaching across numerous contexts and with teachers at any stage of professional development. 

You will form bonds within a community of practice that stretches beyond your school, beyond your district or CMO, beyond the boundaries of your state, even your country to learn from fellow instructional leaders, to reflect deeply, and to contribute to shared libraries of best practices. 

Program Details

In this course, join Harvard faculty and experienced instructional coaches who work directly with beginning and veteran teachers to hone their teaching and instructional leadership practice. You will contribute your own expertise and learn from that of your fellow practitioners as you address the following questions:

• If teachers are, in fact, authors of their own change, what is the role of coaches? How do coaches promote, and, at times, even direct teacher agency toward its intended outcomes?
• What does it mean to coach with curiosity? How do coaches collect appropriate evidence to enable understanding and prevent assumptions and bias?
• How do coaches leverage strategies specific to particular situations with teacher identity in mind?
• How do coaches sift through the complexity of classroom instruction to gather evidence that informs adjustments that benefit student learning?
• What would a picture of the impact of an individual coaching relationship look like?

The course is divided into six one-week modules that facilitate an experience for participants to name the problems of practice that they are encountering, and then, in collaboration with others, start to build tools and techniques to better address those problems of practice. Each week consists of approximately three hours of online work and one practice challenge, during which you will be asked to apply your learning in your real-world context. Through the weekly modules, you will uncover five pillars of coaching that will guide the collaborative learning experience. Though they are not the only five things to focus on when coaching, they are a curated framework, honed by course faculty, aimed at growing the relationship-building skills and practical lenses necessary to coaching. 

• Week 1: Introduction to Our Pillars
• Week 2: Agency - a teacher's ability to act in the world to be an agent of change
• Week 3: Enactment - the practical, why, how, and what of coaching
• Week 4: Inquiry - a stance to help coach with humility and curiosity
• Week 5: Observation - the power of witnessing teachers in their contexts
• Week 6: Understanding - the impact of coaching on learning, for students, teachers, and coaches

Learning Goals

• Reflect on individual strengths and growth edges that help set goals for your own learning and development as an instructional coach
• Understand teacher agency as a fundamental driver of sustained instructional improvement
• Articulate student-centered versus teacher-centered coaching goals
• Anticipate the benefits and limitations of different coaching strategies as tools in different situations or contexts
• Use questions to surface important but otherwise invisible data
• Develop explicit awareness of the lenses through which we view classrooms as we move up the ladder of inference

Who Should Participate

• Teacher leaders or teachers with an interest in leadership
• Education professionals who support teachers in their work, such as mentors, instructional coaches, grade-level or department leads, supervisors, or teachers in other leadership roles

English Language Proficiency Requirements

English language proficiency is a requirement for application to and successful participation in this online course. All participants are expected to have fluency in English, including a basic knowledge of education terminology, in order to effectively engage with the content, complete assignments, and interact with other members of the learning community.

Fees & Policies

Full tuition is due by the indicated payment deadline, which you may find above or on the program’s community page. While a purchase order confirms enrollment, full payment is still required by the payment deadline. Please note that failure to pay by the payment deadline will result in your withdrawal from the program. Click here for more information on payment, refund, and withdrawal policies.

Tuition includes all instructional materials required for participation in the program. The Harvard Graduate School of Education reserves the right to change faculty or cancel programs at its discretion. The school is not responsible for any planning expenses incurred.

Closed Captioning and Accessibility

The majority of our pre-recorded videos are closed-captioned and accompanied by PDF transcripts. For live events, we will arrange for captioning services. Please email us at ppe@gse.harvard.edu if you require these or other accommodations. If possible, requests should be made at least a week in advance. Please note: we will make every effort to secure services, but all are subject to availability.