ERIERIE

● Strong Vincent

Central High ●

● Hazleton Area HighHAZLETONAZLETON

● Burgettstown HighBURGETTSTOWNURGETTSTOWN

● Charleroi HighCHARLEROIHARLEROI

● Albert Gallatin Senior High

● Uniontown Area High

GALLAALLATINTIN

UNIONTOWN NIONTOWN

● McGuffey High

Mapletown High ●

S.E.S.E.GREENEREENE

Jefferson Morgan High ●

JEFFERSON JEFFERSON MORGANORGAN

McCaskey East ●

● J.P. McCaskey HighLANCASTERANCASTER

Reading HIgh ●READINGEADING

KEYSTONE CENTRALEYSTONE CENTRAL

Bellwood Antis HIgh ●

BELLELLWOOD ANTISWOOD ANTIS

Simon Gratz ●

William Penn ●Abraham Lincoln ●

PHILADELPHIAHILADELPHIA

Career and Technical Academy ●

● William Penn

Harrisburg High ●

SciTech ●

HARRISBURGARRISBURG

MCCGUFFEYUFFEY

Central Mountain HIgh ●

Year Three Report of the Pennsylvania High School Coaching Initiative

RESEARCHforACTION

Hazleton Area Career Center ●

Links to Learning and Sustainability

PENNSYLPENNSYLVVANIA HIGH SCHOOLANIA HIGH SCHOOLCOCOAACHING INITIACHING INITIATIVETIVE

Germantown ●

● East High

Research for Action (RFA) is a Philadelphia-based, non-profitorganization engaged in education research and evaluation.Founded in 1992, RFA works with public school districts,educational institutions, and community organizations to improvethe educational opportunities for those traditionally disadvantagedby race/ethnicity, class, gender, language/cultural difference, andability /disability. For more information about RFA please go toour website, www.researchforaction.org.

About this Report

Research for Action's third and final report completes a three-yearevaluation study of the Pennsylvania High School CoachingInitiative (PAHSCI). This report presents lessons from the PAHSCImodel of school-based instructional coaching and mentoringas a vehicle for job-embedded professional learning. Reportingfrom an analysis using qualitative methods including interviews ofteachers and coaches and observations of classroom lessons, thereport examines the influence of coaching on the implementationof research-based literacy practices applicable across the contentareas. It explores student engagement and coaching's contributionto teachers' ability to reflect on and change classroom practice.Finally, this report discusses the strengths and challenges ofPAHSCI's influence on the individual, the school, the districtand the state to link learning and build sustainability.

Mission Statement

Through research and action, Research for Action seeks toimprove the education opportunities and outcomes of urbanyouth by strengthening public schools and enriching the civic andcommunity dialogue about public education. We share our researchwith educators, parent and community leaders, students, and policymakers with the goals of building a shared critique of educationalinequality and strategizing about school reform that is socially just.

RESEARCHforACTION

Year Three Report of the Pennsylvania High School Coaching Initiative

2008

Written byDiane Brown, Ed.D.

Rebecca Reumann-Moore, Ph.D.

Roseann Hugh, M.Ed.

Jolley Bruce Christman, Ph.D.

Morgan Riffer

Research for Action

1

Links to Learning and Sustainability

4 Introduction

6 Section One PAHSCI’s Vision, Goals, and Design

6 Vision

7 Goals

7 Design

8 PAHSCI Theory of Change

11 Research Questions

11 Section Two Coaches: The Vital Link to Improved Teaching and Learning

13 The Evolution of PAHSCI Coaching and Coaches

14 Breaking Down Teacher Isolation and Building Instruction-Focused

Professional Community

15 Strengthening Leadership in Schools and Districts

15 Seeing the Big Picture: Linking Educators to Each Other within a School

Change Framework

16 The Professional Growth of Coaches

18 Challenges

18 Initial Confusion about the Coach’s Role

19 Gaps in Skills and Training

20 Resistant Teachers

20 Varying Levels of Administrative Leadership and Support

21 Time

21 Summary

23 Section Three Linking Teacher Practice to Student Engagement and Learning

23 Quality Teaching Practice and Student Engagement

25 RFA Visits to PAHSCI Schools and Classrooms

25 Students’ Voices: What Students Say about “Quality Teaching”

25 Year Three Visits: Classroom Observations and Teacher Interviews

26 Evaluating a PLN Framework Classroom

27 Implementing the PLN Framework: Teachers’ Preferred PLN Strategies

27 How Teacher Practices and Student Engagement Align

31 Summary

32 Section Four Sustaining Instructional Change

32 Indicators of Sustainability: Changes in Classroom Practices

34 Indicators of Sustainability: New Levels of Understanding

about ‘Engagement’

34 Coaching + PLN Framework: Keys to Sustainable Instructional Change

35 Coaching + Regional PLN Courses

35 Coaching + School-Based PLN Professional Development

37 Looking Ahead: Challenges to Sustainability

37 Summary

Table of Contents

2

38 Section Five PAHSCI Learning, Leadership, and Sustainability

38 Individuals: New Opportunities for Learning and Leadership

38 Teachers

39 Coaches

40 Mentors

40 District Points of Contact

40 Administrators: District and Building Leaders

41 How Individuals Rated Their PAHSCI Experience

42 Organizations: New Partnering, New Capacities

42 Partner Organizations

43 Schools

44 School and District Venues for Learning

44 State-Level Leadership: Buy-In, Collaboration, Advice

44 PDE and PAHSCI Designers

45 Collaborative Coaching Board

45 PAHSCI Advisory Board

46 Sustainability: Moving from External to Internal Ownership

47 Challenges to Sustainability

47 On the Move: Fourth Year Transitions

48 Summary

49 Section Six Lessons from PAHSCI

49 The Developmental Stages of PAHSCI

50 Key Lessons

50 Lesson One

50 Lesson Two

51 Lesson Three

51 Lesson Four

51 Lesson Five

52 Lesson Six

52 Concluding Notes

54 Reference List

56 Appendix A Participating Districts and Schools 2007-2008

57 Appendix B Research Methodology

57 Questionnaires

57 Event Observations and Evaluations

58 Appendix C Highlights from Years One and Two

61 Appendix D PLN Strategies: Brief Descriptions

63 Appendix E Visitation Rubric

65 Appendix F English and Math Teachers’ Report of Weekly PLN Use

68 Appendix G Participants' List of Focus Areas

3

In education reform lore, one finds informative,even colorful, stories of ideas and beliefsmorphing into action. The PennsylvaniaHigh School Coaching Initiative (PAHSCI) —a three-year public-private partnershipspearheaded by the Pennsylvania Departmentof Education (PDE) and funded by theAnnenberg Foundation — provides its ownunique examples of individuals reachinginto the silos in secondary education andpartnering in new and exciting ways.

PAHSCI is a high school reform model thatlinks 15 districts and 24 high-need schoolsserving over 30,000 students across thestate to improve teaching and learning at thesecondary level.1 The PAHSCI model centersaround school-based literacy and mathinstructional coaches who support teachersin infusing research-based literacy practicesacross the curriculum to help improvestudents’ literacy and achievement.2Providing an additional layer of support,PAHSCI employs three-person teams ofseasoned educators (content and leadershipmentors) who provide direct site-basedmonthly mentoring of coaches andadministrators. Further deepening thescope of its influence, PAHSCI seeks tolink and sustain learning for individuals,schools, districts, and the state.

Research for Action (RFA)3 was asked toinvestigate and describe the lessons fromPAHSCI, drawing on research methods ofparticipant observation, interviewing, survey-ing, and document analysis.4 In two previousreports: Promising InRoads: Year One Reportof the Pennsylvania High School CoachingInitiative, September, 2006 and Making aDifference: Year Two Report of the Penn-sylvania High School Coaching Initiative,October, 2007, we present findingsfrom the first two years of PAHSCI.5

While many questions remain regarding theimpact of instructional coaching on improvingstudent performance, the research literature

points to a general belief that whenimplemented well, instructional coachinginfluences teachers’ capacity to “behavemore skillfully in daily interactions (e.g., askingquestions, listening, provoking, giving [andreceiving] feedback)” — a highly significantoutcome in its own right. Coaches workingone-on-one with teachers has influencedthe growth of new perspectives that thengenerate new practices in daily classroominstruction and these new practices directlylink to high student achievement.6

During the third year of the Initiative,RFA was asked to shift the data collectionfrom questionnaires and surveys of alladministrators, coaches, and teachers togaining an in-depth understanding of theinfluence of one-on-one coaching on theimplementation of literacy-rich instructionalbest practices. In fall and winter 2007-08,we visited 102 classrooms in 9 schools,interviewed 109 teachers and, subsequently,the 31 coaches with whom they worked.

Based on our observations and interviews,we argue that one-on-one coaching greatlyinfluenced the implementation of the PennLiteracy Network (PLN) Framework, a set ofresearch-based literacy practices that are atthe heart of PAHSCI professional learning.The synergy of working with a coach andthe emphasis on student-centered instructionwere influential in developing participatingteachers’ ability to reflect on their actualpractice, both with coaches and with theirpeers, and, as a result, to enhance students’engagement in their own learning. We presentthe PAHSCI Theory of Change, and, withinthe limitations of the data collected, argue thestrengths and challenges of PAHSCI’s influenceon the individual, the school, the district, andthe state to link learning and build leadershipcapacity in such a way as to increase thelikelihood of sustainability.

This Year Three Report, Links to Learningand Sustainability, describes PAHSCI

Introduction

4

1 See Appendix A for a list of participating districtsand schools.

2 We define literacy as a complex phenomenon thatinvolves the ability to understand, interpret, create,and communicate using a variety of written materi-als from different contexts.

3 See inside front cover for information about RFA.

4 See Appendix B, Research Methodology.

5 See Appendix C, Findings from the Year Oneand Year Two Reports.

6 Lambert, L. (1995). Building LeadershipCapacity in Schools. Association for Supervisionand Curriculum Development. Alexandria,Virginia USA.

partner organizations’ efficacy in creating well-established communications and buildingcollaborative learning among individuals,schools, districts, and the state. In additionto the overwhelmingly positive data showingstrengthened links to learning among thePAHSCI participants, we also present someof the issues and challenges which requirecontinued research and evaluation. Our goalis to present a report that is useful to PAHSCIpartners and participants as they reflect onpast efforts and look to the future. We alsohope that it is instructive for educators,policy makers, and researchers interestedin PAHSCI as a model for other initiatives.

The report consists of six sections:

Section 1 revisits the PAHSCI vision, goals,and design and presents the PAHSCITheory of Change.

Section 2 focuses on the instructional coachescentral to the PAHSCI model, including theevolution of the coach’s role over the threeyears, the challenges coaches faced, andhow they and the Initiative responded.

Section 3 takes the reader inside PAHSCIclassrooms to examine how teachers’instructional practices link to studentengagement and learning.

Section 4 identifies elements of thePAHSCI model that help sustain instructionalchange.

Section 5 looks at the roles that have beenplayed by individuals (teachers, coaches,mentors, administrators), organizations(Initiative partners, schools, districts), andthe Pennsylvania Department of Educationand advisory boards to both link and sustainPAHSCI learning and leadership.

And finally, Section 6 provides a modelshowing the developmental stages ofimplementing PAHSCI, revisits the Theoryof Change, and summarizes importantlessons from this Initiative.

5

PAHSCI’s goal is to improve instruction inliteracy and math and all subject areas throughthe application of specific literacy strategies,through teachers helping and leading otherteachers with instructional strategies in theirclassroom. The results are engagement ofstudents within the classroom, communicationof students within the classroom, and increasedstudent achievement.

–District Superintendent

• What factors influenced the designof Pennsylvania’s Initiative?

• What is the PAHSCI Theory of Change?

• What key questions have emergedin evaluating the PAHSCI model?

Section 1 PAHSCI’s Vision, Goals, and Design

6

In 2005, the Pennsylvania Department ofEducation (PDE), in partnership with theAnnenberg Foundation, assembled a core“mastermind” group of individuals to designand implement the Pennsylvania High SchoolCoaching Initiative (PAHSCI). This highlyrespected and well-connected group held aset of compelling beliefs about school reform,adolescent literacy, instructional coaching andmentoring, and leadership development.Armed with many years of experience in lead-ing school and district initiatives, they wereadvocates of literacy-rich classrooms acrosscontent areas as a strategy to increase intel-lectual coherence or aligned activities thatinvite students to use their minds well as theytravel to classrooms throughout their day.7

VisionThe vision for PAHSCI underscores theimportance of highly qualified teachers andhighly qualified district and school leadersworking, learning, and translating that learningto help teach all students. PDE’s proposalto the Annenberg Foundation states, the“consistent delivery of quality instructionwithin an individual school and across a setof schools is one of the most challengingtasks districts face — it is also one of themost daunting. Districts that are successfuloftentimes have in place a system-widestrategy for guiding the content of school-and district-based professional developmentand a means for supporting effective practiceinside schools and classrooms.”8 To addressthis challenge, PAHSCI coaches are trainedto guide teachers' implementation ofresearch-based, literacy-rich strategies

across the content areas. In addition, regionalcourses allow teachers who attend to learnthese strategies alongside the coaches.

Crafting a public-private partnership withPDE, the Annenberg Foundation provideda $31 million, three-year investment in highschool reform. PDE contracted Foundations,Inc., and the Penn Literacy Network (PLN)at the University of Pennsylvania’s GraduateSchool of Education to co-design an intensiveprofessional development system to provideresearch-based training and support toparticipating schools and districts. Usingschool-based instructional coaching andmentoring and linking these efforts undera state-sponsored initiative represents a strategic use of resources. Supportingeducational improvement and fosteringan environment conducive to leadershipdevelopment by networking high-need highschools across the Commonwealth representsa shift from the isolation often experiencedby staff and leadership at these schools and,importantly, supplies a multiplier effect tothe scope and impact of professionallearning that takes place.

Moving beyond previous state trainingopportunities and workshop activities,PAHSCI’s vision features school- and class-room-based work with teachers throughschool-based coaches who provide ongoingsupport to teachers and mentor teams whoprovide monthly site-based support to coachesand building and district administrators.An external evaluator, Research for Action(RFA) and a fiscal agent, The PhiladelphiaFoundation (TPF) completed the list of partnerorganizations. Under the leadership of thePAHSCI Program Director and later theExecutive Director, the partner organizationsconducted the implementation, evaluation,and support for PAHSCI to reach its goals.

7 Sizer, T.R. (1991). No Pain, No Gain. EducationalLeadership.

8 Proposal to the Annenberg Foundation from thePennsylvania Dept. of Education. (2005).

GoalsSchool districts and the state educationalsystem represent a connected and politicallyrelevant system of relationships. Cognizantof the varying student demographics, schoolinfrastructure and school resources at eachof the participating high schools, originatorsof the PAHSCI model were well aware thatsome student populations across these diverseschools on a daily basis were joining the ranksof high school dropouts. Therefore, focusingon student engagement as a prerequisiteto improving student performance was a logical objective.

In the proposal to the Annenberg Foundation,PDE set forth the following ambitious, long-term goals:

• Improve student performance at theparticipating high schools.

• Build capacity throughout the Commonwealthfor the expansion of this model.

Additionally, as the Initiative took hold, thefollowing goal emerged:

• Generate a research base that will informthe development of the coaching modeland support its refinement and expansion.

DesignAs part of a comprehensive plan to fostera “statewide environment for improvingschools across the Commonwealth,” PAHSCI’sdesign supplies an unprecedented statewideinfrastructure for on-site, embedded profes-sional development using research-basedbest practices.

Highlighting the foundational areasof learning — literacy and mathematics —the PAHSCI design places one literacyand one math coach for every 600 studentsin 24 participating high schools. PAHSCIfeatures instructional coaching and mentoringas a comprehensive plan to enhance theknowledge, skills, and practice of all contentarea high school teachers and subsequentlythe engagement and achievement of thestudents they teach. Coaches at the selectedsites are trained to provide in-class coachingand modeling, facilitate peer collaboration,lead data-driven assessments, and promoteteacher leadership. (Key steps in the designand implementation of PAHSCI are outlinedin the box at left.) To explain how the compo-nents of the PAHSCI design fit together toachieve the desired outcomes, we turn toits Theory of Change.

PAHSCI Theory of ChangeThis Theory of Change was deduced fromobservations of implementation events andtrainings, interviews with PDE and PAHSCIleadership, and examination of proposalsand applications of participating schools.

Program Inputs

Partner Supports

The PAHSCI 2008 Theory of Changein Figure 1 begins with the PennsylvaniaDepartment of Education contracting withpartners to provide training, support, andresources.

7

PAHSCI Design Steps

Define the program components so that all participantsand stakeholders are aware of program goals, expecta-tions, services, and anticipated outcomes;

Recruit and hire highly trained individuals to becomecoaches and mentors;

Train the coaches and mentors in content areas andinterpersonal skill sets that are aligned with schooland district improvement plans as well as the goalsof PAHSCI;

Integrate coaching and mentoring with existing schooland district initiatives;

Include school and district leaders as participants in thetraining to empower them to be informed supportersand nurturers of coaches and teachers;

Create district- and school-based leadership teams todesign, implement, and monitor PAHSCI action plansaligned with state standards and district goals;

Provide ongoing opportunities for data-driven decisionmaking, reflection, and reviewing the outcomes fromPAHSCI implementation across participating schoolsand districts;

Create a pipeline of school, district, and stateeducational leaders well-equipped to move upa career ladder; and finally,

Contribute to shaping a statewide model of coaching.

Facilitated by the PAHSCI Director, the part-ners were to collectively practice “effectiveproblem-solving, adaptive planning, positivepersonal relations, good communication,ongoing feedback and an empowerment of allpartners to carry out the mission and vision ofthe partnership.”9

Partner supports included:

Professional Development– PLN Trainings/PLN Framework10

– Foundations’ Networking SessionsLeadership and Content Mentoring

– Monthly site-based support

Near the end of the first year of implementationthe partner organizations, responding to form-ative feedback, set action goals so that theycould measure their contributions to the Initia-tive’s effectiveness in the three areas below:

Improving Teaching and LearningPAHSCI schools will support high qualityinstructional practices through documentedincreases in student-centered activitiesfocused on reading, writing, and verbal inter-action as measured by observations, lessonplans, content, curriculum revisions, assess-ment practices, walk-throughs,11 and surveys.

Sustainability: Internal and External OwnershipInternal: Schools demonstrate a commitmentto institutionalizing best practices learnedby participation in instructional coachingand differentiated professional learningopportunities as evidenced by the provisionof time and resources, goal orientationspecified in their School Improvement Plan(SIP), and Action Plans that show a clear

articulation of expectations how to implement,monitor, and assess the goals.

External: PAHSCI Leadership and partnerorganizations will establish the channels,distribution, methods, and content necessaryto influence the educational and legislativecommunities so that the core ideas andpractices of the Initiative garner the supportneeded to ensure institutionalization.

LeadershipDistrict and school-based administratorswill demonstrate knowledge of PAHSCI,commitment to its goals, and provideconcrete support for those goals. Projectgoals will be integrated and visible inprotocols administrators use to evaluateteachers, in school planning documents,and in content curriculums.

Instructional Coaching

In the PAHSCI Theory of Change, instructionalcoaching, bolstered by partner supports, is theprimary vehicle for improving teaching andlearning. Initial documents (e.g., the Initiativeproposal and the coach job description) revealPAHSCI’s early thinking about an approach toinstructional coaching and emphasize severalkey aspects of the coach’s role. Coaches would:

• spend the majority of their time workingin classrooms with teachers

• facilitate teacher study groups and otherforms of professional development

• be part of the school leadership team andthereby be connected to the process ofwhole school change

• have deep content knowledge and also beable to work with teachers across disciplines

• play a lead role in analyzing student dataand in supporting teachers in using this datafor instructional planning

Lastly, an important aspect of PAHSCI’s designis that coaches did not work in isolation butinstead were placed in schools in collaborativeteams; the number of coaches per teamvaried depending on school size.

District and School Enabling ConditionsThe enabling conditions or pre-existing con-text and capacity that affects project successinclude: human capital, materials and

8

9 Gajda, R. (2004). Utilizing Collaboration Theoryto Evaluate Strategic Alliances. American Journalof Education, 25(1), 65-77.

10 PLN Framework: A set of literacy-rich classroomstrategies.

11 Walk-Throughs: (Instructional Walk-Throughs): Ateam of observers, usually a building administratorand teachers, however, sometimes parents, visitsseveral classrooms where they look for very specificthings. In most Walk-Throughs, the teaching contin-ues and the visitors sit in the back or walk quietlyaround the room looking for evidence of the partic-ular goal/classroom strategies they would expect tofind. Narrowing the focus to specific instructionalactivities, the team assembles the information fromtheir notes and they share what they have learnedwith the teachers whose rooms have been observed.

School-Based

Classroom Level

resources, social capital, and policies andstructures. In addition, the “capacity of localpersonnel to envision and implement change”and to exhibit the ability and the politicalstrength to stay the course for the interventionto receive a fair test12 directly influenced theimplementation of the Initiative. The ProgramInput components described above and howthey are implemented in districts and schoolsaffect both Intermediate Outcomes and Long-term Outcomes.

Intermediate Outcomes

School-Based

Three important Intermediate Outcomes takeplace at the school level.

• Leadership Development: Leadership isdefined by education researchers Spillaneet al. as, “the identification, acquisition,allocation, coordination, and use of social,material, and cultural resources necessary toestablish the conditions for the possibilitiesof teaching and learning.”13

• Strengthened Professional Community:In strong professional communities educa-tors work together “to continuously seek,share, and act on their learning” for thepurpose of improving teaching and studentachievement.14 Building strong professional

9

Figure 1 Theory of Change

Intermediate Outcomes

Enabling Conditions

● Leadership Development

● StrengthenedProfessional Community

● Ownership of PAHSCI

School● Human Capital

(e.g., teacher knowledge, coaches’ development of coaching skills)

● Materials/Resources

● Social Capital (e.g., networking, collaboration)

● Policies & Structures(e.g., vision & priorities)

District● Human Capital

(e.g., administrator knowledge)

● Social Capital (e.g., networking, collaboration)

● Policies & Structures(e.g., vision & priorities)

Program Inputs Long-termOutcomes

Literacy-rich Curriculumand Instructionacross content

areas

Teachersskilled in

research-basedinstructionalstrategies

StudentsActively

Engaged

Improved StudentPerformance

Achieving PartnerAction Goals

Sustainable Modelof Secondary Level Coaching& Mentoring

Instructional Coaching.....● Sustained consultation to teachers

focusing on literacy-rich curriculumand instruction

● Professional development such as

study groups

● Assistance with use and analysis of data

● Collaboration among teachers

Penn

sylv

ania

Dep

artm

ent o

f Edu

catio

n

12 Quint , J. (2006). Meeting Five CriticalChallenges of High School Reform: Lessons fromResearch on Three Reform Models. MDRC.

contracts

Partner Supports ● Professional Development

– PLN Trainings/PLN Framework– Foundations’ Networking Sessions

● Leadership and Content Mentoring– Site-based Monthly Support

● Partners Establish Action Goals

13 Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R. R. & Diamond, J. B.(2001, April). Investigating School LeadershipPractice: A Distributed Perspective. EducationalResearcher, 24.

