Thursday, May 18, 2023
Written by Lisa Stein, Education Consultant, Student Services Prevention and Wellness, DPI
As another school year comes to a close, you may be reflecting upon and celebrating your coaching success. Questioning which objectives were met and which missed the mark support continuous improvement of your own coaching practice or the practice of your organization’s coaching program.
Know Thy Impact. –John Hattie
Here are a few things to consider when navigating the questions that come to mind about coaching this time of year.
Previous Coaching Chronicle articles offer support and suggestions on how to set goals for improvement and helpful tools. Check out Coaching System Data Matrix chronicles to find the coaching system development worksheet. Visit The PDSA Cycle for more learning about this process of goal setting for system change. Also introduced in the chronicles is the Coaching Competency Practice Profile (CCPP) found at the DPI’s Coaching website. Now is an excellent time to reevaluate your coaching skills using the Coaching Capacity Self-Assessment; identifying your individual coaching skills and needs related to the CCPP.
One such resource shared is the National Implementation Research Network’s (NIRN) tool called The Hexagon Discussion & Analysis Tool. This tool helps organizations evaluate new and existing programs and practices. It offers indicators to understand how well, in this case, your coaching or coaching program aligns to the needs of your site. Interestingly, coaching is found by NIRN to accelerate the implementation of a program, practice, innovation AND increase the fidelity to the design. Let’s hold the meta-mirror up to the implementation of coaching.
The Hexagon tool can be used at any of the active stages of implementation: exploration, installation, initial implementation or full implementation. After identifying where you fall in implementing coaching at your site, then take a closer look at each of the indicators.
The tool is helpful in designing the program; this might be considered the exploration phase. But if you are a leader who assigns the role of coaching or if you are assigned the role of coaching, most likely your school or district has already developed a coaching program and all that goes into implementing an innovation like coaching, i.e., you are past the exploration phase.
Yes, coaching is an innovation. Coaching is a set of behaviors. It captures and moves us to visible learning and ultimately has the potential to transform systems. Develop language and define coaching amongst your school improvement plan (SIP) team or implementation team. Align coaching to other initiatives because coaching is a driver of implementation success. Bring coherence to understanding the outcomes for coaching at your site.
Next, discuss and analyze both the implementation site indicator category and the program indicators category. Rate each of the six on a 5-point Likert scale.
Implementation Site Indicators
- Capacity to implement: Consider if staff have the capacity to be coached and how well a coach can collect appropriate feedback and data to monitor progress. Internal and external communication with stakeholders can increase engagement and importance of coaching goals. Bring in administrative policies or procedures that support a positive culture of coaching. And identify the small changes coaching promotes in daily practice. Be careful to ensure you are caring for yourself as well as others.
- Fits with current initiatives: Consider the fit of the coaching model and practice to the school’s culture. Define and communicate how coaching supports teachers, staff, and classrooms to meet the needs of the community and is in support of other prioritized initiatives.
- Need: Consider how coaching fits the needs of the teaching staff or community. What outcomes are identified that support the instruction and well-being of the staff to best show up for students?
Program Indicators
- Evidence: Consider the research of coaching as an improvement strategy. What is the strength of the evidence and how does this evidence speak to the needs of your organization? Align the research and data to the cultural and linguistic needs of your population.
- Usability: Define the coaching practice and how you operationalize it. Make sure that your staff understands how to prepare. Make your work transparent so that everyone knows what to expect and how to prepare for coaching cycles.
- Supports: Consider how coaches will be supported. Coaches need coaching, professional development, and cohorts to develop improvement goals in practice. Coaches need feedback and a community to discuss barriers and challenges. Facilitating change is a skill and is found to be an area of growth for Wisconsin coaches, especially generating productive conflict (see You’re Not the Only One). What might support coaches in building this skill and other areas of the practice profile?
Coaching is a driver of successful implementation and is an initiative that requires its own monitoring and fidelity checks. Do this while celebrating the trust, relationships, and belonging that are also outcomes of good coaching. Knowing the impact of coaching will have a positive effect on your community.
Remember, while coaching with compassion and caring for others as you transform systems, care for yourself and be well.