Abstract
Teachers have professional capacity to influence their peers in a way that shapes improvement across the profession without the evaluative component principals carry as supervisors. To build this professional capacity, highly effective teachers may engage in instructional coaching to help teachers gain the necessary skills to increase efficacy and effectiveness. When teachers take on the role of instructional coach, there must also be an intentional purpose toward the relationships that take place between the principal, coach, and teacher to ensure an effective approach in commitment to teacher growth. Thjs chapter posits that elementary literacy is critical in building the foundational skills that are necessary for student success as they progress into secondary settings, providing college and career readiness. This chapter will address a conceptual framework for evidence-based instructional coaching to improve writing instruction in elementary schools.
TopMain Focus Of The Chapter
The authors’ positionality is that elementary literacy is critical in building the foundational skills that are necessary for student success as they progress into secondary settings, providing college and career readiness. This chapter will address the following, demonstrating a proposed conceptual framework for evidence-based instructional coaching to improve writing instruction in elementary schools:
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Effective elementary writing instruction
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Literacy-focused instructional leadership
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Evidence-based instructional coaching practices
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Essentials of professional development
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Implications for future research
Before unpacking how instructional leadership for writing instruction can be implemented, it is first important to develop an understanding of what effective writing instruction means, how it looks, and strategies to support it.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Teacher Development: The process by which teachers increase knowledge, skills, and efficacy in teaching.
Writing Instruction: Instruction that includes all components of the writing process, involving planning, drafting, sharing, evaluating, revising, editing, and publishing.
Teacher Leadership: Formal and informal roles, where teachers employ leadership skills for advocacy, instruction, policy, and peer-to-peer influence.
Evidence-Based Practices: Practices of teaching and learning that are confirmed by empirical study and cited in peer-reviewed literature.
Instructional Leadership: A vested oversight of and influence over effective instruction in a school that includes curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
Professional Learning: Individual, paired, collaborative opportunities for teachers to study and reflect on their practices, learn new skills, and share ideas.
Instructional Coaching: Peer-to-peer influence of instruction by a knowledgeable teacher as an alternative means of professional learning, engaging in activities such as co-teaching, co-planning, observations, analysis of student data.
Elementary Teaching: Instruction that occurs in grades kindergarten through fifth grade, including all content areas of study.