14 National High School Alliance (2007).Empowered Educators. [On-line]. Retrievedon March 20, 2007, from www.hsalliance.org/call_action/empowered_educators/research.asp.

communities within schools is widelyconsidered to positively impact teachercollaboration and thus lead to improvedclassroom instruction.

• Ownership of PAHSCI: Research on howeducation innovations are sustained overtime shows that ownership of the reformmust change hands from external actorsto internal actors (i.e., district and schoolpractitioners). Ownership requires deepknowledge of the reform and theauthority to perpetuate it.15

Classroom Level

Three additional Intermediate Outcomesoccur at the classroom level.

• Literacy-rich, student-centered curriculumand instruction across content areas:Literacy-rich classrooms and a student-centered curriculum emphasize theimportance of having students speak,read, and write as ways to deepen theirlearning and demonstrate what they know.

• Actively engaged students: Studentengagement can be defined as “thestudent’s psychological investment inand effort directed toward, learning,understanding, or mastering the knowledge,skills, or crafts that academic work isintended to promote.”16 Students who areactively engaged in their learning attendschool regularly, learn more, are morelikely to persist to graduation, and areless likely to exhibit problem behaviors.17

• Teachers skilled in research-based instruc-tional strategies: When teachers consistently

use research-based instructional strategies,their students show achievement gains.This is especially true for low-incomeand minority students.18

Long-term OutcomesThe PAHSCI Theory of Change posits thatthe Long-term Outcomes of improved studentachievement and a sustainable model ofsecondary coaching and mentoring occurwhen the partner organizations effectivelyprovide (as measured by achieving actiongoals) program inputs and create theintermediate outcomes necessary toaccomplish these ultimate goals.

Research Questions

RFA was engaged as a partner organization toassist in evaluating the efficacy of the PAHSCImodel. Surveys, interviews, and on-site obser-vations provided in-progress feedback thathelped partners identify and address issuesduring the Initiative. Over the course of thethree years, several research questions alsoemerged as central to assessing PAHSCI’ssuccess and sustainability, as well as providinginsight for other educational reform initiatives.In the following sections, we discuss findingsrelated to these questions, which include:

10

• How did the role of coaches evolve and changeand how did they and the larger Initiativerespond to the challenges they faced?

• How did instructional coaching and mentoringand its various components shape what hap-pened in classrooms and the professional learn-ing communities within a school and district?

• How was student engagement and learninginfluenced by changing teacher practiceassociated with professional learning in PAHSCI?

• How did PAHSCI align and build learningand leadership within and across linkedparticipating PAHSCI sites?

• What lessons were generatedby participation in PAHSCI?

15 Coburn, C. E. (2003). Rethinking Scale: MovingBeyond Numbers to Deep and Lasting Change.Educational Researcher, 32(6), 3-12.

16 Newmann, (1992). Student Engagement andAchievement in American Secondary Schools.New York: Teachers College Press.

17 Bowen, E. R. (2003). Student Engagement and ItsRelation to Quality Work Design: A Review of theLiterature. [On-line]. Retrieved on August 31, 2007,from chiron.valdosta.edu/are/ebowenLitReview.pdf;Weiss, C. C. (2003, November). The NeglectedImportance of Connections: the role of studentengagement in the transition to high school.Presented at the Association for Public PolicyAnalysis and Management, Washington, DC.

18 Knapp, M. S., Shields, P. M. & Turnbull, B. (1995,June). Academic Challenge in High-PovertyClassrooms. Phi Delta Kappan.

11

Teachers talk about coaches:

This is my second year teaching and it reallyhelped me last year to have a coach comein and observe me...The great thing is [that]coaches have so much experience that they’reable to kind of fast-forward some of the lessonsso I don’t have to learn them on my own. It’sreally been great to have a coach to help mebe a better teacher. –English Teacher

It’s just a whole set of eyes and ears and ideasthat really can enrich our teaching — and that,of course, should lead to student achievement.

–English Teacher

Section 2 Coaches: The Vital Link to Improved Teaching and Learning

• Why coaching as a strategy to improvestudent achievement?

• What contributions did coaches make tostrengthening professional culture andleadership in schools and districts?

• How did the coaching role change over time?

• What challenges did coaches face — and how did they and the Initiative respond?

Coaches are at the center of the PennsylvaniaHigh School Coaching Initiative, serving ascatalysts for change at the district, school,and classroom level. Why focus on coachingas a strategy to improve student achievement?Research has indicated that effective, highquality teachers are one of the most importantfactors in student success, with “a growingbody of studies showing that students learnmore from skilled and experienced teach-ers.”19 Supporting teachers to improve theirpractice, therefore, is central to improvinglearning outcomes for students. Coaches pro-vide context-specific, job-embedded profes-sional development for teachers. Althoughthe field still lacks conclusive research linkinginstructional coaching to student achievement,there are studies that indicate that coachinghelps teachers better understand new instruc-tional practices and incorporate new strategiesinto classroom instruction.20

Coaches are expected to have a wide skill setand a significant depth of knowledge in manyareas. Coaching PA, a white paper producedby the Pennsylvania Department of Education,

sets out four major areas for the role of thecoach: (1) Provide school- and district-basedleadership; (2) Provide instructional leadership;(3) Guide teachers, administrators, and schoolsin using and interpreting assessment data toinform instruction; and (4) Plan and facilitateprofessional development.21

The International Reading Association’s (IRA)Standards for Middle and High School LiteracyCoaches divides standards into two categories— leadership and content area. A partial listof the skills and expertise identified by the IRAas necessary for effective coaching includes: • understanding of secondary school culture

and students; • familiarity with the latest research on

adolescent literacy, including ELL literacydevelopment, and with concepts of adultlearning and motivation;

• deep knowledge of particular high schoolcontent area(s);

• ability to help teachers make evidence-based current research applicable to theirclassrooms;

• ability to develop a comprehensive assess-ment program with formal and informalmeasures of achievement;

• ability to work with teachers individually andin groups and to provide professional develop-ment in a wide range of strategies and skills.

Not surprisingly, the IRA document also states,“it takes two to three years for most [teachers]to develop the full complement of coaching

21 Pennsylvania Department of Education. (2007)Coaching PA: Coaching as a Vital Component ofan Aligned, Standards-Based System. Harrisburg,PA: Author, 4.

19 Useem, E., Offenberg, R. & Farley, E. (2007). Closingthe Teacher Quality Gap in Philadelphia: New Hopeand Old Hurdles. Philadelphia: Research for Action.

20 Edwards, J. L. & Newton, R. R. (1995). The Effectof Cognitive Coaching on Teacher Efficacy andEmpowerment. Paper presented at the AnnualMeeting of the American Education ResearchAssociation, San Francisco, CA; Marsh, J. A.,McCombs, J. S., Lockwood, J. R., Martorell, F.,Gershwin, D., Naftel, S., Le, V., Shea, M., Barney, H.& Crego, A. (2008). Supporting LIteracy Across theSunshine State: A Study of Florida Middle SchoolReading Coaches. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.;Showers, B. & Joyce, B. (1996). The Evolution ofPeer Coaching. Educational Leadership, 53, 12-16.

12

skills.”23 Indeed, three years of research onPAHSCI indicate important ways that coaches,and the role of the coach in PAHSCI, developedover the course of the Initiative.24

The vignette above touches on some of thekey themes of this section and shows howthe components of instructional coachingand mentoring came together in one setting.Those themes include the evolution of thecoaches and coaching, changing school

cultures, and the important roles of mentorsand administrators. It also looks ahead tofuture sections focused on coaching’s impacton instruction and student engagement.

24 Our sources of data about coaches include surveysof teachers, coaches, and administrators (Years 1and 2); site visits, which incorporated a range ofinterviews with administrators, coaches, teachers,and mentors, as well as classroom observations(Years 1, 2, and 3); and observations at and evalua-tions of PAHSCI professional development events(Years 1, 2, and 3). See Appendix B for moredetailed information about methodology.

During the first year of PAHSCI, both coachesand mentors at Washington High School22

described challenges understanding thecoaches’ role – What do coaches do? Thesechallenges were exacerbated by the factthat the coaches were hired after the formalsummer training offered by the Initiative.The coaches credited their mentors’ support,especially through shadowing, role playing,and study groups, with providing an importantorientation for them to their new role. Mentorsdescribed the coaches as a strong team whoseskills complemented each other.

At the end of Year Three, coaches and mentorsarticulated many positive changes in how thesecoaches coached. A math mentor described amath coach: “The way she has embraced herrole has changed. In the beginning, it wasn’teasy for her to approach other teachers…The literacy mentor and I operated as a team…encouraging [the coaches] about how you startas a coach. You’re going in and just visiting inthe beginning and establishing the trust inyour new role.” A literacy coach noted, “I’m somuch more reflective than I was before.” Thiscoach also noted that “I had a tendency initiallyas a coach to use judgmental statementsas I’d visit a classroom.” She described withpride how she had been able to change herapproach and gave the example of workingwith a teacher struggling with classroom man-agement this year and being able to supporthim in naming the problem on his own.

Washington High School also had strongadministrative support for PAHSCI. Buildingand district-level administrators attended allthe trainings and met regularly with coachesand mentors as a leadership team for 22 All school and names are pseudonyms.

PAHSCI. One coach credited the administratorswith providing both support and room for thecoaches to work: “Our administrators knowwhen to be hands-on, but a large portion ofthe time they’re hands-off.” She also notedthat the mentors “have been integral in ourcommunication with the principals” andhelping the coaches address administrativedirectives they had questions about.

By the end of Year Three, both mentorsand coaches identified a variety of changesin instructional practice at Washington,as well as increased student engagement.A mentor said, “Now when I see Do Nows,they’re related to the rigor of the lesson andthe teacher is providing feedback and givingthe kids a chance to share — that did notoccur initially because…they didn’t wantthe kids talking in the classroom…The firstliteracy circles we saw were pretty rough; nowthey’re sophisticated.” At this stage, coachesand mentors were also identifying a lesseningneed for mentors. One coach commentedthat a content mentor “became a peer ofmine” and a mentor noted that she waslearning a lot from the coaches.

PAHSCI has fostered coherence amongthe roles and goals of differently positionedparticipants. The work and approaches ofadministrators, coaches, and mentors overlapand reinforce each other. An administratornoted, “I’ve become a lot better at toleratingdifferent perspectives and different positionsand opinions…I’ve found ways to engagestaff in much the same way I expect them[teachers] to engage students.” Similarly,the mentors model with coaches the kindsof processes and approaches PAHSCIwants teachers to adopt with students.

A Vignette

Coaches at the Center of School-wide Learning

23 International Reading Association. (2006)Standards for Middle and High School LiteracyCoaches. Newark, DE: Author, 7.

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The Evolution of PAHSCI CoachingPAHSCI’s vision was for coaches to providejob-embedded professional developmentthat would catalyze changed instruction andimproved student achievement. The PennLiteracy Network (PLN) framework andresearch-based strategies were the focusof much of this professional development.As indicated in Section One, initial projectdocuments emphasize key areas withinthe coach’s role. These include

1 focus on working in classrooms with teachers,

2 participating in the leadership team,

3 working with student data, and

4 facilitating various forms of small and large group professional development.

Districts’ differing contexts and needs inter-acted with the Initiative’s framing of the coach’srole and responsibilities. This meant that, inaddition to the overall focus on PLN strate-gies, district and school leaders prioritizedaspects of the coaching role that they sawas especially important for their school. Forexample, in Year One, one district encouragedcoaches to work with classroom level data andbenchmarks to guide their work with teacherswhile another encouraged coaches to addressteachers’ classroom management needs.

The first centralized training for coaches andadministrators introduced the Before/During/After (BDA) model to guide lesson planningand teachers’ work with students. A BDAconsultation cycle for the work of coachesand mentors was also adopted during thefirst year. BDA guided coaches’ one-on-onework with teachers. The goal was for coachesto plan a lesson with a teacher; to visit theclassroom to observe, model or co-teach;and later to debrief with the teacher to reflecton the lesson and plan next steps. Similarly,the mentors employed a BDA model in theirwork with coaches.

PAHSCI did not mandate one specificapproach to coaching. The Initiative providedtools that districts and schools could use tocustomize their coaching approach. Individualschools’ action plans were also an importantfactor shaping implementation. The mentorsprovided support in shaping the BDA andother tools to meet the needs in different con-texts. One framework introduced during Year

One was Killion and Harrison’s nine rolesof coaches.25 These roles include resourceprovider, data coach, curriculum specialist,instructional specialist, mentor, classroomsupporter, learning facilitator, school leader,and catalyst for change. In Year Two, somedistricts provided training in cognitive coachingfor their coaches. Many coaches found thisvery helpful but not everyone in PAHSCIwas exposed to it. PAHSCI’s flexibility andcustomization related to coaching approachenabled better fit with varying local contexts;it also made evaluation and identifying linksbetween coaching and the desired outcomesmore challenging.

Over time, the following aspects of coachingreceived greater emphasis and development:

One-on-one coaching. PAHSCI had alwaysemphasized the centrality of coaches’ class-room work with individual teachers. In YearTwo, the Initiative highlighted the importanceof this one-on-one work in its ongoing profes-sional development and through the mentors.Initiative leaders wanted to ensure that coach-es were not being used in ways that tookthem away from their central task. They alsobelieved that this one-on-one work wascrucial to coaches’ ability to foster change.

Working with data. At the end of Year One,coaches’ number one request for Year Twoprofessional development was more help inworking with teachers around organizing andinterpreting data about student learning. InYears Two and Three, professional develop-ment and networking sessions focused moreon data analysis and guiding teachers indata use. In Year Three, PAHSCI professionaldevelopment for coaches increased itsemphasis on using data to assist teachersin better differentiating instruction.

Specific needs in different school contexts.The Theory of Change shows that schooland district capacity and context help shapeInitiative implementation and outcomes. InYears Two and Three coaches in some districtsrequested training to help teachers in particularareas. These included classroom managementand working with English language learnersand special needs learners. These needs were

25 Killion, J. & Harrison, C. (2005, September). NineRoles of the School-Based Coach. TeachersTeaching Teachers 1(1).

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addressed in professional developmentand through follow up by the mentors.

Over the three years of PAHSCI, coachesworked with teachers and mentors, attendedprofessional development, collaborated witheach other, and were engaged in ongoingcycles of coaching and reflection. Coacheshelped catalyze an expanding instructionally-focused professional community, the develop-ment of a common instructional language,and new leadership roles for coaches andteachers in their schools and districts.

Data from the three years also highlightkey areas of professional growth for coachesincluding: evolving skills and perspectiveson the coaches’ role as change agents;new knowledge and changed perspectiveson teaching and learning; and growth inconfidence and view of self.

As coaches developed, gaining confidenceand learning more about coaching processesand content (e.g., the Penn Literacy Networkframework and strategies), as well as aboutthe role of the coach in making change, theymoved into new areas and took on new lead-ership roles. These developments enabledthem to work as catalysts for breaking downsome of the traditional barriers to instructionalchange in high schools and to support theirhigh schools in developing greater professionalcommunity and a deeper focus on improvinginstruction. The following discussion highlightskey areas of professional growth and ofchange in the PAHSCI coaching role.

Breaking Down Teacher Isolationand Building Instruction-FocusedProfessional CommunityWork in high schools is often atomized, withteachers operating behind closed doors withlittle time, opportunity, or motivation to col-laborate. Yet, research indicates the pivotalrole professional community can play in facili-tating school change. As Arbuckle describes,“In high-performing schools, a nurturing pro-fessional community seems to be the ‘contain-er’ that holds the culture.”26 DuFour and Eakeralso argue that “the most promising strategyfor sustained, substantive school improvement

is developing the ability of school personnelto function as professional learning communi-ties.”27 School leadership and professionalcommunity are both important elements of aschool’s instructional capacity28 and must benurtured to support changes in that capacityand, ultimately, in student achievement.

In Year Three, teachers and coaches in manydistricts told stories of stronger professionalcommunities with a shared focus on instruc-tion and a common language to talk aboutit. The following quotes are from teachersand coaches from the same district.

I have seen teachers working together wherebefore, when I first got there, [people focusedon their own classrooms]. Now it’s not like thatat all. And I think the Initiative has fosteredthat teamwork. –Coach

We talk about it [instructional strategies] allthe time… “we did this” or “I reflected onthis.” In our English department meetings,we always talk about some type of strategyand…we’re talking in the halls…It’s notformal but we talk about it quite often.

–Coach

We started doing something in our weeklydepartment meetings; all of the Englishteachers will come and bring somethingthat they do that works. Based on that, youstart thinking, “Well you know what? I didn’tthink of that and I might try that.” As a group,we’ve seen several different PLN strategiesthat work in all different grade levels….We’ve been given an opportunity to reallyget an overall view of the English department.

–English Teacher

[At weekly math department meetings,] thewhole department talks about different strate-gies… So, not only is the coach saying, “Well,why don’t you try this,” (but a teacher) canactually back him up and say, “I did try thatand it worked or it didn’t work.” As a wholedepartment with the coaches, we meet and

26 Arbuckle, M. (2000). Triangle of Design, Circleof Culture. In Senge, P., Cambron-McCabe, N.,Lucas, T., Smith, B., Dutton, J., & Kleiner, A. Eds.New York: Doubleday. (326)

27 DuFour R. & Eaker, R. (1998). ProfessionalLearning Communities at Work: Best Practices forEnhancing Student Achievement. Alexandria, VA:National Education Service. (xi)

28 McLaughlin, M. W. & Talbert, J. E. (2001). Pro-fessional communities and the work of high schoolteaching. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

we talk and we discuss which strategiesworked best. –Math Teacher

PAHSCI’s Year One Report identified changesin communication among teachers and thedevelopment of shared terminology andstrategies as an early outcome of theInitiative.29 In Year Three, teachers continuedto name the importance of the developmentof a common instructional language and ofthe way it supported collaborating acrosscontent areas.

I think PLN has helped us to open up withcommunication and dialogue. After school,I do a tutoring program and one of theteachers I tutor with, she’s [also] in PLN.Even though she’s language and I’m math,we still talk about the strategies.

–Math Teacher

When we are sharing about things at a facultymeeting or at a departmental meeting, thereis a common language because most of ushave taken it [PLN]. That helps a lot.

–English Teacher

What PLN has been able to do for us isto refine and make better many of thosestrategies, but also to allow us to talk acrosscampus in terms of what works within oneclassroom. –Math Teacher

Strengthening Leadershipin Schools and DistrictsCoaches took on a range of leadership rolesin their schools and, as PAHSCI progressed,in their districts and across the Initiative.Overtime, many coaches participated activelyin their school leadership teams. Many hadresponsibility for schoolwide leadership devel-opment. Coaches moved into leadership rolesat PAHSCI networking sessions, facilitatingworkshops for their peers. Coaches presentedto school boards and led district informationalsessions on instructional coaching.

Questionnaires completed by PAHSCIadministrators at the end of Year Two provideconfirmation of this change. When asked

about the development of coaches in theirschool, administrators' most frequent responsewas that coaches are becoming empoweredas instructional leaders. In Year Three,coaches were part of some type of leadershipteam in all six districts visited. These teamsvaried in intensity; some were relatively infor-mal and did not meet frequently. They alsohad a range of foci, including the school asa whole and school-wide issues, the coachingInitiative, strategic planning, and instructionalsupport. Commenting on the role playedby coaches at the school level, one schooladministrator noted:

On the leadership committee, the coaches arethe ones with the ideas. They have become sorespected by their peers that their peers lookto them to say, “[What] would be a good wayto organize this?” They look to them as lead-ers. They’ve now become leaders of leaders.They trust their judgment and they respecttheir knowledge level. –Principal

As coaches have moved into leadership roles,they have also been able to create contextsfor teachers to develop as leaders. Coacheswere able to draw on their own experiencesas learners and leaders to both facilitateteachers' learning and help teachers takeon instructional leadership. In Year Threeinterviews, coaches in two different districtsdescribe this phenomenon:

In one district, coaches ask teachers to leaddiscussion of sharing strategies: We actuallyhave teachers getting up each week explain-ing what worked for them — a certain strategythey were happy with — and sharing that withthe group.

Teacher-leaders are emerging. Some of themhave been here for a long time and are con-tinually being relied upon, but there are somenew teachers in our building who are steppingup and emerging as leaders.

Seeing the Big Picture: Linking Educators to Each Other within a School Change FrameworkAs PAHSCI coaches took on leadership roles,they were able to exercise their leadership tosupport broader school improvement andchange. Literature indicates that principals canplay a critical role in helping schools be learn-

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29 Brown, D., Reumann-Moore, R., Hugh, R.,Du Plessis, P. & Christman, J.B. (2006). PromisingInroads: Year One Report of the PennsylvaniaHigh School Coaching Initiative. Philadelphia:Research for Action.

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ing organizations in which educators togethercan make sense of competing priorities, siftthrough important data, and deflect pressuresnot related to instructional improvement.30

While principals are key in the quality of aschool’s educational program, some researchersargue the importance of leadership that isdistributed more widely, i.e., across the rolesof principal, teachers and parents/communitymembers.31 Marsh, et al., note that coachinghas “been seen as an avenue for developingmore distributed leadership in schools,particularly around instruction.”32

One coach explained how she now sees theschool as a whole as well as the interrelationshipamong different aspects of work in the school.

Overall, I can see the big picture now. In theclassroom, that was my world, but as a coach,I see how everything contributes to the class-room. A lot of things that were taken for grant-ed before — professional development, a test,etc. — I see how it all fits in. I see how deci-sions are made. I have a big picture of whatmy role is in a way that I never did before.

This kind of shift enables coaches to bringa school change perspective to their one-on-one work with individual teachers, makingthe school change process more coherent.The PDE paper on coaching states that as partof their school leadership work, coaches needto be able to “facilitate alignment of individualgoals and school goals.”33 The big pictureview that PAHSCI coaches reported makessuch a task much easier.

Teachers saw coaches creating links forlearning between different classroomsand people in the school.

They [the coaches] come in and work withme and they get to share with me whatthey’ve also observed in other classrooms.They’re helping to bring those pieces ofreflection into the classrooms that I wouldnormally not see or hear about if it weren’tfor this linking piece…because they’re goingaround and working with different teachers.

–English Teacher

One important aspect of coaches’ leadershipfor school change involved working withindividuals and groups to analyze data toshape instruction and school priorities. Thejob description for PAHSCI coaches highlightedthe need for skills in collecting, analyzing,and using data. Their analysis of data wasto inform the professional development theyprovided teachers through individual coachingand in groups. They were also to work withprincipals and teachers to support themin data analysis, problem-solving, anddecision-making based on data.

