By Jill Jackson

    There is so much research and data that support the notion that our current forms of professional development (the “sit and get” style that we’re used to) are lacking in their impact on teachers and students. I often say that, if the amount of professional development equaled the level of student achievement, companies like mine wouldn’t even exist. After all, what we see again and again is that teachers aren’t lacking in professional development or training; they’re struggling to get the training content into regular practice in their classrooms. 

    The research on coaching is clear: true impact on quality instructional practice comes through a combination of research, training, modeling, feedback and, most importantly, coaching. Coaching is the relationship-driven focus on the technical aspects of the instructional “give-and-take” between the teacher and the students. 

There are many ways to spend coaching time:

• Spending hours tracking and plotting data
• On-the-fly subbing in small groups when the teacher or instructional aide is absent
• Supporting teachers with their managerial tasks
• Working only with certain teachers who ask for help
• Chronically attending professional development meetings or seminars
• Bar coding the latest shipment of instructional materials
• Spending hours working on the instructional schedule

    But if coaches are spending time on crunching the data—instead of spending time with the teachers in their classrooms—the quality of teaching will suffer. If we gather every material and run every copy of a master that teachers might need, the quality of teaching will suffer. If we decide to “pull kids” into a small group as a Band-Aid to interventions, the quality of teaching will suffer. And if we beat around the bush and deliver feedback and information to a group of teachers instead of one-on-one to teachers in real time, the quality of teaching will suffer. While none of these coaching activities is negative or bad, the sum of these does not equal the impact on student achievement that working one-on-one with a teacher can have.

    Now I must say, I’ve never caught a coach sitting around getting her nails done or with her feet up eating bonbons (although that’s what some teachers think coaches do). In fact, I have known many coaches who are wildly busy! They are just wildly busy with things that don’t relate to the quality of teaching. 

Is that you?

    It is essential to recommit to what coaching is and what it isn’t, and align our work to what’s happening smack-dab in the classrooms every day. Consider this as you align yourself to what really gets coaching results:

    I know this to be true: there is no coaching activity or task completed that will trump the return on investment of getting into a classroom and supporting a teacher before, during, and after instruction. 

    Many coaches spend way too much planning time, collaboration time, professional development time, and leadership and coaching time merely talking about things teachers should do. Very little, if any, actual in-classroom coaching is taking place—and that is why the return on investment of professional development is so low. We have ignored the data that tell us coaching is the number one tool for getting training information into practice. 

    And without getting that training information into practice in the classrooms, there is literally no way that the training we provide teachers will impact student achievement.

    Jill Jackson is known for telling it like it really is as she works to simplify and demystify the oft-confusing work of school improvement. She recently wrote Get a Backbone, Principal! 5 Conversations Every School Leader Must Have Right Now and blogs at www.jackson-consulting.com Mondays and Thursdays.