Practice-based coaching for project-based teaching: Understanding relationships between coaching practice and teaching practice

Only a limited amount of scholarship on practice-based teacher education has investigated the relationship between practice-based pedagogies of teacher education and teachers' subsequent classroom practice. This mixed methods study addresses this gap by investigating relationships between how coaches represent, decompose, and approximate practice and how teachers go on to enact those practices in K-12 classrooms. Quantitative findings illustrate that longer episodes of decomposition in teacher coaching sessions are predictive of teachers' subsequent growth in observation protocol scores. Qualitative analyses reveal that longer episodes of decomposition typically involve opportunities for teacher learners to play a role in the decomposition process. These findings have significant implications for instructional coaches and teacher educators, those designing instructional coach and teacher educator learning opportunities, and future research into the practices of instructional coaches and teacher educators.

Automated summary

This mixed methods study investigates the relationship between practice-based pedagogies of teacher education and teachers' subsequent classroom practice. The quantitative findings show that longer episodes of decomposition in teacher coaching sessions predict teachers' growth in observation protocol scores. The qualitative analyses reveal that longer episodes of decomposition involve opportunities for teacher learners to participate in the process. These findings have significant implications for instructional coaches, teacher educators, and future research.