Throughout PAHSCI, coaches both affirmedthe importance of their role in helpingeducators use data to strengthen instructionand noted the challenges in implementing it.In questionnaires completed at a December2006 (Year Two) networking session, 36 percentof coaches said that connecting benchmarkdata to lesson planning was a new leadershiprole they had assumed through PAHSCI. At thesame time, coaches felt the need to improvetheir skills for doing this work; in these samequestionnaires, using data to drive instructionwas the most frequently requested topic forfuture professional development. In interviewswith coaches in the spring of Year Three,coaches in all six sites RFA visited namedtheir role in facilitating data analysis askey to reaching the goals of PAHSCI.

The Professional Growth of Coaches Both research about and practitioner materialson the coach’s role often stress the importanceof interpersonal skills for coaching. For example,RAND’s report on coaching in Florida stated:“Studies have found that supportiveness,respectfulness, approachability, accessibility,flexibility, tactfulness, and the ability to build

30 Smylie, M. A. & Hart, A. W. (1999). Leadershipfor teacher learning and change: A social and humancapital development perspective. In J. Murphyand K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of Research onEducational Administration (2nd ed.): 421-442.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.; Hallinger, P. & Heck, R.(1998). Exploring the principal’s contribution toschool effectiveness: 1980-1995. School Effective-ness and School Improvement, 9(2), 157-91; Bryk,A.S., Easton, J. Q., Kerbow, D., Rollow, S. G., &Sebring, P. B. (1998). A View from the ElementarySchools: The State of the Reform in Chicago.Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research.

31 (Spillane, et al., 2001, 23-28)32 (Marsh et al., 2008, 8)33 (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2007, 4)

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relationships are key characteristics of successfulcoaches.”34 The development of coaching be-haviors is linked to heightening such interper-sonal skills but also goes beyond them to newknowledge about and skills in the processes ofcoaching and the coach’s role as change agent.

Evolving Skills and New Perspectives asChange Agents

In both one-on-one and group settings,PAHSCI coaches learned how to focus theirwork effectively and how to be a facilitatorsupporting learning rather than an expertimparting knowledge. These coaching skillshelped to keep teachers more engaged inthe coaching process. Below, two coachesdescribe how their approach to coachingchanged over time.

I came directly from the classroom so mynatural tendency [in the beginning] wasif I did a demonstration, I’d want to teachthe whole lesson….We were teaching a lot— and the teachers liked it. But that’s notwhy we’re here; we’re here to demonstratea particular strategy and the teacher wassupposed to observe that and [then they]were supposed to try it.

Our professional developments were veryone-sided when we first started; it wouldbe that “chalk and talk.” Basically, I wouldget up there and say, “This is what you haveto do,” …Now…we’ve had teachers say,“I really like your professional development”and that’s because it’s been much more cre-ative, collaborative, teacher friendly — tryingto listen to the teachers, what is their concern?

Mentors often played a role in helpingcoaches refine their approach. For example,with input from her mentor, this coach realizedthat narrowing her focus would expedite thechange process.

She [the mentor] taught me to look at thepositives about the teacher, to pick onething at a time, where I probably wouldhave gone in there and said, “You’ve got allthese things wrong, we need to fix all thesethings,” which would have killed the wholecoaching thing right away.

Having mentors model behaviors andapproaches helped coaches to learn these

new skills. In their work with mentors, as wellas in courses and networking sessions, coach-es were positioned as learners, which in turnsupported their evolution as teacher/coachwith staff in their own schools. One coacharticulated this as follows:

In the beginning, I thought there was aspecific set of steps you had to do in orderto improve practice — there was some typeof magic formula. The mentors helped mesee the importance of working individuallywith each teacher and creating that bondof trust. They modeled that to us and thenthey told us to model that to others.

Another change involved learning to deper-sonalize the coaching situation, entering as aprofessional who can collaborate with a teacher.This enables going deeper into instructionand “getting to the heart of the matter.”

It’s much more natural for me now toapproach a teacher, talk to a teacher, etc.I feel a lot more confident about getting tothe heart of the matter with a teacher andnot worry if I’m going to hurt someone’sfeeling. I can look at teaching in an objec-tive fashion rather than a personal fashion.

New Knowledge and Perspectives onTeaching and Learning

Not surprisingly, coaches’ intensive profess-ional development and extensive work withteachers and other coaches across classroomsled many to report new knowledge of andchanged perspectives on instructional practice.Coaches developed shared understandingof what good instruction looks like, as well asof how to support teachers in getting there.

I’ve absolutely seen changes in my under-standing of instructional practice. One exam-ple is formative assessment: using ongoingassessment to make decisions to adjust whatyou’re doing as an instructor, or even usingit so that students can adjust their practices.Embedding that formative assessment toconstantly judge how things are going.

–Coach

I’ve seen monumental growth [in coaches’understanding of instructional practice]…They’ve [moved beyond] the “pass the chalk”and are now promoting the idea of student-centered, student involvement practices.

–Mentor 34 (Marsh et al., 2008, 13)

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Growth in Confidence and View of Self

As time went on, coaches’ sense of confidenceand efficacy increased. Administrators affirmedthis ongoing evolution at the end of Year Two;the most frequent response to a questionabout changes in coaching practice at theirschool was that coaches were becomingmore focused and confident in their role.

In Year Three interviews, coaches articulatedthe depth of this change:

[I’ve] definitely [seen] changes in my coach-ing practice. I’m very confident; I can gointo any classroom now and model the PLN[Penn Literacy Network] strategies. We cando [professional development]. Definitely,from the first year to the third, we’re moreconfident in what we’re doing.

By Year Three, many coaches reportednew kinds of relationships with mentors.As coaches matured into their role, theyfelt less in need of mentors’ ongoingassistance and repositioned themselvesas peers. Looking ahead to a fourthyear as a coach, one person said:

As far as the mentors’ role, I never want togive the idea that we know it all, but we havecome a long way and as far as support fromthe mentors, given my choice I really wouldlike to continue to work [with a mentor]…acouple times a year visiting or…[by] email.That’s what I would see as the supportneeded for the fourth year.

ChallengesFrom Year One through Year Three, some ofthe same challenges to full implementationof PAHSCI were named every year, thoughemphases changed, i.e., the challenges

evolved as coaching evolved. The continuingnature of some of these challenges reflectsongoing issues within high school structures.Especially in high-need high schools, there isoften frequent turnover of school leaders andongoing arrival of new teachers. Thus therewere constantly new people to be socializedinto the Initiative. However, the data showedthat strong school or district leadershipis an important resource for amelioratingthe challenges.

How did some of the key challenges faced byPAHSCI coaches play out over the three years?

Initial Confusion about the Coach’s RoleWhen PAHSCI began, a major challenge formany coaches was confusion about their role.According to the Year One report, “Coachesreported on questionnaires and in interviewsthat they struggled mightily with the ambigui-ty of their new assignment and with conflictingmessages about what they were supposed todo.”35 This was exacerbated by the fact thatmany districts were not able to hire their fullcomplement of coaches before the start ofthe school year. Thus, about half of Year Onecoaches were not able to participate in thesummer training before they started work.

In the Year One PAHSCI coach survey, only57 percent of coaches agreed or stronglyagreed that they understood their role asa coach. By the Year Two survey, the picturelooked very different. Ninety-eight percentof coaches reported that they understoodtheir role, as indicated in Figure 2.

In Year Three interviews, newly hired coachesstill talked about the questions they faced inunderstanding the coaching role, but this

Figure 2 Coaches’ Understanding of Their Role

35 Brown, et al., 2006, 21)

Percentages of coaches who agree or strongly agree that they understand their role

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2006 57%

2007 98%

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challenge looked very different in the contextof joining an already existing team with expe-rienced coaches in a program that had alreadydone a lot of learning about the coach’s role.New coaches’ learning was also supported bythe mentors and, in most cases, by administra-tors who were engaged in PAHSCI. Thevignette that follows describes the experienceof one new coach in Year Three.

Gaps in Skills and Training As noted above, the skill set and areas ofknowledge needed for coaching is vast. Asthe Initiative developed and coaches workedin schools, they became aware of their ownskill and knowledge gaps. Fortunately, PAHSCIalso had mechanisms in place that helped toidentify what coaches needed. Through inter-action with mentors and researchers (surveys,event evaluations, site visits), coaches voicedtheir needs and identified what training orsupports were missing in the structure of theInitiative.

Across content areas, coaches asked for moretraining about how to coach. In addition,many math coaches struggled to developtheir role and strongly indicated their need formore focus on math and more clarity aboutthe integration of literacy and math. Coachesalso saw needs in classrooms and wantedmore training to better assist teachers withclassroom management and with Englishlanguage and special needs learners.

The ability of PAHSCI partners to respondflexibly to these concerns and to make mid-course adjustments was an important strengthof the Initiative and key to supporting thedevelopment of coaches. In response to theseidentified needs, PAHSCI’s academic partners(PLN and Foundations, Inc.) and the InitiativeExecutive Director collaborated to address thecoaches’ concerns in a variety of ways, includ-ing revising the content of centralized training,shaping the content and processes of net-working sessions and regional trainings, andresponding to needs through the mentoringprocess itself. They reshaped the foci of net-working sessions and brought in experts inareas such as coaching, ELL literacy, and class-room management to lead training sessions.

In spring 2008 interviews with over 30 coachesabout the mentors’ role, a strong theme wasthat mentors do for coaches what coaches dofor teachers, i.e., mentors model the processesand approaches that coaches also use withteachers. Coaches especially appreciatedmentors role-playing coaching scenarios andconducting study groups with them. Contentmentors also shared subject-area materialswith coaches. Mentors were able to addresscoaches’ concerns and questions in theseand other ways.

Janice was hired as a coach in January of Year Three and therewas no formal training scheduled until the following summer.Although she described challenges as she acclimated to thisnew role, her experience was very different from that of coachesbeginning in Year One, in large part because she was able todraw on the support of an experienced coaching team and ofmentors who had been working with the Initiative for three years.

Janice's more experienced fellow coaches were her primarysupports. “Some of the other coaches were instrumental injust being a listening ear for me. I'd present the lesson orresources…and they would help me adapt them.” She wasimpressed by how the coaching team functioned. “I've neverseen an operation like this run as a team so smoothly. We feellike a family. There's a trust factor established through all thecoaches here. Everyone has a strength and everyone has aweakness. If I had a question about geometry, I know exactlywhich coach to go to. If I go to a literacy coach and ask forassistance, I know they're providing the best quality.” WhileJanice was aware of gaps in her knowledge as compared toother coaches, including the cognitive coaching training theyhad received, she knew which coach to turn to when she hadquestions.

In addition to her fellow coaches, Janice saw her mentor asa resource. She noted that because she did not fully under-stand the mentor's role, it was more difficult to take advantageof the mentor's knowledge and skills. Despite her questionsabout the mentor's role, however, Janice was able to callon her mentor for support. “We've had three or four phoneconversations about my role when I was unsure. WheneverI needed her, I could depend on her.” Janice would ask forfeedback about how she had worked with a teacher, describ-ing what she had said and discussing how she might havedone things differently. The mentor also shared resourceson coaching and introduced her to concrete skills neededfor coaching, e.g., how to use the coach logs. Janice feltthe mentor was “open and I could speak to her and knowthat what I said was going to be confidential.”

A Vignette

A New Coach in Year Three:Joining a Smooth-running Team

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Resistant Teachers Coaches cited teacher resistance to changeor collaborating with a coach as one of theirchallenges; however, the strength and impactof this resistance declined significantly fromYear One to Year Two, as evidenced by bothsite visits and the teacher survey.

Coaches learned the importance of buildingrelationships and trust with teachers. Some-times, simply sharing resources was importantas a way to initiate contact with reluctantteachers. Coaches also provided a “listeningear” for teachers, with 79 percent of coachesin Year One reporting that they did this atleast once each week. Over time, as moreteachers worked with coaches, word-of-mouthfrom other teachers influenced the perceptionthat it was “okay” to work with coaches.

In Year Three interviews, although coachesin every district mentioned the phenomenonof teacher resistance, it was not an urgentissue for most coaches. While coaches werenot able to engage every teacher, they haddeveloped strategies to gently engage manyof those initially resistant to change. Theyhad developed more sophisticated ways ofunderstanding different types of resistanceand learned how to best introduce the PLNframework to teachers with differing needsand questions. One coach described herwork with a reluctant math teacher:

[This teacher] wants to have someone haveit work first and prove to her that it works,because it’s different from what she’s beendoing in the past — and then maybe she’lltry it…It’s very difficult for her to change.So, I’ve started slow, working with Do Nowsand some basic strategies. One of the big-gest accomplishments that I’ve had with heris getting her to rearrange her desks out ofstraight rows, thinking about grouping thestudents differently and talking to her aboutdoing Pair/Shares and actually allowing herstudents to talk a little bit in class.

Varying Levels of AdministrativeLeadership and Support The coach’s role can be limited or enhancedby the level of school administrators’ commit-ment, knowledge of PLN, and practical sup-port. Anticipating the administrators’ key role,PAHSCI’s design involved administrators, both

by including them in trainings and networkingsessions and by creating the position of theleadership mentor to support administratorsin implementing PAHSCI.

Coaches described the impact of admini-strative support. One coach said of a mathdepartment head, “She’s gone to [threeyears of PLN trainings]. She tries anythingthat we ask her.…[she has a] student-centeredclassroom… she’s encouraging of the otherteachers…to follow along and stay” withthe PLN framework.

Lack of administrative support and leadershiptook various forms. Even though coaches werepart of a leadership team, this did not alwaystranslate to input into important decisions.When there was a lack of communicationand shared decision-making between coachesand administrators, coaches felt undermined:

The demands of increasing test scores andachievement in the building have led todecisions being made without [leadership]teams at any level. A couple things haveoccurred this year that the coaches haverecommended against, and then we hadto facilitate the process of moving intothat without our support.

At some schools, frequent changes in adminis-trative staff also undermined administrativeleadership of PAHSCI. Coaches sometimeswere pulled out of work in the classroom forother tasks not really in their purview. Lackof administrative understanding of how to usecoaches also was an obstacle. One coach said,“We didn’t have strong administrative pres-ence…that had a vision of how to use coachesto improve what needed to be improved.”

Mentors often served as bridges betweenadministration and coaches to help resolvethese conflicts. One mentor argued thatPAHSCI could have been even more explicitin what it required of participating administra-tors: “The initiative should have certain thingsin place that they said to the administrators…‘These are guidelines, these are parametersand these are a must.’ If the Initiative hadclearly stated which guidelines and supportswere non-negotiables, that would have madeit easier for me to advocate for these supportswhen they were not in place.”

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TimeTime for teacher planning and collaborationis often a challenge in high schools and thisissue arose throughout PAHSCI. For example,at the end of Year Two, 42 percent of teachersinterviewed said that insufficient time forPAHSCI activities was a challenge. Coachesechoed this concern, with 74 percent ofcoaches surveyed naming lack of teacherplanning time in the school day as an obstacle.Time continued to be an issue in Year Three;in fall 2007 interviews, lack of time was namedas a challenge by coaches in five out of theeight districts RFA visited. Teachers also talkedabout not having time during the day to meetwith coaches.

PLN courses require collaboration withcoaches and sometimes with other teachers,and this requirement helped support makingtime available. Some districts and schoolswere also able to create time for these activi-ties in other ways. Their strategies included:

• Math coaches at one school offered planningand study groups both during and after school.

• One district dedicated a half-hour at thestart of every school day for teacher meet-ings, including department meeting andprofessional development. Asked aboutopportunities for collegial learning, ateacher from this district said, “Staff devel-opment has helped…it gives us time tomeet together and do study group activi-ties….I have a meeting pretty much everyday. There’s tons of opportunities….I’vealready presented to the entire staff.”

• Content area teachers who did not havecommon prep times observed each otherduring teaching. A teacher said, “Teamteaching works really well for these kidsand that’s something we do have theopportunity to do because of the wayour schedules work.”

• At one school, coaches offered a studygroup during every lunch period so thatall teachers could participate.

Teachers who did not have these opportuni-ties described their collaboration happening“on the fly,” in places such as carpools, ornot at all.

SummaryCoaches are at the center of the PAHSCImodel. The PAHSCI Theory of Changepositions coaches as catalysts for change atthe district, school, and classroom level. Highquality teachers are one of the most importantfactors for student success; coaches providejob-embedded professional developmentto help teachers improve their practice.

PAHSCI coaches evolved in their under-standing of, and confidence in, enactingtheir coaching role in both one-on-one andgroup settings. Coaches learned how to focustheir work to facilitate learning and change forteachers. Coaches developed shared under-standing of good instruction and how to sup-port teachers in moving towards that goal.

Mentors played a key role in helping coach-es develop their coaching skills and negoti-ate challenges. Mentors modeled behaviorsand practices, helping coaches refine theirwork. With mentors and in courses, coacheswere positioned as learners, which comple-mented and supported their developmentas teacher-facilitators supporting learningfor other staff. As coaches matured into theirroles, they described a gradual lessening ofthe need for mentor support.

In Year Three, teachers and coaches in manydistricts reported stronger professionalcommunities with a shared focus on instruc-tion and a common language to talk aboutit. Professional community can play a pivotalrole in supporting school change; PAHSCIparticipants indicated that the Initiative wassuccessfully minimizing teacher isolation andsupporting collaboration. In particular, devel-opment of a shared instructional languagefacilitated collaboration across content areas.

Coaches assumed increasing leadershiproles. Over the course of the Initiative,coaches took on a range of leadershiproles in their schools and districts, and withinPAHSCI itself. Coaches provided instructionalleadership on their schools’ leadership teamsand on other significant committees. Theyfacilitated workshops at PAHSCI-wide network-ing sessions and led informational sessions forschool boards and district staff. In addition, asthe Initiative progressed, coaches supportedthe leadership development of teachers.

Coaches were able to create learninglinkages in service of the big picturegoals of school improvement. The PAHSCIcoaches’ role and training uniquely positionedthem to connect work at the classroom levelto larger school goals and to use classroomand school-level data to support this effort.

Over the course of the three years,challenges for coaches were identified.These included initial confusion about thecoaching role, gaps in skill sets and training,teacher resistance, lack of administrativesupport, and inadequate time for teachersand coaches to collaborate. These challengesevolved and changed during the course ofthe Initiative as coaches, mentors, partners,and the Initiative as a whole developed.

The ability of PAHSCI partners to respondflexibly to coaches’ concerns and to makemid-course adjustments was an importantstrength of the Initiative. These adjustmentswere key to supporting the development ofcoaches and of their role within PAHSCI andtheir schools.

The next section examines students’ perspec-tives on quality teaching, what instructionalpractices the coaches and PLN frameworkpromote, and what practices can best belinked to student engagement and learning.

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With the coaches and the whole PLN framework, thingshave changed. Incorporating the Do Nows, looking forstrategies that get the students engaged more, a wholelot less teacher-centered, much more student-centered.That’s been the biggest change — trying to get it to bemore student-centered. –Building Administrator

It was kind of weird when we first started working together,because we’re not used to talking to each other. Usually,we get in trouble for talking to each other. We’re used tomostly listening to the teacher talk. Now, we do our worktogether and help each other.

–9th Grade Student Focus Group Participant

• What do students say about quality teaching?

• What teacher practicesare promoted by PAHSCI instructional coaches and the PLN framework?

• Which practices can best be linked to student engagement and learning?

Section 3 Linking Teacher Practice to Student Engagement and Learning

The critical intersection of teacher practice,student engagement, and learning creates adynamic relationship that allows us to describeteachers’ instructional practices in PAHSCIclassrooms in relationship to students’ actionsand reactions. At the heart of the professionallearning in PAHSCI is the will to improve therole that public school secondary educationplays in connecting the lives and cultural iden-tities of today’s youth to high quality teachingand learning.

High quality “constructivist” teachingand learning follows the tenets of meaning-oriented instruction. Knapp, Shields, andTurnbull describe meaning-oriented instructionas “teaching for meaning” and list it as analternative to conventional practice by:1) instructing to help students perceive therelationships of “parts” (e.g., discrete skills)to wholes (e.g., the application of skillsto communicate, comprehend, or reason);2) instruction that provides students with thetools to construct meaning in their encounterswith academic tasks and in the world in whichthey live; and 3) instruction that makes explicitconnections between one subject area andthe next and between what is learned inschool and children’s home lives.36

Quality Teaching Practice andStudent Engagement It is generally accepted that effective teachersrely on their knowledge of their students andtheir subject matter to identify the mostappropriate instructional strategies, givenstudent skill levels as well as the content

standards mandating what students shouldknow and be able to do. In a recent onlineeditorial, Fishman oversimplifies but gives ahelpful statement of contemporary thinkingon teacher quality. He writes, “There arethree basic ways to improve a school’s faculty:take greater care in selecting good teachersupfront, throw out the bad ones who arealready teaching, and provide training tomake current teachers better.”37

For the purpose of this section exploringteacher practices and student engagement,we focus on Fishman’s third tactic, helping cur-rent teachers improve. Research has identifiedone key to changing classroom practices: pro-vide teachers with professional learning thatencourages ongoing discussion and reflectionon their instruction and students’ learning.Methodologies that provide teachers withthese chances for collaboration changeteacher practice.38

Drilling deeper into what happens in class-rooms and focusing on specific instructionalpractices increases teachers’ use of thosepractices in the classroom. Job-embeddedprofessional development that provides activelearning opportunities — teachers actuallydoing the activities that they will later imple-ment in their classrooms — also increases theeffect of the professional development on

37 www.slate.com/id/2195147

38 Foltos, L. (n.d.). Peer Coaching: Changing class-room practice and enhancing student achievement.Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning, andTechnology. Retrieved from www.psctlt.org/edLAB/resources/peercoachinglf.pdf on 08/26/2008.

39 Desimone et al., 2002, 81-112.36 (Knapp, et al.,1995)

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teacher’s instruction.39 Recently, the focushas been on working closely with a colleaguepractitioner whom one trusts and respects asanother vehicle for teachers’ growth.

Student Engagement

There are multi-layered and sometimesconfusing definitions of student engagement;however, one straightforward perspective thatis helpful in defining this concept describesit as “the student’s psychological investmentin and effort directed toward, learning,understanding, or mastering the knowledge,skills, or crafts that academic work is intendedto promote.”40 Students, according to theSchlechty Center’s Theory of Engagement,show five different levels of involvementin classroom tasks and activities:

1 Engagement, the student sees the activityas personally meaningful;

2 Strategic Compliance, the official reasonfor the work is not the reason the studentdoes the work — he/she substitutes his/herown goals for the goals of the work, i.e.,grades, class rank, college acceptance,parental approval;

3 Ritual Compliance, the work has no meaningto the student and is not connected to whatdoes have meaning, the emphasis is onminimums and exit requirements;

4 Retreatism, the student is disengaged fromcurrent classroom activities and goals, thestudent sees little that is relevant to life inthe academic work;

5 Rebellion, the student is disengaged fromcurrent classroom activities and goals, andthe student’s rebellion is usually seen inacting out — and often in encouragingothers to rebel.41

In comparing and contrasting these types ofinvolvement, the Schlechty model makes visi-ble the assumptions that “students decisionsregarding the personal consequences of doingthe task assigned or participating in the activityproduced” can be influenced by both students’internal locus of control and motivation as well

as the degree that the tasks assigned meetthe standards of students’ cognitive, social,and emotional needs and capabilities.

