Using the content-focused Coaching®
Model to Support Early childhood
Literacy and Language Development
Pre and Post Conferences
With Coaches and Teachers
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
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• “One of the central goals of an early
childhood program is the
development of young children’s
speaking, listening and oral
language skills”
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Supporting Oral Language, Vocabulary and
Concept Development through Rich Text Discussion and
Related Learning Opportunities, Text Talk Unit Overview
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Intended Learning
• Understand the importance of reading aloud in early
childhood settings to promote oral language
development
• Discuss how reading aloud can help children to
understand more from the texts that others read to
them and to develop rigorous comprehension habits
• Recognize how each opportunity to discuss books
supports young children’s oral language, concept and
vocabulary development
• Consider the conditions and teacher moves that make
these talk opportunities possible
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Review Norms for Collective Study
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“Coaching provides the venue, rich with
language and skills, to seek, find and
develop the best within. Coaching offers
the pathway for new responses, new
awareness, new results.”
Key, Anderson, Dearing, Harris & Shuster, 2010
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
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Encouraging Young Children’s Language
Interactions with Stories
Task 1
Part I: Text Discussion
Reflect on your reading.
Individually, review the article, Encouraging Young Children’s Language
Interactions with stories by Beck and McKeown. Take notes focusing on
the guiding questions listed on your task sheet.
•What are the researchers saying about the benefits of the Read Aloud
and its potential to build literacy development?
•What do the authors want us to understand about effective talk in the
classroom?
•What do the authors want us to understand about effective questions
and how we scaffold children as they learn to discuss text?
•What must teachers learn to do in order to scaffold children’s
responses?
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
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Encouraging Young Children’s Language
Interactions with Stories
Task 1
Part II: Text Discussion
In small groups, share your notes and insights.
•What portions of the text were most notable?
•What surprised you, if anything?
•What points do you most agree with?
•What, if anything, challenged your thinking?
•What are the implications in leading this work on your campuses?
Have one member of your group chart the key points in your
discussion.
As a whole group, continue the text discussion, using the charts
developed in small groups to guide and grow the conversation.
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Content-Focused Coaching®
Content-Focused Coaching® is the regular, on-going
examination of classroom practice in a content area
through the lens of the Core Issues.
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Focuses on the concrete, actual tasks, questions, and
problems of practice
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Provides educators with an opportunity to learn from
each other and develop common habits of reflective
practice
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Contributes to the development of a collaborative
learning community
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Promotes high achievement for all students
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Framework for Rigorous, Standards-based Instruction
WHAT?
HOW?
What will be the specific
content of this lesson?
How will that
content be taught?
WHO?
WHY?
Why is this the
content to be taught?
Why is the
content taught in
this particular way?
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Klafki (1958,1995)
Aebli (1951, 1987)
Core Issues of Lesson Design and Reflection
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WHAT?
1. What is the intended student learning? What are the skills, concepts, habits of mind being
developed?
2. To what standard(s) is the lesson content connected?
3. What difficulties, misunderstandings, or misconceptions might students have about this
content?
4. What theories of teaching and learning support this lesson design?
HOW?
5. How will the teacher model/explain clear expectations for the students’ learning?
6. How will each activity promote rigorous thinking?
7. How will students be grouped for learning? How is the grouping related to the lesson
content?
8. How will accountable student talk and collaboration be encouraged in an atmosphere of
mutual
respect?
9. How will students make public their thinking and learning?
10. How will assistance be provided to individual students (struggling students as well as those
needing an extra challenge)?
11. How will student learning be assessed by the teacher and by the students themselves?
12. How will student accomplishment be recognized?
13. How will the teacher do things differently the next time? How will instruction proceed from
here?
WHY?
14. Why is the lesson content appropriate to the students’ learning needs and prior knowledge?
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Core Issues of Lesson Design and Reflection
WHAT?
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What is the intended student learning? What are the
skills, concepts, habits of mind being developed?
•
To what standard (s) is the lesson connected?
•
What difficulties, misunderstandings, or
misconceptions might students have with this content?
4. What theories of teaching and learning support this
lesson design?
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Core Issues of Lesson Design and Reflection
HOW?
5. How will the teacher model/explain clear expectations for
students’ learning?
6. How will each activity promote rigorous thinking?
7. How will students be grouped for learning? How is the grouping
related to the lesson content?
8. How will accountable student talk and collaboration be
encouraged in atmosphere of mutual respect?
9. How will students make public their thinking and learning?
10. How will assistance be provided to individual students (struggling
students as well as those needing an extra challenge)?
11. How will student learning be assessed by the teacher and by the
students themselves?
12. How will student accomplishment be recognized?
13. How will the teacher do things differently the next time? How will
instruction proceed from here?
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Core Issues of Lesson Design and Reflection
WHY?
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Why is the lesson content appropriate to the
students’ learning needs and prior knowledge?
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Why are these instructional strategies/learning
activities appropriate to the lesson goals?
