Coaching and Implementation Science

‘We tried coaching, but it didn’t work’

I occasionally hear of a school that tried to implement a coaching program without success. It makes me sad that teachers miss out on a powerful driver for improving instruction. I also feel for the students who are ultimately disadvantaged by their teachers’ lack of access to high quality, ongoing professional learning. This article will describe one way of thinking about implementing a coaching program as an intervention for improving the quality of instruction in a school.

The success of an intervention relies on not only the quality of the intervention but how well it’s implemented. Coaching has been shown to be a high impact intervention that has a large positive impact on teacher practice (Joyce & Showers). Often it is the implementation of coaching that is a challenge for schools. Ideas from implementation science can support schools to develop sustainable, motivating staff development programs.

Implementation science was developed in the healthcare industry and provides models for introducing positive changes into a complex system. There are a variety of models for implementation science. Great examples include McKinsey’s Deliverology (Barber) and The Carnegie Foundation’s Network improvement communities (McKay). One of the simplest models of implementation science breaks down the challenge into four areas Fidelity, Acceptability, Dosage and Quality of Implementation (Vaughan & Albers). Thinking of these four factors is useful for any change in a school and I’ll explore each factor through the lens of implementing a coaching program.

Fidelity: The degree to which an approach and support system are conducted as planned.

This is essentially the purity of the coaching process. It requires the coach or coaching team to have the skills (listening, clarifying and encouraging thinking) and knowledge to understand a particular coaching process (GROWTH, Impact Cycle or Cognitive). To promote fidelity, schools can invest in ongoing training for coaches. Ideally, there is a lead coach on staff who can facilitate workshops and provide regular opportunities for coaches to film themselves coaching and review their practice. Importantly, coaching and appraisal need to be separate systems or ideally there would no appraisal system at all as line managers at each point are accountable for the work of teachers in their teams.

· Key questions about fidelity include who is responsible for developing the coaches’ skills?

· Are the leaders okay with the confidentiality of the coaching process?

· Can you have an ‘opt-in’ program?

Acceptability: The degree to which users and stakeholders of an interventions accept an interventions relevance and importance

A key part of acceptability is the amount of trust in the organisation. Jim Knight’s work on trust focussed on five factors; character, reliability, competence, warmth and stewardship. If the leaders in the school demonstrate these traits, it is more likely that a coaching initiative could succeed. It is also important to engage with staff to discuss the rationale behind a coaching program before implementing.

· Does the leadership in the school demonstrate the behaviours that build trust?

· What evidence do you have that this program is appropriate?

· Have you discussed the acceptability of a coaching program with your colleagues?

Quality of delivery: The engagement and responsiveness from the educators

Quality of delivery includes clear messaging about the program and its underlying principles. It consists of continuous feedback to staff about the implementation process and constantly adapting the program after feedback from those being coached. Supporting the quality of delivery requires us to develop key staff who support colleagues to increase their educational research literacy and use of data to improve practice. This can be done through weekly professional readings, workshops and demonstrations of effective use of data.. Key data points can include feedback from teachers, behaviour sampling of student engagement, disruptions, teacher talk and student talk as well as lagging indicators from external metrics (ATAR, NAPLAN).

Key questions:

· How will you measure the impact of the program?

· What data will you collect and report on?

· What systems and structures will support coaching? (e.g. Workshops, Readings)

Dosage — The right amount of time with the right people.

The dosage will vary depending on where you are in the implementation process. To improve the general understanding of coaching, our organisation gave every staff member two days of training with Growth Coaching International at the beginning of our coaching program. All our house tutors also have time scheduled for one on one coaching conversations with their students. This serves dual aims of supporting student goal setting and increasing the staff understanding of the coaching process.

At the beginning of the program, dosage could begin with a small amount of time for one coach (0.2FTE) to begin coaching with small group of staff. If there is evidence of success, the program can begin to expand. I would recommend a staggered approach to implementing coaching. In successive years we went from one coach, to two, to three, to six, to 10. Now we have 13 staff with coaching as part of their load, with a total FTE of 4.5 (out of 125 FTE teaching staff). The length of a relationship varies with teacher choice, some have been coached for only a term, others continually for three years.

Key questions:

· How will you build the understanding of coaching within the staff?

· What opportunities are there for staff to improve their communication skills?

· If coaching is ‘working’ what will be different?

Viewing the implementation of any initiative through the lens of fidelity, acceptability, dosage and quality of implementation gives the intervention a higher probability for success.

Happy Coaching,

Mark