Research has shown that under favorableconditions, emotional and intellectual growthgo hand in hand, as thoughtful techniquesaimed at increasing students’ social andemotional well-being also have a positiveimpact on learning.42

To that end, in PAHSCI classrooms, teachersare encouraged to design engaging tasks andactivities for students that help them to learn.The PLN framework described below helpsto guide instructional practices across the

40 (Newmann, 1992)

41 Retrieved from www.schlechtycenter.org.

42 Greenleaf, C., Schoenbach, R., Cziko, C. &Mueller, F. (2001). Apprenticing adolescent readersto academic literacy. Harvard Educational Review71(1), 79-129.

Penn Literacy Network’s Framework

PLN’s framework is based on four interrelat-ed “lenses” from which instructional strate-gies are derived that promote studentengagement, problem solving, and criticalthinking. These lenses are central to learningand good teaching and the frameworkencourages teachers to use the lenses asthey work with their students.

The lenses are:

1 meaning-centered (relating new information to existing prior knowledge);

2 social (learning in a collaborative, socialcontext);

3 language-based (reading, writing, and talking for authentic purposes); and

4 human (self-reflecting to increase awareness of one’s own unique learning styles).

Also integral to the framework are five critical experiences:

1 transacting with text,

2 composing texts,

3 extending reading and writing,

4 investigating language, and

5 learning to learn.

The training also includes strategies alignedwith state and national content standards thatconnect disciplinary content to the real world.

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content areas in PAHSCI classrooms.The PLNframework provides broad principles for highquality literacy instruction that are applicableacross the curriculum. In high-implementationclassrooms, teachers incorporate literacystrategies in all elements of instruction.Students have opportunities for choiceand collaboration. They are encouraged totranslate and transfer what they are learning.Their ideas are listened to by their peers andthe teacher.

RFA Visits to PAHSCI Schools andClassroomsOver the course of three years, RFA staffvisited more than 200 classrooms in 21 ofthe PAHSCI schools. The sampling of schoolscovered the range in each of the followingindicators: size, location, student demographicsand status in making AYP. We interviewedstudents, teachers, coaches, administrators,and mentors. We observed professionallearning events and observed school openings,traveled the hallways, and followed an obser-vation protocol that help us to describe theoverall context and climate operating at theschool and in the surrounding community.

Students’ Voices: What Students Say about“Quality Teaching”During our school visits in 2006 we interviewedstudents. The focus group protocol wasgeared towards understanding what studentsthought were the characteristics of high qualityteachers. In addition, we wanted to determineif students were noticing any differences inteacher practices as a result of the implemen-tation of instructional coaching and teachers’use of PLN Strategies. Between April andJune 2006, RFA visited 11 schools across theCommonwealth and conducted 16 studentfocus groups.

Students identified three major characteristicsshared by the teachers students described assuperior teachers:

• Informative: Providing key backgroundinformation and presenting a clear rationalefor “why” this information was important.

• Fair: Treating all students with respect(“not just his/her favorites”).

• Fun: Making learning fun, inspiring, andchallenging, (“not just reading about how todissect a frog, but donning aprons, workingin the lab, and recording the steps as wedissect a frog”).

Students emphasized that the “best” teachersdo not simply repeat or read what is in thetext; “they put things into words that we canunderstand and relate to.” Students stressedthat their favorite teachers gave studentsopportunities to work together. Anotherimportant component, according to students,was that teachers should help students “learnbetter” by providing helpful feedback that letsa student “know what he is doing right andwhat he needs to improve.”

Students reported that several of their teacherswere using similar strategies, in particular,Do Nows and Pair/Share, two PLN strategies.As the student in the opening quote reflected,students liked opportunities to work with andtalk to their classmates.

Year Three Visits: Classroom Observationsand Teacher InterviewsIn the fall and winter of 2007-2008, RFAvisited 102 classrooms and interviewedEnglish and math teachers in 9 of the 24schools. The schools selected for morefocused observation in Year Three representedthe mix of large and small, urban and ruralhigh schools involved in PAHSCI. The RFAteam observed students’ actions, comments,and involvement in the lesson. However, weare not able to analyze students’ rationaleand personal motivation as described earlier inthe Schlechty Center’s Theory of Engagement.The remainder of this section reports on datafrom these visits and interviews.

Table 1 Teacher Visits Fall/Winter 2007-2008 by School and Subject

School: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 Total

# English Teachers 4 2 6 7 9 2 8 6 8 52

# Math Teachers 4 5 5 6 7 3 6 7 7 50

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In addition to classroom visits of approximately42 to 90 minutes, RFA conducted structuredinterviews with teachers and separate interviewswith their coaches. At the conclusion of theteacher interviews we gave each teacher alist with explanations of the 38 PLNstrategies.43 Teachers provided a self-report bychecking which PLN strategies they had triedat least once and which they had incorporatedinto their weekly lesson planning. Some teach-ers reported that they were already familiarwith some of the PLN strategies which couldbe placed under the umbrella term, coopera-tive learning.44 This prior knowledge of coop-erative learning provided important back-ground understandings of the importanceof peer-to-peer interactions and learning.

Evaluating a PLN Framework ClassroomRevisiting the model of a PLN classroom helpsshape an understanding of RFA’s classroomvisit instrument and the analysis of data col-lected during classroom visits and interviews.45

Implementing the PLN Framework:Teachers’ Preferred PLN StrategiesPLN’s general model for structuring a class-room lesson includes moving from independ-ent student work (such as Do Now), to ashared activity (such as Pair/Share), to a periodof whole-class instruction, to a mini-lesson,and back to a shared activity.

An analysis of teachers’ self-reported use ofPLN strategies points to a few commonalitiesand differences that one might expect to see,as well as a few surprises. As in our Year Twoclassroom visits and interviews, we foundthat while there were both English and mathteachers who were successfully implementingthe PLN strategies, a greater percentage ofEnglish teachers than math teachers showeddeep knowledge of multiple strategies.46

English teachers averaged 18 strategies theyused weekly and math teachers averaged 10strategies. English teachers averaged using28 strategies at least once. Math teachersaveraged using 15 strategies at least once.47

Math teachers reported Do Nows, Pair/Share,Rubrics, and Read Aloud Think Along as their

Look Fors in a PAHSCI Classroom

Category Questions

Lens 1 Social Whose voices are heard in the classroom? Are students providedthe opportunity to share their reactions, ideas, beliefs, opinions?Do they work with peers to share and refine their thinking?

Lens 2 Language-based Are students reading and writing for various purposes? Arestudents generating original text (i.e., not parroting someoneelse’s answers, but giving their own), when talking or writing?

Lens 3 Meaning-based Are students able to find meaning in the material withwhich they are engaged? Are they able to connect the topic at hand with their own lives?

Lens 4 Human Does each student have an opportunity to respond (i.e., talk, write, design a project, complete an assignment) in a way that will be unique to him/her?

43 See Appendix D, Penn Literacy Network Strategies.

44 Cooperative learning refers to a family of instruc-tional practices in which the teacher gives variousdirections to groups of pupils about how to worktogether. Used best with groups of two to six stu-dents, cooperative learning strategies can increasepupils’ performance on academic tasks as pupilsteach and coach each other and succeed as agroup. Downloaded from www.schlechtycenter.org.

45 See Appendix E for a full description of theclassroom visit instrument.

46 Brown, D., Reumann-Moore, R., Hugh, R.,Christman, J.B., Riffer, M., du Plessis, P. & Maluk,H.P. (2007). Making a Difference: Year Two Reportof the Pennsylvania High School Coaching Initiative.Philadelphia: Research for Action.

47 Appendix F shows strategies used at least weeklyby English teachers, math teachers, and bothEnglish and math teachers.

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most frequently used strategies. In compari-son, English teachers reported Do Nows,Pair/Share, Text Rendering, and Previewingand Predicting as their most frequently usedstrategies. Given many math teachers’ initialresistance to taking the time to develop andimplement literacy strategies, it is noteworthythat Read Aloud Think Along was the fourthmost frequently used weekly strategy at 50percent. In addition, the high use of Rubricson a weekly basis encouraged students tothink about the process of mathematicaloperations and points to teachers’ recognitionthat students need a range of exemplars tobetter understand what is expected of them.

The majority of PAHSCI schools had includedin their priorities the goal to increase studentwriting in all content area subjects. Althoughnot reported in equal numbers to Englishteachers, it is encouraging that 42 percentof the math teachers report that they havetheir students do Reflective Writing weekly,

and that 28 percent of math teachers reportthat they have their students engage insummarizing their work on a weekly basis.

How Teacher Practices and StudentEngagement AlignAmong the 102 teachers represented inthe Teacher Practice/Student EngagementCorrelation (Figure 3), a slight majority, 52percent of the teachers observed, were inthe upper two quadrants which indicated thatthey were moving toward significant changesin how they shaped classroom learning.Contributing to the triangulation of thedata, teachers self-reported and the coachesconfirmed that these quadrant one and twoteachers were implementing PLN strategiesand incorporating lesson planning principlesthat they had not previously employed. It issignificant that 44 percent show the markedinfluence of one-on-one coaching on bothteacher practice and student engagement.

Figure 3 Year Three Classroom ObservationsTeacher Practice/Student Engagement Correlation

(Low) Student Engagement (High)

(Lo

w)

T

each

er P

ract

ice

(

Hig

h)

8 High Teacher Practice/Low Student Engagement

7 Low Teacher Practice/High Student Engagement

45 High Teacher Practice/HIgh Student Engagement

42 Low Teacher Practice/Low Student Engagement

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Year Three teacher practice/student engagement observations in 102 classrooms (52 English/50 math)

High Teacher Practice Indicators

• Students are given opportunities to applywhat was taught and to produce authenticwork; activity is appropriately challenging.

• Teacher connects and builds on students’prior knowledge; teacher-centered directinstruction is no more than 15–20 minutes.

• Teacher behavior is responsive and respectfulto students; teacher demonstrates appropriateresponses to problematic behavior; teacheruses high-level questioning.

• Classroom processes show well-developed rou-tines, clear directions, and smooth transitions;evidence of student-to-student and student-to-teacher cooperation 80–100% of the time.

• Students are given opportunities to reportout; teacher highlights aspects of studentwork to reinforce or extend learning.

High Student Engagement Indicators

• Students display perseverance to completethe instructional tasks.

• Students explain and ask questions aboutreasoning or thinking in solving a problem.

• Students work in small groups/pairs andstudents present their work.

• Students engage in different levels of writing.

Low Teacher Practice Indicators

• Extended teacher-centered direct instruction.

• Lesson content is not appropriatelychallenging.

• The purpose of the activity is not alignedwith the lesson.

• Teacher does not use high-level questioning.

• Classroom lacks clear routines, directions,and smooth transitions.

• Teacher responds inappropriately to prob-lematic behavior.

Low Student Engagement Indicators

• Students do not complete instructional tasks.

• Several students sleep, talk, listen to music,or otherwise ignore the lesson.

• Students do not ask questions to refine theirunderstanding.

• Students do not spend any time during thelesson working in small groups or pairs.

High Teacher Practice/High StudentEngagement Vignettes

The two vignettes that follow are summariesof observations of two High TeacherPractice/High Student Engagement teachers’lessons. In both examples, students receivedclear directions for activities and time was

spent with the teacher directly instructingthe class. In addition, students were givena pathway to use the knowledge andresources to produce a product. Finally,the classroom promoted collaborationand offered feedback either from students’peers or the teacher.

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“Wow, Mr. J, you can really highlight things with that Smart board!”48

“Yeah, isn’t it just wonderful?” laughs Mr. James, as he highlights the key vocabulary wordsstudents suggest are critical to understanding the explanatory text from their math books.Students have a copy open at their seats and the text is also displayed on the Smart board.Clearly an ongoing repartee between this African American male student and Mr. James,the student continues, “Would you say it [the highlighting] is in the realm of greatness?”“Well,” quips Mr. James, “Mr. Thomas, there are many realms of greatness — would you liketo come to the board and show us what a great mind you have?” “Don’t mind if I do, don’tmind if I do.” And the student, Mr. Thomas, proceeds to “ace” the equation Mr. James hasplaced on the board for him to solve.

It is fifteen minutes into this class and students have had time to unwind and socialize afterlunch as they: circulate and help one another complete the following Do Now: Evaluate andexplain the meaning V(3) for the following function V(x)=25-9.8x; incorporate six studentsfrom another class (the teacher had an emergency and the class had to be divided) into theirtable seating configurations; distribute textbooks; pass their homework to the corner of theirtables; and conduct Text-Rendering of the math text with which they are now interacting.49

Working in groups of three to five, the 28 students experience what an RFA staff memberwrote in her field notes was “an almost picture perfect model of a PLN literacy-based mathlesson.” They read, interpret, and locate clues to guide the math operations they are aboutto perform. It is important to note that this racially mixed group of predominately AfricanAmerican and a scattering of Latino and white youth communicate with one another witha blend of urban street language and academia. For example, one female student’s carefulexplanation of how to solve a math operation was followed by a gentle slap on the backof the male student’s head and a playful, “Do you get it now, fool?”

Later in the lesson, the group solves several math problems. Students go to the Smartboard, and Mr. James, along with their classmates, provides feedback and encouragement.They become entrepreneurs in real-life role-playing scenarios as they predict (using scientificcalculators to guide their estimates) the profit margin they might realize as new Rap musicexecutives producing their first CD. Table talk among this group of 10 males and 18 femalesis actually about: Which rules express how to determine the profit margin in the most helpfulways? How many CDs must be sold for the band to break even?

Mr. James, a thirty-plus African American math teacher in this large minority-dominatedinner city high school, migrated from the corporate world into teaching. In his third yearas a teacher, he has worked with the math coach “at least once every two weeks.” Stylish,affable, and demonstrating a zealous sincerity, but deeply saddened by what he calls“the conditions that many of our youth are living under,” he honestly admits, “I only tryto integrate the things from PLN that I think are going to be most beneficial to my students.I don’t follow a protocol just to satisfy others. I focus on issues I observe as students aretaking the PSSA test, and I’m trying to impact their way of thinking and writing aboutmath, so they have ‘habits of mind’ that will hold up during standardized testing.”

48 Smart board: Interactive white board system that uses integrated computer and projector systems.

49 Text-Rendering: PLN strategy that requires students to evaluate and choose key sentences, phrases,and words, to express the main idea or make connections. This can be done orally in a large or smallgroup and/or in writing.

A Vignette

Mr. James (Math): Creating ‘Habits of Mind’

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Nineteen tenth graders, 10 males and 9 females with heads bent andpencils and pens intermittently in use, are independently formulatingtheir responses to the Do Now question: “How is Giles Corey executed?Explain.” The school is in a semi-rural central section of the state, and inthis class, the same as most across the school, all of the students are white.Well-established classroom norms are evident in the ease with which theywork together. The students share from their responses to the Do Nowand then smoothly transition into five expert Jigsaw groups. Each groupis assigned one of the following questions: What were the causes of theSalem Witch Trial? Contrast Abigail and John Porter. Explain how JohnPorter is a hero. Explain the lives of the children in this play. Why is this playcalled “The Crucible”? Within each small group, they appoint a recorder, afacilitator, and a spokesperson. Volunteers take responsibility for translatingthe group’s ideas into a visual (a poster board) which will be a componentof their Share/Report to the whole group in about 20 minutes. They referto their plot maps, character maps, the text, and additional resources asthey discuss their proposed responses to their group’s guiding question.

Groups brainstorm ideas and sketch out rough drafts on loose-leaf paper,then transfer their responses to the posters. Ms. Jones brings the class backtogether and each group presents their poster. After each presentationthere is time for classmates to contribute and build upon what the grouphas said.

After everyone has presented, students write a Ticket out the Door as aclosing activity. Today it was “Give me three reasons for the Salem witchtrials.” As the bell rings, students hand Ms. Jones their responses andmove to their next class.

Ms. Jones, a ten-year veteran, clearly enjoys this class. During the interview,which followed class, she states that this session met her expectationsbecause, “I wanted them to interact in a group. I wanted them to bouncetheir ideas off each other and then come to a consensus and be able toarticulate that during the whole group discussion.”

Having completed PLN 1 and now enrolled in PLN 2, Ms. Jones reports,“I think the PLN strategies keep them engaged and on task… Starting withthe Do Now and then ending with the Ticket out the Door adds to theiraccountability to be engaged in their own learning.”

She continues, “Talking with my peers, working with John [pseudonymfor her literacy coach] has definitely improved my teaching abilities. Before,I would tell them all this information. Now, they are getting a lot of it forthemselves and it’s making it more meaning-centered to them. I like that.”

A Vignette

Ms. Jones (English): Accountability and Engagement

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High-practice teachers are a slight majorityof the total numbers observed. However, a significant number of teachers, basedon RFA’s observations, were slow to changetheir routine practices of delivering instruction.Evans provides an insightful explanation ofwhy teachers don’t make the changes thatthey are encouraged to: “Change immediatelythreatens people’s sense of competence,frustrating their wish to feel effective andvaluable. Alterations in practices, procedures,and routines hamper people’s ability to per-form their jobs confidently and successfullymaking them feel inadequate and insecure,especially if they have exercised their skillin a particular way for a long time (and evenmore if they have seen their performanceas exemplary).”50 PAHSCI coaches andadministrators, in assessing their staff’sprogress in implementing best practices,are cognizant that resistant teachers whoshow little sustainable progress in changingtheir daily practices can impede widespreadadoption of high teacher practice behaviors.It is important in these situations for the HighTeacher Practice/High Student Engagementquadrant one teachers’ work be visible andmodeled throughout the school setting.

Summary Sustainable instructional change involvesa shift in teachers’ classroom norms androutines. In PAHSCI, this is manifested asa change from a teacher-centered classroomto a student-centered classroom that placesa high priority on student engagement, acornerstone of the PLN framework. Addition-ally, the true test of how strongly teachershave adopted these beliefs is whether theprominence of student engagement is seennot just in occasional class sessions, but intheir ongoing daily classroom practice.

The link of teacher practice to students’actions and reactions was clearly inevidence in PAHSCI classrooms.What teachers did and how they communicatedinfluenced what students did and how theyresponded. Actively incorporating students'

knowledge into the lesson and acknowledgingstudents' growing skills and abilitiescontributed to relational trust betweenteachers and students.

High Teacher Practice/High StudentEngagement teachers used a varietyof methods to engage their students.These teachers, we argue, provided highquality teaching. A core common practiceamong these high functioning teachers wasinvolving students in their own learning.They incorporated multiple PLN strategiesto reinforce their content lesson goals. Theseteachers intentionally created the norms andpromoted skills and habits of mind to socializehigh standards and intelligence. In contrast,some of the Low Teacher Practice teacherswe visited, unfortunately, were simply applyinga few isolated PLN strategies such as DoNows and Pair/Shares that were unconnectedto the remainder of the lesson.

Change takes time. Low Teacher Practice/Low Student Engagement (“quadrant four”)teachers represented slightly less than 50percent of observed teachers in Year Three.Upon examining the interviews with thesequadrant four teachers, the fairly obviousfinding is that that moving from surface-levelto more in-depth change takes time. Evansthoughtfully points out that “The impact ofany particular innovation depends on manyfactors, including among others, our individualcharacteristics (personality, history), the kindof organization we work in, the nature of thechange, and the way it is presented to us.”51

Sources of teacher resistance.Some teachers who were assessed low on ourinstrument had years of “exemplary ratings”from administrators and subscribed to the “Ifit’s not broken, don’t fix it” theory regardingtheir own teaching. Some agreed that “a fewstrategies here and there” might be useful;however, they had good discipline and theirstudents were achieving, so why change?

How do instructional coaches, colleagues,and school leaders spread teacher practicesthat link well to student engagement andlearning to low teacher practice individuals?And how can change that has occurred besustained? We examine these questions inthe next section.

51 (Ibid, 28)

50 Evans, R. (2001). The Human Side of SchoolChange: Reform Resistance, and the Real-LifeProblems of Innovation. Jossey-Bass A WileyCompany San Francisco, 36.

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Section 4 Sustaining Instructional Change

RFA’s Year Two Report focused on howinstructional change played out in theimplementation stage: that is, understandingthe factors that encouraged teachers simplyto try the PLN strategies. In this year’s report,attention is turned to the sustainability ofinstructional change. Rogers calls this theconfirmation stage — the stage that is criticalto determining whether an innovation willbe discontinued or maintained.52

Many bygone school reform efforts haveshown the challenge of reaching deep intoa teacher’s classroom and creating lastingchange. Far too frequently teachers tendto “focus on surface manifestations…ratherthan deeper pedagogical principles.53

In two important ways, the design ofPAHSCI attempts to interrupt teachers’inclination toward superficial change, andto move them toward transforming funda-mental classroom norms and routines. First,the strategies and philosophy of the PLNframework confront teachers’ long-held beliefsabout the role of students in the classroom.More specifically, the PLN strategies andphilosophy address “the escalating literacyneeds of adolescent readers in an increasinglycomplex communication age.”54 Second,acting as change agents, instructional coaches

work to convince teachers of the efficacyof the PLN framework and its underlyingphilosophy. In addition, coaches help teachersthoughtfully apply the framework to theirongoing daily routines, and offer constructivefeedback, thus creating the conditions forsustainable instructional change.

Indicators of Sustainability:Changes in Classroom PracticesAccording to the Year Two Report chartentitled “Comparison of Integration Levels,”the level of priority a teacher places onstudent engagement can be judged bywhether four characteristics are foundin the classroom:55

1 Extended opportunities for studentsto read, write, listen, and talk;

2 A focus on students performing tasks,problems, and activities;

3 Assessment of student learning; and

4 Students taking risks and havingopportunities to be successful.

The following case study provides anillustrative example of how teachers areinterpreting and implementing thesefour characteristics in a classroom.

52 Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations.(5th ed.) New York: The Free Press, 1-512.

53 (Spillane, 2000; Coburn, 2003, 4)

54 (Greenleaf, et al., 2001).

55 (Brown et al., 2007, 15)

The climate that you experiencewhen you walk through the facul-ty room and hallways — that’schanged. People are talkingmore about education insteadof just the weekend. You hearpeople using the PLN lingo.They get that dialogue is themost important thing; raise thequestions and let studentsanswer them. That I’ve seenchange a lot.

–Literacy Coach

• How does the combination of coaching and the PLN frameworkcreate the momentum for implementing and sustaining change?

• What other factors support or impedethe sustainability of change?

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Sustainable Instructional Change:

Renewing a Veteran Teacher’s Commitment to Students

(Teacher and Coach Reflections)

Mrs. Thomas had been teaching English formore than 10 years when the PennsylvaniaHigh School Coaching Initiative came to herschool. She credits her participation in thePLN course and working with a coach forher renewed energy in teaching. She shares,“It’s just transformed my way of teaching,and I’m less tired than I used to be.”