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Using the Core Issues
• They are…
• A mental map of core
instructional issues
• A frame for the conversation
with the teacher
• A way for a teacher to share
his/her thinking and planning
for the lesson
• A tool for keeping the focus on
the intended student learning
rather than on what the
teacher is doing “right” or
“wrong”
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
They are NOT…
• A checklist: Every
conversation does not have to
discuss each of these
questions, or in any order.
• Exhaustive: There are many
other specific questions a
coach or teacher may pose for
discussion during a preconference.
• Meant to be used verbatim:
The selection and the wording
of the issues and questions
need to be adapted based on
the coach’s knowledge of and
relationship with the teacher.
Discussion Question:
How can teachers and coaches become more
familiar with and comfortable using the Core
Issues?
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Summary Points: How can teachers and coaches
become familiar with and comfortable using the Core
Issues?
• Make them public for the entire faculty.
• Focus on a few at a time.
• Talk about them in grade level team meetings, faculty
meetings, parent meetings.
• Use them to plan professional development.
• Participate in a CFC experience
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Opportunities for Developing Habit of Talk
Discussion Books
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Intended Learning
• To recognize how each opportunity to discuss books
supports young children’s oral language, concept,
and vocabulary development
• To consider the conditions and teacher moves that
make these talk opportunities possible
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
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Task 2
Part I: Analyzing the Pre-conference
Individually, Read the video transcript of a coach and two preschool
teachers at Ysleta Head Start. The educators are discussing the
preparation for a Rigorous Comprehension Lesson. They are preparing to
introduce a Unit on Nature and introducing the text, Fletcher and the
Leaves. Head Start Site: Ysleta
Date: April 2012
Site Manager: Ms. Hickey
Teachers: Ms. Almonza, Ms. Sanchez
Coach: Ms. Gonzales
Take notes on the attached sheet to answer the guiding questions below.
Be prepared to share your notes with your colleagues.
•What preparation occurred prior to the pre-conference for the teacher?
For the Coach? Be specific and cite evidence.
•What tools help guide the discussion?
•What are the Coach and teacher saying and doing?
•What problems of practice get identified for the lesson?
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
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Task 2, continued
Part II: Implications for Practice
As a whole group, we will consider the following questions:
•What needs to occur before an effect Read-aloud lesson is
implemented?
•How can a coach assist you in improving your teacher practice?
•What practices do you want to integrate into the classroom when
discussing books with children?
•What scaffolding and supports are discussed?
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Summary Slides: Prepare, Teach and Reflect
Preparation for the lesson
•Read the lesson and text before you present to
students
•Consider the Core Issue focused in the lesson plans
and think beyond to the students in your classroom
•Practice reading ahead of time
•Plan additional follow-up questions based on the
knowledge you have about your students
•Prepare the necessary vocabulary and activities
students will engage in
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Summary Points: Content-Focused Coaching
• The focus of the coach/teacher work is the development of students’
learning through rigorous, content-specific lessons and the teacher’s
learning to plan and enact such lessons independently.
• Lessons are planned, enacted, and analyzed in a pre-conference,
teaching the lesson, post-conference.
• Dialogues examine the relationship between the lesson content,
instructional approaches, assessment data, and theories of teaching
and learning.
• Lesson planning and reflection are made more rigorous when
coaches and teachers specifically address expectations for and
evidence of student learning, using concrete tools, such as curricular
materials and student work, to focus the conversation.
• The coach and teacher consider themselves to be learners in their
work together and hold themselves jointly accountable for students
learning in the lessons they plan, model, co-teach, and analyze.
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
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Practices that support learning
• Observing practice and assessing our own
practice
• Studying the moves that teachers make to
support comprehension
• Applying the Principals of Learning to our
classroom practice, paying focusing attention
to Accountable Talk® Practices by the teacher
and students
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Accountable Talk Teacher Moves and Functions
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Marking
Challenging
Modeling
Pressing for Accuracy
Building on Prior Knowledge
Pressing for Reasoning
Expanding Reasoning
Recapping
Keeping the Channels Open
Keeping Everyone Together
Linking Contributions
Verifying and Clarifying
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Purposeful, Coherent,& Productive Group
Discussion
Marking
Direct attention to the value and importance of
a contribution
Challenging
Redirect a question back to the students or
use student’s contributions as a source for a
further challenge or inquiry.
Modeling
Make one’s thinking public and demonstrate a
total performance in order to help learners
understand the essence of the activity and to
develop a mental picture of what the real thing
looks like.
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Accountability to Accurate Knowledge
Pressing for
Accuracy
Direct attention to the value and importance of
a contribution
Building on
Prior
Knowledge
Redirect a question back to the students or
use student’s contributions as a source for a
further challenge or inquiry.
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Accountability to Rigorous Thinking
Pressing for
Reasoning
Elicit evidence and establish what contribution
a student’s utterance is intended to make
within the group’s larger enterprise.
Expanding
Reasoning
Open up extra time and space in the
conversation for student reasoning.
Recapping
Make public in a concise, coherent way, the
group’s developed, shared understanding of
the content or text under discussion.
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Accountability to the Learning Community
Keeping the
Channels
Open
Ensure that students can hear each other, and
remind them that they must hear what others
have said.
