About the Practice
Science Coaching that emphasizes literacy and inquiry through ISA. Our coach, Miriam, comes once a week, meets our living environment teacher, observes him, and plans with him the next few lessons of the unit during the course of one whole school day. She brings resources that support the teacher’s work and makes their lives easier by helping them plan out lessons and performance tasks.
Target Population/Total Students:
9th grade living environment, 125 freshmen students
Challenges:
- Coach must be consistent every week and meet for particular periods.
- Coach and administration and teacher have to have agreed upon vision of course
- Coach must bring resources that are a genuine help to teachers, not increase their work or they will not be as open to ideas
How did school overcome challenges?
Our coach through ISA Miriam, is consistent with our teachers, always has great ideas and supplements them with documents, websites, and actual plans that teachers can use. She understands the vision of the school and has experience creating project based Science curriculum. She also has a breadth of knowledge about other schools and shares that with us.
How did you evaluate that this practice was effective?
Through observations of the teacher, and through weekly meetings with the coach, we have found this practice was effective in changing the expectations of the students. They read and write in almost every class, and in the field of science, this is a great measure of effectiveness.
How will you continue to sustain this practice?
We will continue to work with our ISA coach next year, and memorialize all the units electronically so that they are sustainable for future years.