In her brightly lit classroom, desks arearranged in clusters of four to facilitategroup work. The walls are adorned withstudent work and resource posters createdfrom past lessons. In reflecting on whather teaching would have been like had shenot participated in PAHSCI, Mrs. Thomasadmits, “I would have probably found aworksheet online — that just sounds soawful now, but years ago that’s how I usedto do it. We would have done it together asa class, and it is just so ineffective doing itthat way because it means half or more thanhalf the class doesn’t have to pay attention.”In contrast, using the PLN framework andworking with the coach, “I’m not trying tothink of what I should be saying and doingfor 50 minutes. [Instead, I think] — how canI grab their attention, give them an activityand see them run with it?” Mrs. Thomas’preoccupation with getting her studentsactively engaged in the lesson exhibitsa shift in her belief about the role thatstudents play in the classroom.

“[In general,] I do a lot of scaffolding andtotal participation — in fact, my goal as ateacher is to have my students speak morethan I do during a class period... [So first] Ialways try, in the Do Now, to grab them withsomething... [Then] I just spend a little timeteaching the concept. [Next] I have activitiesfor them to do, and I usually like to havethem spend a couple minutes by themselvesjust to see what they know…then I havethem get in pairs.”

“[Right now] I’m introducing Anne Frank. Iwill have quotes all around the wall. I call itmy gallery quote walk. [The assignment may

be to] make inferences about what kindof person you think Anne is. This is myintroduction before they know anythingabout Anne…right away I think of how Ican get them up and going around anddoing things. That’s the first thing I thinkof — total participation — how can I geteverybody involved? Then how can I breakit down? Then I always think of what doI want at the end? What’s the product?What do I want them to be able to do?”

Ms. Hess, the instructional coach, uses adifferent example to convey the same ideaabout Mrs. Thomas’s instructional approach.“[She did an I-Search project and] the wholeidea of reading-writing-listening-speakingbeing woven through was just really good…She thinks things through…You often hearher saying, ‘I want my students to be ableto do [XYZ]’ or ‘They’re not doing this wellenough — how can they do it better?’She’s constantly analyzing herself andher lesson plans.”

Mrs. Thomas’s coordinated and thoughtfulapproach reflects a deep understandingof the PLN framework and how to bestintegrate that framework into her dailyroutine. She notices a big difference inthe impact it has had on her students.

Giving an example of the impact on astudent, she explains: “Josh came to myclass about two months ago and he was atotal mess…When he first came in, he didn’twant to sit — he was just out of control…He’s still wiggly and squirmy, but now he’sreally engaged. If I would teach the wayI used to teach, he’d be a mess — he’dbe walking out of my room…Teaching withthese strategies, everybody gets engaged…He came in yesterday and they were writinga poem. Josh actually sat down and he wrotea poem and he read it aloud to the class.Total amazement! I think he was just sortof drawn into it — and it has to do with thePLN strategies! It’s truly transformed my wayof teaching and the way I feel about teaching.”

Indicators of Sustainability:New Levels of Understandingabout ‘Engagement’ How are teachers internalizing new andemerging concepts of student engagementand learning? In addition to shifting theirclassroom practice to focus on student-centered engagement, many PAHSCI teachersare rethinking the significance of engagement.

They are grasping the need to “createenvironments that allow students to engagein critical examinations of texts as theydissect, deconstruct, and reconstruct inan effort to engage in meaning-makingand comprehension processes.”56

Year Three interviews with teachers andcoaches revealed new levels of understandingabout what engagement can mean, such as:

1 Letting students struggle with the material

One of the things we sat down and talkedabout was, she wanted to know “How longdo I let them go before I step in?” And wehad a real rich discussion on that becausethe veteran teacher that she is, this is new— not just stepping in and showing themas soon as they ask; letting them strugglewith it. That has been something that I thinkcoaching has added to what she does well.

–Math Coach

2 Viewing engagement as collaboration andstudent “ownership”

I pull kids and talk to them about testscores — which is hugely instructionalbecause the kids have to know wherethey are…to engage them more intheir instruction. –Math Teacher

3 Having a better assessment of students’ needs

I had a vocabulary test and [my coach and I]talked about how to improve those vocabu-lary tests so they are even/fair to all the stu-dents, how I could improve them for eachlevel of student, how to make sure that I’masking the right kind of questions so thatI’m getting a good assessment about whatthe kids actually know. –English Teacher

4 Aligning instruction more closely tostudents’ needs

I’ve become more observant of the variedlearning styles of my classroom…Andworking with [my coach], it was sort of“Okay Devon, are you sure they know?Have you modeled what ‘concise’ meansor have you shared with them how to writea thesis sentence?” And I hadn’t becauseI assumed, well they should know this…She made me more contextually aware.

–English Teacher

5 Encouraging deeper engagement in readingand extended opportunities for writing

Now I think much more in terms of havingthe kids really go into the texts that they’reusing for their [I-Search] paper. They alwayswork with highlighters and I check to seehow they’re doing at really getting at themeat of the information that they’ll needfor their papers. –English Teacher

Evidence that teachers are thinking at moresophisticated levels about creating engaged,student-centered classroom environments —and are seeing the results in the behaviorand achievements of their students — is apositive indicator that these new practiceswill be sustained.

Coaching + PLN Framework: Keysto Sustainable Instructional Change In the Year Two Report on PAHSCI, we foundthat instructional coaching combined withthe PLN framework produced a synergy thatcreated momentum for instructional change.Here we find that the merger betweencoaching and PLN is not only useful in theimplementation stage, but also essentialto sustaining instructional change.

Given the important role that this mergerplays, it warrants further exploration — whatdynamics of PLN and instructional coachinghelped sustain instructional change? Usingteacher and coach interviews to answer thisquestion, we identify two significant combina-tions that facilitated lasting change in teachers’beliefs and practices: 1) one-on-one coachingcombined with teachers enrolled in the off-siteregional PLN course; and 2) one-on-one coach-ing combined with a school-based PLN pro-fessional development facilitated by coaches.

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56 National Council of Teachers of English (2004).Position Paper/Guidelines. A Call to Action: Whatwe know about adolescent literacy and ways tosupport teachers in meeting students’ needs.

In addition, we describe the interplay betweencoaching and PLN that occurs in these settings.

One-on-One Coaching + Regional PLNCourses

Instances in which instructional change wassustained occurred when teachers wereengaged in a PLN regional course as theysimultaneously worked with coaches. Enroll-ment in PLN regional courses was encouraged,however, there were quotas dictating howmany teachers could enroll. It is noteworthythat in Year Three classroom observations, 70percent of the high teacher practice/high stu-dent engagement teachers had taken at leastone regional PLN course and worked regularlywith a coach. Several factors make the combi-nation of regional courses and coaching a sig-nificant contributor to sustaining professionallearning and instructional change.

First, the joint learning that occurs whencoaches attend the PLN regional coursewith their teachers helps to build closer,more effective coaching relationships.Usually, the professional training and socialstatus that goes along with being a changeagent creates a social distance between thechange agents (i.e., coaches) and their clients(teachers). This “pos[es] problems for effectivecommunication about the innovation they arepromoting.”57 The design of PAHSCI address-es this issue by “leveling the playing field”between coaches and teachers. Essentially, itpositions coaches as both teacher and learner.One math teacher speaks to this dynamic:

I talk to her [at the PLN trainings]. When wecome back to the high school, we [say], “Hey,do you remember that one?” “Yeah, I remem-ber that because we were both there.” I thinkthat helps. It’s not just — “go over here andwe’ll talk about it later.”

Having teachers and coaches “both there”decreases the likelihood that only a few isolat-ed strategies will be implemented in the class-room once the teacher returns to school.Instead, as coaches remind teachers of otherstrategies and follow up with them, it increas-es the likelihood that PLN strategies will beinfused into the daily routines of teachers —an indicator of sustained instructional change.

Second, there is ongoing accountability forintegrating the strategies into a teacher’sdaily practice. An English teacher elaboratedon this, saying:

I think the [PLN] class…was very helpful.But working with [my coach], it holds meaccountable because I see her on a dailybasis, so she’s going to want to know ifI did what I said I was going to do.

In traditional professional developmentmodels where teachers’ learning occurs off-site, there are few mechanisms for ensuringthat what is learned gets applied once theyreturn to school. In the PAHSCI model, withcoaches attending PLN trainings with teachersand returning to the school with them, teach-ers, coaches, and mentors reported a highdegree of accountability that the strategieswill be applied more faithfully and consistently.

Third, PLN training and working with acoach acts as reinforcement of the learning,application, and maintenance of strategies.Through PLN training, teachers are presentedwith a comprehensive overview of the frame-work, philosophy, and strategies. But, as oneEnglish teacher put it:

It is only through the combination of bothPLN training and coaching that you get thefullness of the strategies.

The high quality of PLN trainings usuallyprompts teachers to at least try out the strate-gies. Then coaches, acting as change agents,“stabilize new behavior through reinforcingmessages to clients who have adopted, thushelping to freeze the new behavior.” This“freezing” of new behavior was echoed inteacher interviews, as in the comment ofanother English teacher who said:

Once I started talking with the coaches andI started attending the classes, it reallycemented things for me.

Coaching + School-Based PLN ProfessionalDevelopmentAs described in Section Two, coaches used arange of venues to teach and review the PLNframework with the instructional staff in theirschools. These ranged from one-on-ones withindividual teachers, to small group meetings

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57 (Rogers, 2003, 28)

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(e.g., study groups or subject departmentmeetings), to all-staff events during staffdevelopment days.

In the Year Two Report we state, “Coacheswere effective in guiding teachers to deeperlevels of implementation when they used theBDA [Before/During/After] Consultation Cyclein their work with teachers.”59 Importantly, theschool-based follow-up to the PLN 2 regionalcourse formalized the way coaches workedwith teachers, so that teachers were expectedto go through the BDA Consultation Cycle.60

Combining coaching with site-based training,in particular the PLN 2 course follow-up com-ponent, had several advantages in reinforcingsustainable change.

High level of teacher commitment to BDAcoaching. Having the BDA Consultation Cycleembedded in a school-based PLN course thatgranted Act 48 credits necessarily implies thatteachers agree to planning lessons with acoach (before), having a coach visit theirclassroom (during), and reflecting on thelesson afterward (after).

More attention given to teacher reflection.In the Year Two Report we also found that the“after” portion of the BDA Consultation Cyclewas most often sacrificed, though this is animportant phase because it is through reflec-tion that the “seeds of instructional changeare planted.”61 Having a school-based PLNcourse that is structured around the BDAConsultation Cycle means that the “after”portion is institutionalized into coaches’work with teachers.

Year-long involvement and accountability.Since the school-based courses occurthroughout the year there is greater assuranceand accountability that the framework isgetting embedded into the ongoing dailyroutines of teachers.

Opportunity to reach a broader networkof teachers. Up to this point we have focusedon sustainability in terms of depth, becausethis element is so often overlooked. However,sustainability is also important to look at interms of breadth and reach. Having a school-based PLN course allows more teachers toget involved and enables teachers who havenot enrolled in PLN regional courses tolearn about the PLN framework.

59 (Brown et al., 2007, 26)

60 The Regional PLN 2 course required teachersto work 15 hours at their school sites.

Mini-CaseAn Innovative Approach to a School-Based PLN Course One innovative way in which sustainable instructional change was encouraged took placeat a school where coaches designed and led a credit-bearing PLN course for their teachers.

First, through negotiations with the intermediate unit, coaches and school leaders ensuredthat teachers who attended the course during their prep period would receive Act 48 credit.

The coaches designed the course to meet real-time classroom needs of teachers in theirschool while introducing them to the PLN framework and strategies. They structured thecourse around the teacher-coach Before/During/After (BDA) Consultation Cycle, in whichthe “before” segment involves planning with a teacher; the “during” segment involvesvisiting the classroom and observing the lesson being taught and, in some cases, helpingto teach the lesson; and the “after” piece is where coaches debrief with teachers andhelp them reflect on the lesson taught.

During each course session, the focus was either on developing the lesson (the “before”),or debriefing and reflecting on the lesson taught (the “after” portion of the BDA cycle).

Through this course, teachers who rarely had conversations with one another aroundinstruction were now sharing instructional strategies and helping each other plan lessons.

61 Brown et al., 2007, 25)

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Looking Ahead: Challenges to SustainabilityAs teachers move to institutionalize the newpractices, the possibility looms that withoutthe resources provided by PAHSCI, therewill be no school-based instructional coachesin place and the instructional changes thathave taken place will be difficult to sustain.

PAHSCI coaches, mentors, teachers, andadministrators prioritize the implementationof literacy-rich, student-centered instructionas most likely to be sustained. In addition,participants report that they believe schoolsand districts can continue to grow as aprofessional community — building on newleadership capacities that have been createdacross all levels — to discuss and developstrategies to sustain these new instructionalpractices and customize strategies to specificschool contexts.

Summary The PAHSCI model attempts to interruptteachers’ inclination toward superficial change,and to move them toward transformingfundamental classroom norms and routines.

• Evidence of sustainable instructionalchange was seen in teachers visited inYear Three, both in their classroom practicesand in the more sophisticated levels ofunderstanding they had about the natureof student engagement.

• The combination of coaching and PLNtraining, whether in regional or school-basedcourses, appears to be central to PAHSCI’srole in sustainable change.

• When coaches and teachers attend PLNregional courses together, a key benefitis the shared teacher/learner experience,which helps reduce the “social distance”and build closer working relationshipsbetween coaches and teachers.

• Benefits of PLN school-based coursesinclude a more formalized and ongoingcommitment to the Before/During/After(BDA) Consulting Cycle and the opportunityto reach a wider network of teachers.

• While a major challenge will be the avail-ability of continued training and resourcesfor PAHSCI coaches and teachers, the seedsof sustainability have been planted: changedperspectives and practices, a common visionand instructional language, and a growingprofessional community.

One of the goals of PAHSCI is not only to sustain and expand this instructionalcoaching model, but also to developprofessional learning communities inschools, within districts, and across districtsin Pennsylvania. In the next section, we lookat how individuals, organizations, and thestate have “linked together” in collaborativelearning, building leadership capacity, andlaying the foundation for sustainability.

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In the PAHSCI model, the image of networkingor linking (people, resources, and sets ofpractices) to form a statewide chain oflearning is complex. As one member of apartner organization commented during aretreat, “The scope and magnitude of thisproject is daunting.” The process of introducinga compelling, coherent, and efficient set ofpractices across the local contexts of partici-pating districts and schools is both ambitiousand important. Further, establishing the opti-mum learning space (social and emotional,cognitive, and physical)62 for instructionalcoaching and mentoring to flourish in allof the participating sites involves ongoingawareness of how a school’s structuralcharacteristics, resources, and schoolprocesses influence its ability to improveand sustain the improvement.

Most public schools have little control overstructural configurations, funding decisionsand other limiting conditions and components;the PAHSCI model sought to influence theinstructional components that schools couldcontrol and improve.

In this section we discuss PAHSCI participants’connecting lessons learned and buildingleadership capacity. We highlight some ofthe challenges to sustaining the changesoccurring in teaching and learning.

Individuals: New Opportunitiesfor Learning and Leadership

TeachersHigh school teachers often report that theywork in isolation and, consequently, theydon’t experience high levels of trust andcollaboration. Although some school struc-tures provide opportunities for teachers tomeet in interdisciplinary teams working withthe same students, more often than not, highschool teachers’ professional interactions areonly with teachers who teach the same con-tent. On the 2007 teacher survey, 65 percentof teachers agree or strongly agree thatcoaches were a catalyst for overall stafflearning. One English teacher we intervieweddescribed a coach working simultaneouslywith her and a history teacher:

I’m working on a project for PLN2. We’regoing to do Julius Caesar, but I’m goingto do it in connection with the AP historyteacher. She [the coach] has sat down withthe two of us on several occasions. We talkedabout the various lessons and how to in-corporate a web-streaming video program,and she pulled up some Caesar historicaldocuments that we could play. And [we met]just to discuss the types of activities to usein the Before/During/After format, how wecould make the flow work better.

Section 5 PAHSCI Learning, Leadership, and Sustainability

We’re blazing a new frontier here,especially in breaking down walls that have been built in high schools over the years.

–Building Administrator

• What types of learning andleadership developed throughthe Initiative at the individual,organization, and state level?

• How has PAHSCI succeededin shifting from “external”to “internal” ownership?

• What challenges impede PAHSCI’s sustainability?

62 www.learning space.org.uk/about-learning space

Social and emotional: learning as a social process,giving attention to group dynamics, safety, trust,support, and emotional needs.

Cognitive: respecting, valuing and working with thedifferent intelligences (Gardner), learning styles (Honeyand Mumford) and cultural and cognitive diversity.

Physical: the type, size, quality and organization oflearning spaces, and the movement and activitiesof people within their physical environment.

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Coaches were able to open avenues fordiscussion among teachers across contentareas by organizing and facilitating studygroups. In Year Two we found 77 percent ofcoaches’ reported conducting at least sixstudy groups with teachers, compared to only26 percent in Year One.63 Teachers reported aheightened level of professional camaraderiewith their colleagues and administrators whojoined in the study groups.

Building Leadership through Reflection.Traditionally, teachers are only observed forpurposes of evaluation; coaches, on the otherhand, observe teachers in order to help themand give feedback so that they can be better,more reflective practitioners (and often in theprocess, the changes and different strategiesmake their job easier). Over 85 percent ofthe teachers we interviewed in the fall/winter2007-2008 reported that their coaches hadprovided helpful, non-judgmental feedback,and this encouraged them to try new thingswithout fear and trepidation. One teachersummarized her feelings about this changingparadigm at her school by sharing:

And it’s [working with coaches] great,because the staff members, we don’twant to see administrators. We want tosee people who have that knowledge,have used it. Not necessarily that theadministrators aren’t effective, but theliteracy coaches and the math coachesare inside the classroom.

Expanding Leadership Skills and Roles.PAHSCI’s direct focus on the world of teachers— their classrooms — built the capacity forteachers’ leadership to develop. Teachers’classrooms are the environment they under-stand best and this increases the likelihoodfor them to fully participate in learning aboutthis environment. Instructional coaches are acatalyst for constructivist learning, or learningthat features reflective practices. Lambert the-orizes “that expanding [teacher] leadershiproles takes two forms: (1) taking on additionaltasks or functions and (2) behaving more skill-fully in daily interactions (e.g., asking ques-tions, listening, provoking, giving feedback).”

In Year Two we reported: “Over 50 percentof the teachers we observed and interviewed

indicated that PAHSCI gave them opportuni-ties to learn and practice new ideas andstrategies.”64 In Year Three RFA interviews withteachers, they report taking on new and addi-tional tasks, e.g., as members of study groups,spearheading peer-to-peer collaborations, andleading professional development. A broaden-ing range of what Lambert refers to as leader-ship skills, or participation in decision-making,having a shared sense of purpose, engagingin collaborative work, and accepting jointresponsibility for the outcomes is evident inthe vignettes of teachers described through-out this report.65

Coaches As described in depth in Section Two, coacheshad many opportunities and significant supportfor growing into their roles and continuouslyhoning their knowledge, as well as theirdelivery of support and training. Coacheswere encouraged to participate in off-site pro-fessional development opportunities such asnational meetings and then share this knowl-edge with their team of coaches, administra-tors, and in some cases, district leadership.

We offer three examples to illustrate howPAHSCI supported coaches’ learning theircraft and and moving into more visibleleadership roles:

Cross-Site Visitations.Coaches shadowed coaches at other PAHSCIschools and most rated these shared opportu-nities as extremely helpful and informative.

Presentations at Networking Sessions.By the 2007-2008 series of networkingsessions, the majority of the presenters werePAHSCI coaches. Participants had requestedthis shift and the coaches’ ratings were consis-tently very high. (Ninety-two percent or higherstrongly agree or agree that the sessions wereexcellent and coaches presented realistic andinformative content.)

Coaches’ Advancement along “Career Ladder.”Some coaches were also asked to work (usuallyon weekends) as trainers and PLN facilitators.Several coaches are slated to move into build-ing and district administrator vacancies.

63 (Brown et al., 2007)

64 Brown et al., (2007).

65 (Lambert, 1995).

MentorsIn spring 2008, RFA interviewed coaches,building administrators, and district adminis-trators in eight schools regarding the roleof the mentors. Their feedback points to thesignificance of the distinctive role that three-person mentor teams played in PAHSCI.66

Similar to coaches, the mentors’ roleswere not clearly defined at the onset of theInitiative. Basically, mentors began with theopen-ended charge that they were: to provideneeds-based support to schools and districts.In summarizing the key role that mentorsplayed in contributing to learning and buildingleadership, one district superintendent shared:

You have an overall idea of what [instruc-tional coaching] is supposed to look like,but really the mentors took us through thatjourney through the trainings and the prac-tical implementation of the literacy strate-gies that we were taught. When we cameto roadblocks, because they’ve worked withso many other districts, they had solutionsto offer us. They played an integral part asa guide through this journey. …When yourun into those bumps in the road, you needsomeone else to have a separate set ofeyes to look at it and give you constructivefeedback on it, and they’ve been able to dothat for us. As a result, it’s made our coach-es and administrative team stronger leaderswith the Initiative.

Although we did not find this in every school,some building administrators credited thementor team with assisting them in imple-menting PAHSCI well and thus increasing thegroundwork for sustainability. One buildingadministrator reflected:

The mentors have really had a hand inprovoking us to find ways to sustain it on ourown. Every environment is different and everystaff has a different personality, and we usedseveral approaches with the mentors’ supportand help. They were good at helping us tofind our own ways rather than saying, “This

is what I think you should do.” They were veryexperienced and skilled at communicatingways that other people have approachedsimilar situations but allowing us to adjustit to our staff and circumstances.

We should point out that not all coaches andbuilding and district leadership report thatthey found the mentors contributed a signifi-cant part to their growth and development.

Some mentor teams were a better matchthan others, and some were more flexiblein meeting the needs of individual coachesand administrators. In addition, many mentorsreport that outside of strong relationshipsthey had no power to enforce the applicationof PAHSCI principles. Most participants thatwe interviewed, and in particular the coaches,acknowledge that the mentors were a distinctive feature and an importantcontribution to the PAHSCI model.

District Points of ContactEarly in the initial process, PAHSCI leadershipasked each district to designate a point ofcontact. Again, this individual’s level of partici-pation varied. Earlier interviews with them dur-ing the first year confirmed that this task wasadded on top of many existing assignments.In some examples, the district-level curriculumadministrator was the point of contact; inothers, assistant superintendents served thisrole. There were a few extraordinarily effectivepoints of contacts who were highly responsive,communicated well with school and districtPAHSCI participants, and attended all of thetraining events. In these exemplary instances,the points of contact positively influencedlevels of learning, implementation, and theirdistricts’ participation in PAHSCI.

Administrators: District and Building Leaders It is important to state that the designersof PAHSCI understood how critical a roledistrict and building leaders play in support-ing, monitoring, and evaluating classroominstruction. School leaders who telegraphsupport for a new initiative and put thestructures in place for implementationdemonstrate a critical component — buy-in.Again, the original designers and stakeholdershad negotiated potential buy-in from many ofthe districts; however, by the end of the first

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66 The three-person mentor team, one leadership,one literacy and one math mentor, was a distinctivecomponent of PAHSCI. PAHSCI has contracted areport that will be issued later this fall that specifi-cally examines the role of the mentors. In addition,Foundations, Inc. will be publishing tool kits andadditional resources on the mentor role.

year, those original stakeholders and theirsubsequent existing relationships were nolonger in place. Therefore, during the courseof the Initiative, new commitments of buy-inhad to be negotiated.