Keeping
Everyone
Together
Ensure that everyone not only heard, but also
understood what the speaker said.
Linking
Contributions
Make explicit the relationship between a new
contribution and what has gone on before.
Verifying and
Clarifying
Revoice a student’s contribution, thereby
helping both speakers and listeners to engage
more profitably in the conversation.
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Task 3
Part I: Analyzing the Lesson
Individually, Read the transcript of a rigorous comprehension lesson.
Head Start Site: Ysleta
Date: April 2012
Site Manager: Ms. Hickey
Teachers: Ms. Almonza, Ms. Sanchez
Coach: Ms. Gonzales
Text: Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson
Take notes on the attached sheet to answer the guiding questions below.
Be prepared to share your notes with your colleagues.
•What practices and language does the teacher use to help students
understand what’s happening in the text?
•How are the children responding to the teacher's questions? What are
they saying and doing?
•What do you think the teacher did to prepare so that the children were
able to discuss the text from what we read in the transcript?
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Task 3
Part II: Implications for Practice
As a whole group, we will consider the following questions:
•What transcript examples seem close to what’s already happening in your
classroom or in the classrooms you support?
•What practices do we want to integrate into the classroom when
discussing books with children?
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Summary Points: The Teacher
Rigorous Comprehension Instruction
• Explains why this book was selected for a Read Aloud and links it
to other learning
• Orients the children to the title, author and illustrator
• Stops at carefully selected moments in the text
• Asks text-based open-ended questions that require children to
describe and explain text ideas
• Call upon several children to answer the same question thereby
providing multiple opportunities for children to use expressive and
receptive language.
• Restates what children say in standard English
• Gently redirects children to the words in the text when they make
tangentially related comments.
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Summary Points: The Teacher
Rigorous Comprehension Instruction
• Scaffolds children’s thinking by using their initial responses
to form questions that encourage elaboration and
development of initial ideas
• Asks if children agree and disagree with the author, with
peers or the teacher and explain why.
• Supports individual children to say more by paraphrasing
what the student said and asking if this is what they meant.
• Calls upon a wide range of children for their opions about
how the characters behave, solve problems, feel, think
• Prompts particular children to use more expressive
language by intentionally calling upon selected individuals to
add on to what someone else has said…
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Summary Points: The Student
Rigorous Comprehension Instruction
• Provide more than one word answers to initial or follow-up
questions that describe or explain ideas
• Use their own words to explain again what someone else
has already said
• When directed, stop at interesting, puzzling, confusing,
funny or other meaningful points in the story and talk to their
partners about the meaning of the words or story ideas.
• Pay close attention to language (rather than illustrations) as
the way to make sense of complex texts
• Use talk as a vehicle for communicating their thinking.
•
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Summary Points: The Student
Rigorous Comprehension Instruction
• Say whether they agree or disagree with the author, with
peers or the teacher and explain why
• Respond when asked to same more
• Responds when asked if this is what they meant
• Respond when asked to add on to what someone else has
said
• Elaborate on their initial answers when asked
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Task 4
Part I: Analyzing the Post Conference
Individually, Read the transcript of a rigorous comprehension lesson Post
Conference.
Head Start Site: Ysleta
Date: April 2012
Site Manager: Ms. Hickey
Teachers: Ms. Almonza, Ms. Sanchez
Coach: Ms. Gonzales
Text: Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson
Take notes on the attached sheet to answer the guiding questions below.
Be prepared to share your notes with your colleagues.
•What preparation occurred prior to the post-conference for the teacher?
For the coach? Be specific and cite evidence from the transcript.
•What are the coach and teacher saying and doing?
•What problems of practice are discussed following the lesson?
•What are the next steps discussed for the teacher and the coach?
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Task 4
Part II: Analyzing the Post Conference
As a whole group, we will consider the following questions:
•In what ways can thoughtful reflection about our implementation of a
lesson improve teacher practice?
•Site Managers, Coaches, Co-teachers and Colleagues can all engage in
Instructional conversations that support classroom practice. Consider your
experience engaging in these shared learning practices. What were the
benefits? What were the challenges?
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Summary Points: Reflecting on our Learning
• Administrators, coaches, teachers, and students are accountable for
the achievement of rigorous academic standards by all students.
• All members of the community take responsibility for continuous
learning in service of that goal
• It is safe to make the effort and take risks as a learner
• It is the responsibility of all educators to advance their own practice,
content knowledge, knowledge of the curriculum, and pedagogy
• Participating in a Content-focused Coaching Model allows educators
to advance their learning and practice
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•
“When educators speak with clarity, possibility, and
accountability, and when they interact with others in
respectful and mutually satisfying ways, they
empower themselves and their organizations to
produce extraordinary results.”
•
© 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Dennis Sparks
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Reflection
1.
What is the most significant thing you learned from
this article and/or our discussion? Why is it
significant?
2.
What ideas from the transcripts and our discussion
are you interested in learning more about? Why?
3.
What is the one thing you will try or do differently
based on your learning and our discussion?
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