At a Partner Strategic Retreat in 2006, thegroup brainstormed on the topic, “WhatWe Have Been Learning.” One of thepoints emphatically cited was: the powerthe administrators have to constructivelyinfluence what happens. Research oftenshows that as Kral explains:

Teachers watch for principal reaction toand involvement in the work of the coach attheir school. A distant relationship betweenthe principal and the coach sends a messageof low priority, which results in teachers’opting out of the intended reform.67

Before describing how administrators viewedtheir own participation and growth in theInitiative, it is worth noting an initial concernof some administrators regarding the PAHSCIteacher/coach evaluation paradigm and howit was resolved. This issue is illustrative of howcritically some administrators view their roleas evaluator. In some instances, administratorswere anxious to establish how to evaluatecoaches. During Year One trainings andnetworking sessions, administrators metseparately with leadership mentors to examinetheir union contracts, as some administratorswanted PDE to establish an evaluation systemthat distinguished the coach separately fromteacher classifications. Our observations andfield notes suggests that this was problematicto some administrators, and in these examplesissues of control and power were at play.Eventually, consensus was established andit was agreed that coaches were still teachers,and although they had additional responsi-bilities, they would be evaluated using theexisting teacher evaluation format. Therewere instances of administrators assessingtheir coaches as unproductive, and in thosefew examples, coaches were usually movedto other positions or decided on their ownto return to the classroom.

While close to 95 percent of school anddistrict administrators attended the initialmeetings to participate in PAHSCI, their

attendance varied throughout the nexttwo years and so did their level of activeparticipation and buy-in. Over a three-yearperiod at PAHSCI events, the averageattendance of building administratorsranged from 40 to 85 percent.

The 2007 administrator survey reveals thattwo-thirds of the administrators self-reportthat they personally experienced a positiveoutcome from participation in PAHSCI. Therewas a connection between their attendanceat trainings, their level of partnering with theircoaches and the mentor team to focus onclassroom instruction, and their perceptionof leading high implementation of the PAHSCIcomponents. Interestingly, some reportedthey were not always sure how to supportfull implementation of this reform. However,concrete strategies such as Walk-Throughscontributed to their ability to assess the scopeof implementation in their sites.68 In addition,as high school administrators, many acknowl-edged that coaches’ one-on-one work withteachers met a need that they were not ableto successfully fulfill as administrators.

Building administrators were twice as likelyto rate their personal growth in PAHSCI assignificant if they also reported the following:

• Synergy of working with coach team andactive involvement in distributed leadershipand developing teacher leaders;

• Coaches becoming empowered instructionalleaders;

• Understanding and support from the district.

How Individuals Rated Their PAHSCI ExperienceIt is interesting to note that individuals(teachers, coaches, mentors, and administra-tors) report a strong sense of accomplishment

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67 Kral, C. Principal Support for Literacy Coaching,www.literacycoachingonline.org

68 Walk-Throughs: Instructional walk-throughs: Ateam of observers, usually a building administratorand teachers, however, sometimes parents, visitsseveral classrooms where they look for very specificthings. In most walk-throughs, the teaching continuesand the visitors sit in the back or walk quietly aroundthe room looking for evidence of the particular goal/classroom strategies they would expect to find.Narrowing the focus to specific instructional activi-ties, the team assembles the information from theirnotes, and they share what they have learned withthe teachers whose rooms have been observed.

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associated with their participation in PAHSCI.Significantly, nearly all of those individualswe categorize as the core PAHSCI front-lineimplementers — coaches, mentors, buildingand district level administrators, partnerorganization staff, and PAHSCI leadership —report on an anonymous May 2008 evaluationthat PAHSCI was highly successful (97 percentstrongly agree or agree) “in providingmeaningful opportunities to learn fromone another; grow and sustain the growth.”

Organizations: New Partnering, New Capacities

Partner OrganizationsThe Annenberg Foundation and the Pennsyl-vania Department of Education understandthe value of a strong partnership and resolvedduring PAHSCI’s inception to contract withpartner organizations that were both committedto public education and experts in their fields.In addition to PDE, partner organizationsincluded: Foundations, Inc., Penn LiteracyNetwork, Research for Action, and ThePhiladelphia Foundation.

According to OERI research, successful part-ners identify, agree upon, accept compatiblegoals and strategies, and share a commonvision. Participants in successful partnershipsidentify and solve problems and adapt plan-

ning to fit the needs of the particular project.Partnerships are most successful when part-ners “respect the differences in each other’sculture and style, striving to apply the best ofboth worlds to achieve established goals.”69

At a midpoint of the three-year Initiative,PAHSCI partners responded to an anonymousquestionnaire about the PAHSCI partnership.RFA reported that:

Each partner organization brings to thepartnership an established identity, positivereputation, and history of accomplishment.Each partner’s identity influenced how ithas integrated into the branding and overallwork of PAHSCI. Each partner has madeadjustments and adaptations since theproject began, and all respondents felt itwas important to acknowledge how hardeach has worked to do this. Leadership ineach partner organization has listened tothe formative feedback and respondedby translating the issues and challengespresented to the organization’s staff for reviewand to guide changes. Partner organizationshave redeployed individuals and redesignedtrainings and curriculum. They have allocatedadditional resources and, in some cases, madesubstantial adjustments. Appropriately, some

69 OERI, 1993, www.ed.gov/pubs/PromPract/prom4.html, accessed December 22, 2006.

Partner Organizations

Foundations, Inc. brings deep knowledge of school improvement processes and the role ofschool leadership in promoting professional learning. It provides leadership and content mentorswho visit districts four times each month to help train coaches and school leaders in instructionalcoaching; offer ongoing technical support; and provide both coaches and administrators withopportunities to problem-solve, reflect upon their work, and refine their coaching skills.

The Penn Literacy Network (PLN) offers a research-based framework and practical strategiesfor establishing literacy-rich classrooms across all subject areas. PLN provides training in its frame-work for coaches, mentors, administrators, and teachers through intensive summer institutes andin regional courses throughout the school year. The training also includes strategies aligned withstate and national content standards that connect disciplinary content to the real world.

Research for Action brings extensive experience in connecting evaluation research to therefinement of reform initiatives. RFA is evaluating the Initiative and providing ongoing feedbackto the partners so that mid-course corrections can be made to enhance the effectiveness of thereform as it unfolds. RFA is also creating a knowledge base that can be used by other educationreformers around the nation as they adopt coaching as a model for professional development.

The Philadelphia Foundation brings capacity in managing large grant amounts, and in statewidemonitoring and reporting of the grant money. As fiscal agent, it oversees the distribution of funds,the accounting for those funds, and all financial reports. The Philadelphia Foundation serves asthe one point of contact for the management of funds both centrally and at the district level.

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of the problem-solving occurred withinindividual partner organizations. However,each partner acknowledges the responsibilityto contribute to the thinking and problem-solving process of the collective partnership.70

At the conclusion of Year Three, the PAHSCIpartners agree that they have worked welltogether. Clearly, there have been tensionsand a few would argue varying degrees ofprogram integration among the partners;however, all agreed that they workedcollaboratively to meet the Action Plangoals restated below.

PAHSCI Partners’ Action Plan Goals

1 Student Achievement: Improving Teaching and Learning

By Year Three we see our schools usinginstructional coaching, curriculum back-mapping (described later in this section),and various configurations of professionallearning opportunities, as well as administratorevaluations, as vehicles for embedding andinstitutionalizing best practices in literacy-richclassroom instruction. PAHSCI schools willsupport high quality instructional practicesthrough documented increases in student-centered activities focused on reading,writing, and verbal interaction, as measuredby observations, lesson plans content,curriculum revisions, assessment practices,Walk-Throughs, and surveys.

2 Sustainability: Internal and External Ownership

Internal: Schools demonstrate a commitmentto institutionalizing best practices learnedby participation in instructional coachingand differentiated professional learningopportunities as evidenced by the provisionof time and resources, goal orientationspecified in their School Improvement Plan(SIP), and Action Plans that show a cleararticulation of expectations how to implement,monitor, and assess the goals.

External: Establish the channels, distribution,methods, and content necessary to influencethe educational and legislative communities,so that the core ideas and practices of theinitiative garner the support needed to ensureinstitutionalization.

3 Leadership

District and school-based administrators willdemonstrate knowledge of PAHSCI and com-mitment to its goals, and will provide concretesupport for those goals. Project goals will beintegrated and visible in protocols administra-tors use to evaluate teachers, in school plan-ning documents, and in content curriculums.Multiple opportunities are made availableto teachers and administrators to collaboratearound teaching and learning on a monthlybasis. Administrators will oversee the imple-mentation of school schedules to facilitatethe core work of the Initiative and providevenues for leadership, i.e., study groups,cross-school/district visitation, teacher-coachplanning, and coach-led professionallearning opportunities.

These three action plan goals guided thework of the PAHSCI leadership and partners.Reaching out to individuals, schools, thedistrict, and the state was a critical componentof PAHSCI’s plan to achieve these goals.Overall, partners report that PAHSCI schoolswere successful in taking the learning fromthe Initiative, making the “interconnections”from interacting across the PAHSCI sites,all the while, making the model their own.

SchoolsTo varying degrees, all PAHSCI schools wereexperiencing challenges. These challengesincluded: students’ poor performance onstate achievement tests; achievement gapsamong sub-groups, which in some examplesrepresent the changing demographics ofthe student population and surroundingcommunities; diminishing graduation rates;and a lack of resources and social capitalto tap into new waves of technology andprogressive thinking about 21st-centurycurriculum content. In some cases, staffwere aging and set in the traditional modeof teacher-centered instruction; at the otherend of the experience spectrum, new staffwere struggling to manage classrooms ofadolescents very much disengaged from theirown education. While some issues were newlyminted, others were historically intractableproblems reflecting achievement gapsendemic to minority populations.

70 Internal Memo.

Demographic Differences among SchoolsThere are significant demographic differencesamong the participating schools and districts.Some serve all-minority student groupingsand have ongoing historical levels ofunderachievement. Other schools arein rural locations that are not immuneto deescalating academic achievementand students increasingly at odds withpersevering to earn a high school diploma.

Range of School Focus Areas and PrioritiesIn Appendix G we show the focus areas thatschools selected for their first-year plans.71

While many of the schools had a similar focuson increasing literacy-rich classroom instruction,there was a wide range of individual priorities.These differences in priorities presented chal-lenges in developing collaborative learningacross the participating districts. Analysis oftraining evaluations show that while mostschools had central focus areas they wantedprofessional learning to concentrate on, theydiffered in the perceived needs regardingsuch areas as classroom management anddata-driven instruction.

PAHSCI schools began their participation inPAHSCI with differing expectations. Prior toPAHSCI, most operated fairly autonomously,and historically were used to receiving grantsand subsequently implementing them as theydeemed appropriate, with or without closemonitoring. PAHSCI’s design — with school-based instructional coaches reinforced bycontent and leadership mentors who visitedmonthly and were expected to hold the schoolaccountable to the model — was new to manyof the schools. The depth of implementationat any particular school was influenced byits openness to change and the climateand level of the professional community.

School and District Venues for Learning

Professional Community

PAHSCI seeks to create multiple sites of learning within a school. This includesindividual, small group, department-wide,and whole school settings for learning.Significantly, when well implemented, PAHSCIinfluenced a school’s professional communityfor the better. As we reported in Year Two,“In many schools, PAHSCI is supporting

development of professional communities bychanging professional development, creatingnew school-based leaders, and creating andbroadening networks of support and learningwithin participating schools.”72

Overall — in interviews, surveys, and question-naires — teachers, coaches, mentors, and ad-ministrators described increased collaboration,greater agreement on beliefs about instruction,and deeper engagement in professionallearning among educators in their context.

Leadership Teams

The majority of PAHSCI participants, coaches,mentors, and administrators participated inlearning together as members of a schoolleadership team. Several coaches report thatleadership teams met more regularly duringthe first two years of the Initiative; however,60 percent report that they meet regularlywith both mentors and administrators usinga format they characterized as leadershipsessions. Frequently, coaches were partici-pants in additional instructionally-focusedplanning and monitoring formats. Whenfunctional and regularly planned (whichoccurred regularly in 50 percent of theschools we visited), leadership teams, inthe words of one coach, “provided weeklyopportunities to debrief, build knowledge,and review data together.”

Districts

District administrations are a vital linkto schools and to the state. Kral, director of literacy coaching in the Boston publicschools, shares that school and district leaders“need to deepen their knowledge, know whatteachers are learning and what support theywill need as they implement what they havelearned in their classrooms.”73 Building princi-pals take their cue from district administrationand justifiably expect support from the districtto put the structure and supports in place toeffectively implement a new agenda. Districtadministrators who attended PAHSCI eventsoften worked side by side with principals andcoaches, and coaches, in significant numbers,reported that this was a significant changeand important to their work.

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72 (Brown et al.,2007, 29)

73 Kral, C. Principal Support for Literacy Coaching,www.literacycoachingonline.org71 See Appendix G.

State-Level Leadership: Buy-In, Collaboration, Advice

PDE and PAHSCI Designers Describing PAHSCI’s progress in buildingleadership at the individual, school, district,and state levels, we revisit for a moment itsbeginning and the subsequent stages ofimplementation. While some of these condi-tions are specific to PAHSCI, they representissues of implementation that are instructivefor initiatives of this scale and scope. As thePAHSCI Theory of Change (see p. 9) indicates,the Pennsylvania Department of Educationwas to be the central partner, as well as thebeneficiary of emerging knowledge abouthigh school reform and instructional coachingand mentoring.

The original designers of PAHSCI reached outto key district and state stakeholders to helpgarner buy-in and support. However, by theend of PAHSCI’s first year, few members ofthis original group were still in place. Twohad moved across the country, and othershad taken new roles that were unconnected toPAHSCI. As one of the consequences of thesechanges, no designated representative fromPDE attended monthly partner meetings andPDE’s role during the initial year was not asviable or visible as the designers intended.Understanding the importance of PDE’s role,PAHSCI’s leadership refocused efforts to linkwith PDE in Year Two, and they ultimatelysecured the active involvement of keypersonnel from PDE.

Moving beyond their ongoing responsibilityfor setting requirements for teachers in termsof degrees, coursework, and eligibility require-ments in increasing numbers, state policymakers have been “evaluating the academicrigor required to earn a high school diploma,as well as the alignment between thoseexpectations and the skills and knowledgeneeded for success in college and the work-place.”74 Pennsylvania’s political leaders andeducators, similar to other states across thenation, are joining forces to examine the cur-rent status of high school education. They are

asking: What does it take to graduate literateyoung adults ready to pursue college and/oradditional post-secondary life opportunities?

The academic literacy crisis facing the nation’sadolescents is well documented and it hasbecome increasingly clear that “performingbelow grade level in reading and writing carriesincreasingly higher stakes for retention andultimately withholding of high school diplomas.”75

PAHSCI’s plan to use instructional coachingand mentoring and embedded professionallearning to improve instruction in high schoolsacross the Commonwealth complementedthe growing interest in creating norms andcommonalities from the existing coachingmodels, where appropriate. To that end,PAHSCI leadership was a vital contributor tothe newly established Collaborative CoachingBoard and to the development and applica-tion of learning about coaching statewide.

Collaborative Coaching BoardStarting in 2006, PAHSCI, along with otherexisting coaching initiatives, met monthly inHarrisburg and helped to shape a new state-wide Collaborative Coaching Board which, afterless than a year in operation, successfully:

• introduced common language for jobdescriptions and assurances for instructionalcoaching;

• aligned statewide initiatives with coachingcomponents;

• created consistency among initiatives;

• developed a shared language andunderstanding of instructional coaching;

• standardized the roles and responsibilitiesfor instructional coaching.

Another important board that PAHSCI leader-ship and consultants worked intently to formand then learn from was an advisory board ofindividuals from the public and private sectors.

PAHSCI Advisory BoardIn October 2006, and at two subsequentmeetings in 2007, PAHSCI leadership andthe Annenberg Foundation convened a cross-section of public and private representativesfrom education, foundations, the state

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74 Lloyd, S.C. (2008, June 5). States Notch Slow,Steady Progress Toward Consistent GraduationGoals {on line}. Retrieved on June 9, 2008 fromhttp://edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/06/05/40research.h27.html.

75 National Center for Educational Statistics, 2003.

legislature, and private corporations. Thegoals for this advisory group as outlinedat the first convening included:

• Contribute to improving student achieve-ment in preparing Pennsylvania studentsfor their careers in the 21st century.

• Provide guidance and direction onsustainability and expansion.

• Offer suggestions and ideas on schoolreform.

• Support this coaching/mentoring modeland help change the landscape of publiceducation by promoting the professionaldevelopment of teacher leaders.

• Optimize a public/private partnershipto support public education with publicfunding.

PAHSCI’s Theory of Change addresses theimportance of ownership. Soliciting the buy-inand support of public and private advisors byestablishing a board of interested individualsconvinced of the value of PAHSCI was anothervital link in PAHSCI’s plan for sustainability.Securing political support and budgetarycommitments to sustain and grow instructionalcoaching was an important outcome forPAHSCI. The Initiative views the state’s com-mitment to increase funding for instructionalcoaching in the 2008-2009 school year as apositive sign of accomplishment.

Sustainability: Moving fromExternal to Internal OwnershipResearch on how education innovations aresustained over time shows that ownership ofthe reform must change hands from externalactors to internal actors (i.e., district andschool practitioners). Ownership requiresdeep knowledge of the reform and theauthority to perpetuate it.76

Recently core implementers, includingcoaches, mentors, and administrators, listedthe following as important to sustaining thePAHSCI learning:

• Literacy practices across the content areas• BDA lesson planning• PLN regional and school-based trainings • Enhanced professional community

• Student-centered teaching• Collaboration across content area

subject teachers

The following examples cited by partnerorganizations and PAHSCI leadership are alsopromising signs of steps to sustainability:

Curriculum Backmapping77

During Year Three courses, PLN facilitatorshelped coaches and selected teacher leadersto write curriculum that the staff would usein the years to come. Titled PLN 20, thesecustomized courses brought coaches, teacherleaders, and administrators together to writeand update their curriculum and interjectthe best practices of the PLN framework.A number of groups focused on the “back-mapping” of units within existing curricula.These efforts during Year Three were extremelysuccessful and provided a way for teachers to“open up” the curriculum and take ownershipin a creative and meaningful way. The PLNleaders report that more than 50 participantsacross the school sites developed grades 9-12 benchmarks for writing, math, researchrequirements, and other subject areas.Feedback from participants was very positive,as most reported that this was a missing partof existing practices and collaboration in theirschools. Participants described the processof backmapping as a practical, viable, andcreative way both to address standards inthe context of instruction and instructionalactivities and to integrate PLN frameworksand best practices into the curriculum.

Online Coach Reporting System

During Year Three, the Foundations, Inc.mentor group designed an online coachreporting system. Coaches were able tolog in their schedule and use this data toreflect on their productivity. This processimplemented a vehicle for mentors andcoaches to communicate electronicallyabout coaches’ work. It also provides a

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76 (Coburn, 2003)

77 Backmapping: Designing a program, courseor unit with the end in mind. The process includesasking: What overarching understandings aredesired by the end? What are the overarchingessential questions? What formative and summativeevidence will show that students understand?What knowledge and skills are needed todemonstrate understanding?

level of accountability, which helps administra-tors lobby for instructional coach fundingusing this record of their productivity.

Leadership Development

The learning in PAHSCI schools contributedto building leadership capacity. The worktogether — dialogue, action, reflection, andprocesses such as BDA — helped shape newperspectives on teaching and learning. Centralto these various processes was well-designedcommunication from PAHSCI leadership andthe partner organizations.

Communication

Throughout the stages of PAHSCI,communication by PAHSCI leadership andamong the PAHSCI partner organizationshas played a vital role in successfullylaunching and implementing this initiative.Communication vehicles PAHSCI leadershipidentified as especially valuable included:

• Monthly partner meetings

• Monthly newsletter and articlesin selected publications

• Presentations (to District Boards ofEducation, at educational conferences)

• Lobbying efforts

Challenges to Sustainability

Impediments at School and District Level

Staff and leadership turnover, vacancieson coaching teams, rigid school structures,and inadequate time for planning and reflec-tion, as well as fiscal and political turmoil, allcontributed to less than ideal conditions forimplementing this reform. Drilling down theinformation of a district’s initial questions andenabling conditions upon joining the Initiative,one can identify early indicators of tensionbetween the Initiative’s goals and districtgoals. For example, one school district thatopted out at the end of the second yearbegan with very bounded ideas of how toparticipate, what would be the role of coaches,and who the school and district leadershipwould listen to and collaborate with. Thisdistrict’s main reason for participating wasto improve its students’ math achievementscores on the state testing, and they had aset of beliefs regarding what the coaches

needed to do to make that happen. Afterrepeated attempts at compromise and effortsto negotiate a more expanded leadershiprole for their coaches failed, it was determinedthat the two schools and the district wouldnot continue into Year Three.

Funding and Other Key Challenges

From PAHSCI’s inception, evaluation eventswere replete with individuals asking: Whathappens when the funding runs out? Indeed,funding heads the list of factors cited by par-ticipants as the greatest challenges to sustain-ability. These include:

• Funding and resources

• Change in leadership or attrition of the central implementers

• Technical assistance

• Expanding the ownership

• Administrative buy-in and accompanyingsupport for instructional coaching

• Time (i.e., time built into the schedulefor one-on-one work with a coach thatincludes the full BDA Consultation Cycle)

• Honing the skills of coaches: helpingcoaches grow in the later stages ofimplementation and meet any newand unanticipated challenges.

Participant Enthusiasm

Some participants were as positive asthe building administrator quoted atthe beginning of this section:

We’re blazing a new frontier here,especially in breaking down walls thathave been built in high schools over theyears. We are getting teachers to interactmore with other teachers and to getstudents to become more engaged withwhat they are learning. Trying new practicesin education — you don’t usually have thatin high schools. We need to get away fromjust sit and lecture.

Others, however, were less enthusiasticas they are significantly influenced bythe ongoing challenges of finding fundingfor coaches, improving achievement ofdisengaged urban learners, teacher resistanceto sustainable change, and district leadershipwho, for a complex set of causes, do not place

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PAHSCI high on their priority list. Nonetheless,it is a striking outcome that to an individual,participation in PAHSCI is overwhelminglygiven high marks by front-line implementers.

On the Move: Fourth Year TransitionsAs this report goes to press, the Initiativeis forging ahead and providing a muchrequested transitional fourth year. Withcontinued support from the AnnenbergFoundation and state budget funding,PAHSCI will sponsor a State-wide CoachingInstitute to help train and support existingand new participants. PAHSCI will partiallyfund coaches at 12 of the existing PAHSCIsites and four new sites, and provide profes-sional learning events and learning tools toseveral new schools and districts. Significantly,PLN and Foundations, Inc. leadership reportthat many of the lessons learned during thesethree years are being put to use in this nextstrategic stage of instructional coachingand mentoring.

SummaryIn this section we discussed how thecomponents of the PAHSCI design workedto influence the leadership and learning ofindividuals, organizations, and the state.

• The concept of linking people,resources, and practices is at the heartof the PAHSCI model and a key elementin its success. Linking will also beimportant in sustaining the Initiative.

• For individuals — teachers, coaches,mentors, points of contact, administrators— PAHSCI participation offered newopportunities for collaboration, as well asnew leadership roles.

• For organizations — partners, schools,leadership teams, districts, advisoryboards, and the Pennsylvania Departmentof Education — PAHSCI in many ways rep-resented a new paradigm of partnering.

• “Ownership” of the reform needs to shiftfrom external to internal stakeholders,and there are signs that this is happening.

• Participants cite the greatest challengesto sustainability as funding and changein leadership or attrition of centralimplementers.

In the final section, we highlight the fourdevelopmental stages of implementation,revisit the Theory of Change, and providelessons from PAHSCI.

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?Against the backdrop of disappointingacademic achievement in Pennsylvania highschools, as well as failure to make AdequateYearly Progress (AYP) as mandated by thefederal No Child Left Behind, the PAHSCIproject set out to meet the challenges ofinadequate student performance by improvingteacher quality. Prioritizing the need for highschool teachers to “show, demonstrate, andmake visible to students how literacy operateswithin the various academic disciplines,” thePAHSCI model features instructional coaching,mentoring, and job-embedded professionallearning to support teachers across the con-tent areas in creating literacy-rich classroomsand student-centered instruction.78

As RFA has noted in three years of reports,participating PAHSCI schools began thisInitiative at different points along a continuumof challenges and needs. In all of the sites,however, there was a need to involve studentsmore in their own learning and to shape amore coherent set of tasks and activities thatstudents performed throughout their day.Significantly, most of the front-line imple-menters (coaches, mentors, administrators)we interviewed and teachers we observedand interviewed cite improvements in theprofessional culture and daily aspects of howteachers teach and students learn. Teacherleaders emerged who helped to spread bestpractices and contribute to a professionalcommunity more focused on sharing and dis-cussing how to improve student performance.

Although no school can claim that thesechanges have touched 100 percent of staffand students, most schools can point to a crit-ical mass of teachers who have improved andshow every intention to continue the progressthey have made — especially in crafting les-

sons that increase student engagement. Alsohighly significant, administrators, coaches, andmentors report “the opportunity to share andlearn with professional colleagues” as one ofthe most beneficial components of PAHSCI.

PAHSCI is a rich case study of a statewidehigh school reform initiative. In this final sec-tion we highlight key lessons that educatorsand policy makers contemplating investmentsin instructional coaching can take away fromthe PAHSCI model. We start by briefly review-ing the developmental stages of PAHSCI andkey questions that the Initiative sought to askand answer at each stage.

The Developmental Stages of PAHSCIThe PAHSCI model met a need to immersestudents in literacy-rich, student-centeredinstruction to improve their ability to speak,think, and ask questions using high-level skills.In order to meet this need, teachers receivedprofessional development training as theyworked with coaches and colleagues to honetheir own instructional skills and enhance theirunderstanding of student engagement andlearning. Figure 4 outlines the four broaddevelopmental stages involved in thisresearch-based, statewide coaching model.

As the four stages depict, PAHSCI startedby researching and clarifying the potentialof coaching to meet the outcomes sought. Asecond critical stage was designing a coachingmodel that adequately addressed identifiedneeds; in this case, those needs included notonly improving classroom practice, but build-ing a statewide network of schools that couldmore powerfully implement and sustain change.Implicit in this stage was also the develop-ment of the “theory of change” at the heart ofthe model, identifying inputs, processes, andexpected outcomes (see the PAHSCI Theoryof Change, p. 9). In the third stage, the model

Section 6 Lessons from PAHSCI

PAHSCI has been successful in helpingus to support teachers in terms of eventuallygetting the best possible classroominstruction. That support comes in manyways — use of data, understanding effectiveinstructional strategies, and just helpingpeople develop into the best possibleteachers that they can be.

–Building Administrator

• What lessons does the PAHSCI story revealabout efforts to change high school instruction?

• What were critical components ofPAHSCI’s developmental stages?

• What are the large-scale and small-scalelessons from PAHSCI about instructionalcoaching in a statewide effort?

78 (National Council of Teachers of English, 2004)

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and its Theory of Change were tested duringimplementation by gathering formative dataand making mid-course adjustments as need-ed. Finally, the knowledge gleaned from theInitiative is being used to craft and dissemi-nate tools and protocols for both sustainingthe reform and scaling up the practices.

Revisiting the PAHSCI 2008Theory of Change

The PAHSCI 2008 Theory of Changeillustrates the basic hypothesis that trainingand supporting a cohort of coaches to provideschool-based job-embedded professionallearning featuring research-based literacypractices and data analysis will improvestudent achievement. An essential componentof the coaches’ role was to provide one-on-one coaching and leadership in helping toshape teachers’ professional learning as wellas contribute via participation on leadershipteams to the overall examination of andsupport for learning and achievementthroughout the school.

In this Year Three Report RFA’s analysis high-lights the Initiative’s progress in moving in apositive direction towards the IntermediateOutcomes, in particular: strengthened profes-sional community, leadership developmentand changes in teachers’ use of literacy-richstrategies for student engagement. However,it is difficult to establish a quantitative evidence-based link to the long term outcome ofimproved student achievement.

Among the many reasons it is difficultto establish an evidence-based link fromcoaching to improved student achievementthe following two are most salient:

• Flexible implementation, in other words,participating schools directed coachingsupport to particular groups, i.e., 9th-gradeacademies, new or struggling teachers,and not school-wide to every teacher.

• The Research Design was redirected andthe commissioned quantitative researchdoes not show a significant relationshipbetween coached teachers and improvedstudent achievement.

Figure 4 The Four Development Stages of thePennsylvania High School Coaching InitiativeA Research-Based, Statewide Coaching Model

Ask & Ansewer…

There is an underlying assumption thatimproved student engagement will leadto improved student achievement and whilewe were able to document increased studentengagement related to teacher practice, i.e.,the use of research-based literacy strategies,we do not have evidence to make the leap toclaim that this increased student engagementwill result in improved student achievement.

We should point out that some PAHSCIschools showed improvement in state assess-ments and in those examples, administratorsreport that having the coaching teamsinfluenced these gains in achievement.

Next, we want to pinpoint three positivefindings connected to the Theory of Change.

PAHSCI was successful in linking learningand contributing to a statewide modelinformed by best practices of coachingat the secondary level.

Connecting educators across the state andproviding numerous opportunities for individu-als who work with diverse student populationsto build leadership capacity as they learnedtogether using a set of research-based literacystrategies that could span the content areascontributed to strong growth towards theIntermediate Outcomes.

Strong partner collaboration and Initiativesupport resulted in strong affirmation fromthe front-line implementers, coaches, mentorsand administrators that this Initiative met theirneeds to improve teaching and learning.

And finally, we want to emphasize that thePAHSCI model was well-designed, however,the flexibility allowed to schools in how totarget the work of coaches makes it difficultto measure outcomes. Going forward, astrategy to address effective and consistentimplementation, a research design well-matched to the components of the Initiative,establishing clearly measurable outcomesare highly recommended.

Key Lessons

Lesson OnePAHSCI’s plan — to take on large-scalechange across diverse statewide sites withan eye to sustainability — was a huge andcomplex undertaking.

The well-conceptualized design and ongoingreflection and adaptations of PAHSCI leader-ship and partners were crucial to its success.However, PAHSCI’s ability to fully achievethe impact it sought was influenced bythe enormity of the task.

Establishing a shared vision and goals,and “branding” PAHSCI across its multiplepartners and stakeholders, were importantcomponents of its implementation. Partnerorganizations, well respected in their ownfields, were strongly encouraged to operateunder the PAHSCI brand or umbrella asthey provided training and support.

Negotiating buy-in was an ongoing process,as participants changed but the principles andgoals did not. The frequent opportunities forparticipants to come together and learn aboutone another’s work helped individuals stayconnected to PAHSCI’s goals and to eachother. The three-person mentor teams helpedto orient new participants and negotiateongoing buy-in.

It was important to continuously clarify thatthe focus of PAHSCI was classroom instruction.The mentor teams and PAHSCI leadershipwere frequently able to intercede whencoaches were overloaded with administrativetasks not related to classroom instruction.

PAHSCI has significantly contributed to astatewide agenda to align coaching models.The Collaborative Coaching Board, chaired bya representative from PDE, is actively shapinghow instructional coaching is implementedand monitored across the Commonwealth.

Lesson TwoInstructional coaching requires coaches toutilize a complex set of skills, talents, andabilities as they work within a specificschool and district context.

PAHSCI partners helped coaches keeplearning how to be a coach and as a result,both partners and coaches built their owncapacity to adapt, adjust, and learn aschallenges emerged. PAHSCI’s use of thePLN framework, a concrete set of literacy-rich,student-centered strategies, contributed toa shared vision among coaches and thepartners who supported them.

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Relationships are important and must benegotiated and renegotiated across thestages of implementation. Key relationshipsinclude those among coaches, administrators,teachers, and mentors, as well as within thecoaching team.

Because they work across traditional highschool boundaries (content area, administrator-teacher, grade level) coaches are well posi-tioned to help catalyze schoolwide change.As coaches help foster a common instructionallanguage and shared literacy practices, theyalso help develop greater intellectual coher-ence across the school. Coaches can helpconnect differently positioned educatorsto the common goal of student achievement,can help connect work at the classroomlevel to larger school goals, and can supporteducators in using classroom and schoollevel data in this effort.

Lesson ThreeThe PLN framework as a set of strategies toaddress adolescent literacy and student per-formance was applicable across content areas.

It was significant that instructional coachesworked with teachers across the contentareas using a common instructional languageand set of research-based best practices.More often than not, high school contentarea teachers do not agree on a set of bestpractices to increase student performance.The research-based literacy-rich strategiesrepresented by the PLN framework wereopen-ended and able to influence howteachers planned and delivered instructionacross PAHSCI classrooms.

Student needs and how to address thembecame the norm of professional worktogether. Staff and administrators’ professionalbehaviors that focused on instructionalpractice increased as they learned and usedthe PLN framework to deliver, and monitorthe delivery of, instruction.

Teachers working collaboratively with coachesand peers are connecting which practicesincrease students’ engagement and involve-ment in their own learning. In a number ofschools, teacher interaction and planningacross content areas was enhanced by thecommon language and strategies theyshared through the PLN framework.

Lesson FourThere are identifiable factors which supportand impede sustainability.

The PAHSCI model attempts to interruptteachers’ inclination toward superficial change,and to move them toward transformingfundamental classroom norms and routines.The effort to transform rather than simplyimprove requires deeper personal engage-ment of teachers, thereby generating thepotential for more lasting change.

The combination of coaching and PLN trainingappears to be central to PAHSCI’s role in sup-porting sustainable change. Whether the PLNtraining takes place in a regional or site-basedcontext (and optimally when teachers experienceboth), it is the combination of high qualitytraining with ongoing coaching that enables thechanges in instructional practice to take hold atthe classroom, department, and school level.

Participants cite the greatest challenges tosustainability as funding and change in leader-ship or attrition of central implementers. Otherongoing challenges to sustainability includeproviding adequate time for training, coach-ing, and new instructional preparation; someteacher resistance to change; and districtleadership that, for a complex set of causes,do not place PAHSCI high on their priority list.

Lesson FivePAHSCI front-line implementers (teachers,coaches, partner organizations, and mentors)adopted innovative strategies to cope withcontextual difficulties and diverse needs.

The high degree of interaction amongparticipants, as well as ongoing observationand feedback mechanisms, helped identifyissues early. Contextual difficulties such astime constraints, teachers’ aversion to change,and the possibility of contrived collegialityand surface-level implementation, were ableto be acknowledged and addressed. Evenwhen issues could not be fully resolved, theirrecognition and attention helped prevent themfrom becoming more significant impediments.

When the issues were training-related (e.g.,skills gaps in coach), PAHSCI partneringorganizations were highly responsive. Bymaking mid-course corrections to addresschallenges coaches experienced (such asliteracy in math classrooms and special needs

learners), the PLN facilitators and Foundationsmentors continuously revamped the trainingto meet gaps in skills and support the school-based coaches.

Designing the Initiative to include players onthe inside (teachers, coaches, administrators)and outside (mentors, PLN facilitators, RFAresearchers) contributed to the possibility forhomegrown contextual adjustments, whileat the same time providing broader insightsand greater accountability. Inside participantstraveled to other sites, for example, andmentors shared stories that insiders wereeager to hear about “how they handlethese challenges at another PAHSCI site.”

Lesson SixThe development of a stronger professionalcommunity and new leadership opportunitieswere significant outcomes of PAHSCI —for individuals, organizations, and atthe statewide level.

PAHSCI has created a more cohesive profes-sional community within and among partici-pating individuals and organizations — andthis, in turn, has helped create and sustainthe successes of the Initiative. Shared visionand goals, a common language developedby the PLN framework, and the high degreeof collaboration and communication builtinto the model all have contributed tobuilding professional community.

The emergence of new leaders and leadershiproles, especially among coaches and teachers,has proven an added positive outcome. Asa result of their engagement with PAHSCI,coaches, teachers, mentors, and others havedeveloped new skills and discovered newopportunities to exercise personal leadership— in classrooms, departments, schools, anddistricts. For many, PAHSCI has renewedtheir enthusiasm for teaching and givennew direction to their careers.

Educators and policy makers can turn to PAHSCI as a model for regional andstatewide efforts and to PAHSCI participantsas experienced resources. The knowledgegained over the past three years can andshould be harvested and shared, to the advan-tage of PAHSCI and other educational initia-tives across the state — and to the ultimatebenefit of all current and future students.

Concluding NotesIn education, the persistence of the sameold problem is famous. Successive wavesof school reform, though not nearly asineffectual as they are often portrayed,have failed to fully realize the improve-ments they promised, and many staffdevelopment programs have developedteachers’ cynicism more than their expert-ise. The typical pattern when reforms failhas been to blame teachers rather thandesigners; it now appears, however, thatthe designers’ assumptions are often atthe core of the chronic failure ofchange efforts.79

The PAHSCI model was designed to respectthe enormously challenging role that teachersshoulder; to improve student learning byimproving instructional practice throughsupportive teacher training and coaching;and to be responsive to differences inindividuals and situations. We believe thatit bodes well for the upcoming transitionalyear that such a large percent of the front-lineimplementers and teachers we met say thatthey “think that this PLN thing works!”

Lambert reflects in Building LeadershipCapacity in Schools: “We need to knoweach other as whole individuals: as colleagues,friends, parents, and citizens. It is throughthese relationships that we can understandand respect each other’s experiences,values, and aspirations. Within such authenticrelationships, our self-concepts and worldviews nestle and evolve.80

This Year Three Report highlights PAHSCIteachers and coaches building trust andcollaboration, and demonstrating their abilityto make substantive changes in their owninstructional practices by placing studentengagement and achievement at the centerof the learning. The reflective practices builtinto PAHSCI — of reviewing and fortifyingwhat has been learned — will now go farin helping them continue to dismantle thesilos of isolation and engage adolescentsacross the public high schools in theCommonwealth of Pennsylvania.

53

79 Evans, p.9

80 This strategy appeared in classroom observationsand teacher interviews; it was not on the surveygiven to teachers.

54

Arbuckle, M. (2000). Triangle of Design,Circle of Culture. In Senge, P., Cambron-McCabe, N., Lucas, T., Smith, B., Dutton, J.& Kleiner, A., (Eds.), Schools That Learn:A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators,Parents, and Everyone Who Cares AboutEducation. New York: Doubleday.

Bowen, E. R. (2003). Student Engagementand Its Relation to Quality Work Design:A Review of the Literature. [On-line].Retrieved on August 31, 2007, from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/are/ebowenLitReview.pdf.

Brown, D., Reumann-Moore, R., Hugh, R.,du Plessis, P. & Christman, J. B. (2006).Promising InRoads: Year One of the Penn-sylvania High School Coaching Initiative.Philadelphia: Research for Action.

Brown, D., Reumann-Moore, R., Hugh, R.,Christman, J.B., Riffer, M., du Plessis, P.& Maluk, H.P.(2007). Making a Difference:Year Two Report of the Pennsylvania HighSchool Coaching Initiative. Philadelphia:Research for Action.

Bryk, A. S., Easton, J. Q., Kerbow, D., Rollow,S. G. & Sebring, P. B. (1998). A View fromthe Elementary Schools: The State of theReform in Chicago. Chicago: Consortiumon Chicago School Research.

Coburn, C. E. (2003). Rethinking Scale:Moving Beyond Numbers to Deep andLasting Change. Educational Researcher,32(6), 3-12.

Desimone, L., Porter, A. C., Garet, M.,Yoon, K., Birman, B. F. (2002). Effects ofProfessional Development on Teachers’Instruction: Results from a three yearlongitudinal study. Educational Evaluationand Policy Analysis, 24(2). 81-112.

Du Four, R. & Eaker, R. (1998). ProfessionalLearning Communities at Work: BestPractices for Enhancing StudentAchievement. Alexandria, VA: NationalEducation Service.

Edwards, J. L. & Newton, R. R. (1995).The Effect of Cognitive Coaching onTeacher Efficacy and Empowerment.Paper presented at the Annual Meetingof the American Education ResearchAssociation, San Francisco.

Evans, R. (2001). The Human Side of SchoolChange: Reform Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass A Wiley Company.

Foltos, L. (n.d.). Peer Coaching: Changingclassroom practice and enhancing studentachievement. Puget Sound Center forTeaching, Learning, and Technology.Retrieved on August 26, 2008, fromhttp://www.psctlt.org/edLAB/resources/peercoachinglf.pdf.

Gajda, R. (2004). Utilizing CollaborationTheory to Evaluate Strategic Alliances.American Journal of Education,25 (1), 65-77.

Greenleaf, C., Schoenbach, R., Cziko, C.& Mueller, F. (2001). Apprenticingadolescent readers to academic literacy.Harvard Educational Review 71: 1, 79-129.

Hallinger, P. & Heck, R. (1998). Exploringthe principal’s contribution to schooleffectiveness: 1980-1995. SchoolEffectiveness and School Improvement,9(2), 157-91. Handbook of research oneducational administration (2nd ed.): 421-442. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

International Reading Association. (2006)Standards for Middle and High SchoolLiteracy Coaches. Newark, DE: Author.

Kral, C. Principal Support for LiteracyCoaching, www.literacycoachingonline.org.

Killion, J. & Harrison, C. (2005, September).Nine Roles of the School-Based Coach.Teachers Teaching Teachers 1(1).

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Lloyd, S.C. (2008, June 5). States NotchSlow, Steady Progress Toward ConsistentGraduation Goals {On-line}. Retrieved onJune 9, 2008 from http://edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/06/05/40research.h27.html.

Marsh, J. A., McCombs, J. S., Lockwood, J. R.,Martorell, F., Gershwin, D., Naftel, S., Le, V.,Shea, M., Barney, H. & Crego, A. (2008).Supporting Literacy Across the SunshineState: A Study of Florida Middle SchoolReading Coaches. Santa Monica, CA:RAND.

McLaughlin, M. W. & Talbert, J. E. (2001).Professional Communities and the Work ofHigh School Teaching. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.

National Council of Teachers of English (2004).Position Paper/Guidelines. A Call to Action:What we know about adolescent literacyand ways to support teachers in meetingstudents’ needs.

National High School Alliance (2007). EmpoweredEducators. [On-line]. Retrieved on March 20,2007 from http://www.hsalliance.org/callaction/empowerededucators/research.asp.

Newmann, F. M. (Ed.) (1992). StudentEngagement and Achievement in AmericanSecondary Schools. New York: TeachersCollege Press.

OERI, 1993, Retrieved on December 22, 2006,from http://www.ed.gov/pubs/PromPract/prom4.html.

Patton, M. (2002). Qualitative Research &Evaluation Methods (Ed.) 3. Sage Publications.Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi.

Pennsylvania Department of Education (2007).Coaching PA: Coaching as a VitalComponent of an Aligned, Standards-Based System. Harrisburg, PA: Author.

Quint, J. (2006). Meeting Five Critical Challen-ges of High School Reform: Lessons fromResearch on Three Reform Models. MRDC.

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations.(5th ed.) New York: The Free Press.

Showers, B. & Joyce, B. (1996). The Evolutionof Peer Coaching. Educational Leadership,53, 12-16.

Sizer, T.R. (1991). No Pain, No Gain.Educational Leadership.

Smylie, M. A. & Hart, A. W. (1999). Leadershipfor teacher learning and change: A socialand human capital development perspec-tive. In J. Murphy and K. S. Louis (Eds.),Handbook of Research on EducationalAdministration (2nd ed.): 421-442.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R. & Diamond, J.(2001). Investigating school leadershippractice: A distributed perspective.Educational Researcher, 30(3) 23-28.

Useem, E., Offenberg R. & Farley, E. (2007).Closing the Teacher Quality Gap inPhiladelphia: New Hope and Old Hurdles.Philadelphia: Research for Action.

Weiss, C. C. (2003, November). TheNeglected Importance of Connections:the role of student engagement in thetransition to high school. Presented atthe Association for Public Policy Analysisand Management, Washington, DC.

55

56

District High School Student Population

Bellwood Antis Bellwood Antis Medium

Erie City Central Medium

East Medium

Strong Vincent Small

Harrisburg Harrisburg Medium

SciTech Small

William Penn Small

Career and Technical Academy Small

Hazleton Hazleton Area Large

Intermediate Unit 1 Burgettstown Area Small

Charleroi Small

Jefferson Morgan Small

McGuffey Small

Mapletown Medium

Uniontown Area Medium

Albert Gallatin Senior Medium

Keystone Central Central Mountain Medium

Lancaster J. P. McCaskey Large

McCaskey East Medium

Philadelphia Germantown Large

Simon Gratz Large

Abraham Lincoln Large

William Penn Medium

Reading Reading Large

Small = 900 or less Medium = 1,800 or less

Large = over 1,800

Appendix A Participating Districts and Schools 2007-2008

57

In Year Three of PAHSCI, Research for Action mademajor departures from its original research designin response to the Initiative staff’s need for a quali-tative research effort that would be aligned with aquantitative analysis conducted by Success for All.The goal of this combined research effort was tolink student achievement gains to qualitativelyderived “treatment dosage” and “level of imple-mentation” scores for individual teachers in PAHSCIschools. In addition, Initiative staff believed that anin-depth focus on the PAHSCI mentoring processwas needed to establish the contribution ofmentoring to the overall goals of the Initiative.

In order to pursue these goals within existingresources, it was necessary for RFA to abandonthe teacher survey that it had conducted in thefirst two years of the project in order to observein a sufficient number of classrooms for thequantitative analysis. These major shifts are in thetradition of Patton’s caution to evaluators, “…thereare no perfect research designs. There are alwaystrade-offs. Limited resources, limited time andlimits on the human ability to grasp the complexnature of social reality necessitate trade-offs.”81

Below, the major qualitative data collectionand analysis activities of the Year Threeresearch are discussed.

School Site Visits

Fall/Winter 2007-2008In Fall/Winter 2007-2008, RFA researchers con-ducted fieldwork in nine schools to establish the“treatment dosage” and “implementation level”scores of tenth and eleventh grade English andmath teachers. During the site visit at each school,researchers observed a lesson by each of theteachers in the designated grades and subjectsand conducted a 20-45 minute follow-up interviewwith each teacher. RFA staff also collected andreviewed documents collected at school sitesincluding sample lesson plans and curriculummaterials from the teachers. In total, we observed102 classrooms and interviewed 109 teachers.In addition, we interviewed the instructionalcoaches who had worked with those teachersabout their work with each teacher.

The data from the Fall round of research isreported primarily in Sections Two, Three and Four.

Spring, 2008In Spring, 2008, RFA researchers conductedfieldwork in eight schools to document and assessthe mentoring process. In each of these schools,researchers interviewed the instructional coaches,school administrators, district administrators, andthe PAHSCI mentors. The interviews were semi-structured and lasted from 45 to 90 minutes.

For this report, RFA created analytic codes fortranscribed interviews and the software programAtlas.ti. was used to create a series of analyticthemes or descriptive families. Data within thedescriptive families were then analyzed to furtheridentify patterns and themes. The data from theSpring round of research is reported primarilyin Sections Two and Five. Future reports onmentoring by other research groups willalso draw from the data collected by RFA.

Documentation and Evaluation of PAHSCI Project-Wide EventsRFA attended all project-wide PAHSCI professionaldevelopment sessions including the June 2007centralized course sessions , the October statewideNetworking, the November 2007 AdministratorRetreat, and the December 2007 and May 2008Networking sessions. RFA staff attended largeand small group sessions and wrote up fieldnotesfrom their observations.

RFA administered written evaluations at thecentralized trainings and at the networking sessions.The evaluations asked participants to rate theusefulness of various sessions and gave themthe opportunity, through open-ended questions,to provide further feedback, including suggestionsfor future sessions. Evaluation responses werescanned; scaled responses were calculated throughSPSS software; and themes in the open-endedresponses were identified and coded. Theparticipant feedback was analyzed immediatelyand shared with partner organizations to informthe planning of future events.

The following is a list of the events documentedby RFA researchers:

June 2007 Centralized TrainingOctober 2007 NetworkingNovember 2007 Administrator RetreatDecember 2007 NetworkingCollaborative Coaching Board Sessions 2007Fall and Winter 2007-2008 Site VisitsSpring 2008 Site Visits

Appendix B Research Methodology

81 Patton, M. (2002). Qualitative Research & EvaluationMethods (Ed) 3. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks,London, New Delhi

Promising InRoads: Year One of the PennsylvaniaHigh School Coaching InitiativeSeptember, 2006

The Need: School districts around the nationare searching for ways to improve studentachievement as they strive to meet the ambi-tious goals of No Child Left Behind and helpall students reach high standards. Nowhere isthis task more daunting than in high schoolswhere significant numbers of students live inpoverty, come to school with special learningneeds and are disaffected and disengaged.

The Initiative: The Pennsylvania High SchoolCoaching Initiative (PAHSCI) uses instructionalcoaching to address the literacy and mathneeds of adolescents in high-need highschools in Pennsylvania. Coaching has beenidentified by researchers as a promising pro-fessional development strategy because itembeds professional learning in the daily workthat teachers do in their classrooms. The PAH-SCI design places one literacy and one mathcoach for every 600 students in 26 highschools across the Commonwealth.

FindingsThe Coaches: PAHSCI coaches were, by andlarge, veteran teachers with an average of17.5 years of teaching experience. Notably,two-thirds of the coaches came to their newrole directly from classroom teaching. Site-based hiring, recent classroom experience andveteran status earned coaches credibility withtheir teacher colleagues. Teachers expressedadmiration for coaches’ knowledge. Seventy-one percent agreed or strongly agreed that“My coach has a strong understanding of theneeds of the school,” and 71 percent agreedthat “My coach has a strong understanding ofthe PLN framework.”

Building Rapport and Trust: Coaches under-stood that their work was very much aboutbuilding relationships and that establishingrapport is a precursor to facilitating instruc-tional change.

Changing the Mind Set about ProfessionalDevelopment: School leaders began to seethe value of more intensive and focused pro-fessional development. As a result, they creat-ed more time for professional developmentand for coaches to meet with teachers.

Struggling with Role Ambiguity: Notsurprisingly, in the first year of implementation,PAHSCI coaches struggled to define their roleand articulate that role to others. Numerouscoaches reported that their administratorsand, consequently, the entire staff did notunderstand their role. However, coach/teacherinteractions increased in frequency over thecourse of the year, as did coaches’ facilitationof study groups and professional developmentsessions — both encouraging trends. Coachesreported that their partner coaches were theirstrongest source of support.

Professional development around the PLNframework with related instructional activitiesand follow-up conversations with an instruc-tional coach were correlated with teachers’adoption of new instructional strategies thatengaged students in rigorous literacy activi-ties. Teachers who participated in professionaldevelopment sessions or worked with a coachwere significantly more likely to use PLNstrategies for integrating reading, writing andoral communication into the content areas andactively engaging students in their learning.

RecommendationsExtend and deepen changesin classroom practice:

• Help teachers examine data (includingstudent work) and reflect on their implicationsfor changes in classroom practice.

• Implement study groups that bring teacherstogether to examine classroom practice byfocusing on student work.

• Develop a comprehensive strategy forpromoting writing in the content areas.

• Attend to the specific needs of mathcoaches and math teachers within theInitiative, as well as the needs of specificstudents, e.g., ELL and special needs.

Build the enabling conditions:

Provide professional development foradministrators to strengthen leadership forchange and opportunities for administrativeproblem solving across districts about commonchallenges.

Focus the work of the leadership mentorson the alignment of classroom practiceswith the PLN framework.

58

Appendix C Highlights from Year One

59

Making A Difference:Year Two Report of the PennsylvaniaHigh School Coaching InitiativeSeptember, 2007

The Initiative’s Theory of Change:The PAHSCI design is comprised of threecomponents working within a Theory ofChange to improve instruction and studentachievement. The three components are:

• instructional coaching for teachers withleadership and content mentoring forcoaches and school administrators;

• the PLN framework, a research-basedframework for incorporating literacyinstruction across the disciplines; and

• professional development for coaches,administrators, and teachers.

Together these three components worktogether to affect three school level inter-mediate outcomes: leadership development,stronger professional communities, and deepownership of PAHSCI by external and internalactors. At the classroom level, three additionalintermediate outcomes occur: literacy-richstudent-centered instruction, actively engagedstudents, and teachers skilled in research-based instructional strategies. The long termoutcome of improved student achievementoccurs when the program componentscreate the intermediate outcomes neededto accomplish this ultimate goal.

FindingsChanging Instructional Practice:PAHSCI is making a difference. Participatingteachers across the subject areas are workingwith coaches and using PLN strategies,offering more opportunities for studentsto read, write, and speak as a way of moredeeply engaging them in the ideas and skillsof the subject content. Not surprisingly, themore highly involved a teacher, the morecompetently (s)he implements the strategiesand incorporates the principles of the frame-work into his practice. In-depth professionaldevelopment on the PLN framework combinedwith the side-by-side support offered byinstructional coaches are catalyzing teacherchange in the very ways intended byprogram designers.

Increasing Student Engagement In andResponsibility For Their Learning: When teachers adopt the PLN strategies,their students are taking more active rolesin the classroom and assuming more respon-sibility for their own and their peers’ learning— quite an accomplishment, given statisticson adolescents’ disengagement, especiallythe dismal data on high school drop-out ratesin schools with large numbers of low-incomestudents. Increased student engagementis also promising as an early indicator thatmay lead to improved student achievement.

Improving School Professional Culture:In many schools, PAHSCI is supportingdevelopment of professional communitiesby influencing how teachers learn together,creating new school-based leaders, andbroadening networks of support and learningwithin schools. Because of PAHSCI, manyschool leaders are rethinking their conceptionsof professional development. They value thejob-embedded professional learning modelprovided by instructional coaching and theyare offering increasing numbers of participatingteachers the opportunity to lead professionaldevelopment about PLN strategies. The PLNframework is providing a common languageand set of principles for planning and reflectingon instruction. Advocates for instructionalcoaching and the PLN framework are increasing.

ChallengesIn order for PAHSCI’s program goals to be

achieved, all stakeholders must work togetherto overcome the challenges that can impedeprogress towards sustainability. Thesechallenges included:

• inadequate time for coaching;

• the critical importance of strong administra-tive support for instructional coaching;

• the need for continued resources; and

• a statewide commitment to instructionalcoaching beyond Year Three.

RecommendationsDistrict and School Leaders must encourageteachers, especially math teachers, toparticipate in PLN courses and one-on-onecoaching, the surest pathway to improvedinstructional practices. They must find the time

Appendix C Highlights from Year Two

necessary for coaches to work with teachers inthe meaningful ways described in the BDAconsultation cycle.

Coaches must continue to hone their skillsin order to address teachers’ concerns about:1) meeting the needs of all students especiallythose with special learning needs and2) strategies for classroom managementwhen using PLN learning activities. Theymust also make full implementation ofthe BDA consultation cycle a priority.

Mentors must support coaches in theirlearning and work with school leaders(including coaches) to remove the persistentobstacles that undercut coaches’ work andteachers’ continued learning. Mentors shouldreinforce PAHSCI’s belief that all high schoolteachers are teachers of literacy. An importantfocus should be the BDA consultation cycle.Mentors are uniquely positioned to align thework of administrators and coaches with thegoals of PAHSCI and to address the tensionsthat arise among key players and that canstymie momentum for change.

Lessons:• Tie the work of coaches to helping

teachers adopt research-basedinstructional strategies.

• Make one-on-one work with teachersa high priority and use a consultativeprocess that involves conferencingbefore and after a classroom visit.

• Make certain that there is a clear,shared understanding about therole and responsibilities of coaches.

• Assign more than one coach toa school and intentionally builda coaching team.

60

Brief Descriptions from Penn LiteracyNetwork copyrighted material 1 BACK TO TEXT:(see SUMMARIZING)

2 CHOICE IN ASSIGNMENTS:Provide choices for students; negotiatedchoices for writing.

3 CHUNKING:Taking apart pieces of any text and groupingthem into manageable learning segments. Allare strategies to improve comprehension of text.

4 CRITICAL READING:Rereading activities/going back to the text,enabling students to infer correctly; strategicreading.

5 DO NOWS:Type 1/Type 2 writings — often usedto model and guide student responses;usually stimulate interest.

6 DOCUMENT REVIEW:Activity to celebrate, understand and instructusing student writing samples.

7 FCA’S:Focus Correction Areas used to simplify qualityfeedback and focus student writing. (Specificareas to be corrected: For example — punctu-ation, varied sentence structure, spelling.)

8 GUIDED LECTURE PROCEDURE:Before/During/After experiences usingstructured overviews, Cornell note-making,processing of key words, and questionsto guide and understand lectures.

9 I-SEARCH:Personalized, streamlined research acrosscontent areas.

10 JIGSAW/EXPERT JIGSAW:Cooperative Learning Task — Chunking textin expert groups and home-group/sharingteams. Students become expert in one areaand share their knowledge with home group.This is a complete BDA experience.

11 JOURNALISM/FREE WRITING:Connecting students’ ideas to classroomcontexts.

12 KEY TERM:Before reading — choose one key term fromthe reading. This requires students to write andconnect their feeling about term. This is a pre-dictive/reflective type of writing experience.

13 KWL:Structure/graphic organizer for connectingthe new to the known through an activelearning process.

14 LITERATURE CIRCLES:Activity to provide motivation and choicein student reading by assigning roles toindividual members of cooperative groups.This activity enhances comprehension ofa novel through group dynamics.

15 MENTAL IMAGING:Making a “mind picture” using verbalclues as a descriptive tool.

16 NOTE-MAKING:Double entry/Cornell note-making — requiresstudents to connect, question, and interactwith text. (For example — Key terms on left.Main ideas and questions on right)

17 ON DEMAND PROMPTS:Type 3 writing assignments tied to instruction.

18 PAIR/SHARE:This during activity requires students to read(together) and discuss their understanding ofthe text. They share their understanding of thetext (during the paired reading) and go backand forth in their discussion, stopping todiscuss and make connections with the text.

19 PARAGRAPH FRAMES:A type of model and checklist used toassure that all components of a well-writtenparagraph are present.

20 PARAPHRASING:(see SUMMARIZING)

21 PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT:A method of assessing student understandingand application of material. It requires studentsto demonstrate that they have masteredspecific skills and competencies byperforming or producing something.

22 POINT OF VIEW REWRITE:Rewritten retellings from a particularcharacter’s point of view.

23 PREVIEWING AND PREDICTING:For all content areas — using student’sprior knowledge to focus, motivate, and provide interest.

24 READ ALOUD THINK ALONG:Teacher and student modeling, oral readingof questions and connections about text.

61

Appendix D Penn Literacy Network Strategies

25 REFLECTIVE WRITING:This is a before activity which asks studentsto connect with the text before they transactwith text, enabling students to tap priorknowledge.

26 REVISION AND PEER REVISION:Used in Type 3, 4, and 5 writing assign- ments and includes one-foot voice, partnerread-alouds, as well as individual revision.

27 RUBRICS:Criteria for assessment and teaching.Can include teacher-made or student-madeassessment; benchmarks for scoring.

28 SELF-QUESTIONING:BDA activity, with students creating questionsthat may be answered from text.

29 SUMMARIZING:(Strategies 1, 20 & 25) After reading activitiesto improve comprehension, understandingand connection to materials.

30 TEMPLATES:(Same things) These are used to modeland guide student responses.

31 TEXT RENDERING:During activity requiring students to go backto text, evaluate and choose key sentences,phrases, and words to express the main ideaor make connections. This can be done orallyin a large/small group and/or in writing.

32 TICKET OUT THE DOOR: 82

Type 1/Type 2 writings — often used to modeland guide student responses; usually summa-rizing or reflecting. Students turn in as theyleave the classroom.

33 TRANSACTING WITH TEXT:Constructing meaning from text and applyingstudent-text-context interactions.

34 WORD SPLASH:Choose keywords and phrases from a story;requires students to use these words in acreative writing piece before reading thetext. Key issue: Limit the number ofwords; this is a prediction task also.

82 This strategy appeared in classroom observationsand teacher interviews; it was not on the surveygiven to teachers.

TYPE 1-5 WRITING:

35 Type 1: Capture IdeasWriting that has no correct answer — or, ifthere is a correct answer, it’s okay to guess.One draft.

36 Type 2: Respond CorrectlyWriting that makes a point — has correctanswer or content. One draft.

37 Type 3: Edit for FCAsWriting that is read aloud and reviewedby the author who then asks three criticalquestions: Does it complete the assignment?Is it easy to read? Does it fulfill the focuscorrection areas? One draft.

38 Type 4: Peer Edit for FCAsWriting that is Type 3 writing and hasbeen read aloud and critiqued by another.Two drafts.

39 Type 5: PublishWriting that is publishable, that can gooutside the classroom without explanationor qualification. Multiple drafts.

62

63

Appendix E Visitation Rubric

64

65

Weekly Strategy Use Among All Teachers

Appendix F English and Math Teachers Report of Weekly PLN Use

Percent Reporting Weekly Use of Strategy

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%Teaching Strategy

Do NowsPair/Share

RubricsRead Aloud Think Along

Text RenderingReflective Writing

Previewing & PredictingCritical Reading

Note-MakingChunking

Writing Type 1Guided Lecture Procedure

SummarizingWord Splash

ParaphrasingKey Term

KWLWriting Type 2

Mental ImagingTemplates

JigsawFCA’s

Journalism/Free WritingTransacting with Text

Self-QuestioningPerformance Assessment

Choice in AssignmentsOn Demand Prompts

Revision & Peer RevisionBack to Text

Writing Type 3Point of View Rewrites

Document ReviewI-Search

Writing Type 4Paragraph Frames

Writing Type 5Literature

66

Weekly Strategy Use Among English Teachers

Percent Reporting Weekly Use of Strategy

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%Teaching Strategy

Do NowsPair/Share

Text RenderingPreviewing & Predicting

Reflective WritingCritical Reading

Writing Type 1Read Aloud Think Along

RubricsNote-MakingSummarizing

FCA’sGuided Lecture Procedure

ChunkingKWL

Journalism/Free WritingParaphrasingWord Splash

Writing Type 2Transacting with Text

Key TermMental Imaging

JigsawChoice in Assignments

On Demand PromptsSelf-Questioning

TemplatesRevision & Peer Revision

Back to TextPoint of View Rewrites

Writing Type 3Performance Assessment

Document ReviewWriting Type 4

I-SearchWriting Type 5

Paragraph FramesLiterature Circles

67

Weekly Strategy Use Among Math Teachers

Percent Reporting Weekly Use of Strategy

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%Teaching Strategy

Do NowsPair/Share

RubricsRead Aloud Think Along

Reflective WritingChunking

Critical ReadingPreviewing & Predicting

Text RenderingNote-Making

Guided Lecture ProcedureWord Splash

Key TermPerformance Assessment

TemplatesParaphrasingWriting Type 1Summarizing

Writing Type 2Mental Imaging

KWLJigsaw

Self-QuestioningTransacting with Text

Choice in AssignmentsJournalism/Free Writing

FCA’sRevision & Peer Revision

Back to TextOn Demand Prompts

I-SearchDocument Review

Writing Type 3Paragraph FramesLiterature Circles

Writing Type 4Writing Type 5

Point of View Rewrites

School Focus Areas Listed School #1* PLN strategies to support literacy in each

content area.

PLN strategies to support writingthroughout the curriculum.

PLN strategies to support math problem-solving.

School #2 PLN strategies to support literacy in eachcontent area.

School #3 New Teacher Induction Programssupported by coaches.

PLN strategies to model and reinforcefor teachers in each content area/trades.

Developing a framework for data to becollected and analyzed.

School #4 PLN strategies to support instructionin the four core academic disciplines:language arts, mathematics, science,and social studies.

PLN strategies to support reading, writingand applications of mathematics acrossthese curricular areas.

PLN strategies to support faculty in thefine and practical arts, if time allows.

School #5 PLN strategies to support the instructionalfocus areas identified in math and reading.

School #6 Data analysis to identify staff and/orcontent areas to be addressed.

The reading and math coach supportingapproximately eight teachers.

School #7 Data analysis to identify staff and/orcontent areas to be addressed.

The reading and math coach supportingapproximately eight teachers.

School #8 On-site professional development forlanguage arts and mathematics teachers.

Training teachers to study student dataand design instruction according toidentified needs.

School #9 To encourage progressive growth inreading, writing, and problem solvingwith PLN strategies.

School #10 Implementation of the instructional focusareas identified in math and reading.

*Randomly ordered

School Focus Areas Listed School #11 Data analysis to identify staff and/or

content areas to be addressed.

The reading and math coach supportingapproximately eight teachers.

School #12 To meet the SLC goals with PLN strategiesin math, literacy, and PSSA’s.

Creation of a pacing guide to incorporatePSSA eligible content, subject specificcurriculum, and assessments.

School #13 PLN strategies to support readingand writing across the curriculum witha concentration on measurement.

Data statistics and probability, andalgebraic concepts in math.

Understanding, analyzing, and interpretingnonfiction text in English.

School #14 The implementation of PLN Strategiesto increase literacy and numeracy inall content areas.

School #15 Providing students with more opportunitiesto speak, to read, and to write about whatthey are learning in all content areas.

Use of oral language to explore and deepentheir understanding of various disciplines.

School #16 PLN strategies to support teachers in allsubject areas.

Incorporating literacy, writing, and talkingstrategies into content area instruction.

Monitoring standardized test data includingPSSA scores, Terra Nova scores,Benchmark tests, and student portfolios.

School #17 PLN strategies to support studentengagement in the 9th Grade Academy.

The 9th grade math, English, and TeamLeaders will be the focus group.

A resource center that will be createdfor teachers to access to integratenew methods into their lessons.

School #18 PLN strategies to focus learningacross all disciplines.

A bell-to-bell classroom structure utilizingthe PLN framework aligned with mathand reading assessment anchors that aredesigned to integrate mathematics andliteracy into the educational curriculum

Appendix G Participants’ List of Focus Areas

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About the Authors

Diane Brown, Ed.D., is team leader of the Pennsylvania High SchoolCoaching Initiative and a thirty-year veteran educator, retired fromthe Philadelphia School District. She has extensive experience at RFAwith youth action research programs — as the Director of RFA’s SistersTogether in Action Research (STAR), a leadership and literacy develop-ment program for low-income, adolescent girls of color (1998-2004)and as the team leader of RFA’s Action Research Camp, a summerprogram for teaching action research skills (2004-2005).

Rebecca Reumann-Moore, Ph.D., has worked in a range of educationalsettings, particularly adult literacy programs. She is co-team leaderof the Carnegie-funded project, Going Small, which is looking at thetransition to small high schools in Philadelphia. At RFA, she has workedon a range of projects with many overlapping themes including usingprofessional development as part of a larger change initiative; buildingeffective partnerships between non-profit organizations and schools;and building community in large educational institutions.

Roseann Hugh entered the educational landscape with themotivation to provide quality learning opportunities to urbanchildren and youth. Working towards those goals she receivedher M.Ed. from Teachers College in educational leadership andpolicy. In addition, she taught in a New York City charter schooland public school, as well as worked at the New York StateEducation Department where she wrote a policy brief entitled,The Path to Charter Renewal.

Jolley Bruce Christman, Ph.D., is a Founder and Principal of Researchfor Action. She has published in the areas of urban high school reform,instructional communities, civic capacity in urban public schools, stu-dents’ perspectives on their educational experience, and evaluationmethodology. She recently served as a director of the Learning fromPhiladelphia’s School Reform, a five-year study funded by the WilliamPenn Foundation. She also completed a five-year evaluation ofPhiladelphia’s systemic reform effort, Children Achieving.

Morgan Riffer is a Research and Technology Assistant at Researchfor Action. Her work at RFA includes research and technologyassistance for the projects Learning from Philadelphia’s School Reform,an evaluation of the New Jersey Graduate Teaching Fellows Program,and an evaluation of the Pennsylvania High School Coaching Initiative.Publications include Time to Engage? Civic Participation in Philadel-phia’s School Reform with Eva Gold, Maia Cucchiara and Elaine Simon,and Contracting Out Schools: The First Year of the PhiladelphiaDiverse Provider Model with Katrina Bulkley and Leah Mundell.She has a B.A. in Anthropology from Haverford College.

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