Coaching Strengthens the Teaching Profession

Research clearly shows that one-off workshops have little to no impact on classroom practice and student learning. What seems to work better is to allow teachers the opportunity to utilize what they’ve learned in their classrooms and continually work on adapting methods to their disciplines.

For this learning-by-doing to be most effective, teachers need to be supported by coaches who can provide specific guidance on how to implement particular strategies in their specific disciplines and redirect them if things go wrong. In a 2022 study by Harvard University and the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, Heather C. Hill and John P. Papay find that “coaching supports teachers’ day-to-day practice by starting with existing practice, then working outward from it to integrate new instructional techniques. Coaching can also be personalized to teachers’ needs, celebrating areas of excellence and working on areas for improvement. Additionally, many coaching models allow teachers to identify problems of practice jointly with their coach, increasing the relevance of coaching to teachers’ personal growth.” Coaching also creates accountability, because teachers know they’ll need to report on their progress.

Successful elements of PD that Hill and Papay highlight are collaboration time for teachers, particularly around instructional improvement; 1:1 coaching; and follow-up meetings so teachers can ask for and receive feedback to improve implementation of new strategies and tools. Hill and Papay also relay that PD in subject-specific instructional practices is better than building content knowledge alone, and that another key to successful implementation of new practices is “concrete instructional materials like curricula or formative assessment items.” Effective PD also has to include explicit ways to help teachers navigate and strengthen their relationships with their students.

Coaching Judaics Teachers

These findings are borne out by our coaching experiences in Jewish day schools. One familiar problem in Tanakh classes is that teachers want to improve students’ textual reading skills, but students’ level of Hebrew proficiency and desire to tackle text and commentaries in Hebrew vary widely. At the same time, Tanakh teachers want students to find Jewish texts meaningful and resonant. How to do it all?

A BetterLesson Judaic studies coach, Leah Herzog, works with a Tanakh teacher who has been using differentiation to improve textual reading skills and engage students. Leah and the teacher experimented with different ways of allowing students to understand commentaries, either by using English translations or with peer coaching. In both cases, the teacher saw greater engagement; when students were able to use an English source and when they were able to help each other engage with a Hebrew one, they became more animated in their learning. Though Leah and the teacher’s focus had been differentiation, their discussions on diverse learners widened to include what the teacher’s overall content and skills goals are, and how the teacher wants students to develop values based on their Tanakh learning.

This anecdote illustrates why coaching is such an impactful professional development tool. It allows teachers to apply pedagogies developed in general education in ways uniquely suited to a Judaic studies classroom, and provides the time and space in which to experiment with the strategies, fine-tuning them for a particular classroom and group of students. Coaching with a mentor in a teacher’s school—either a peer or administrator—also creates close bonds and positive working relationships. Sharon Freundel, managing director of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, emphasizes, “Educators realize the importance of paying individual attention to each student in order to elevate their learning and develop a relationship with them. Teachers, too, benefit from the same kind of attention; they elevate their practice, and the student is the ultimate beneficiary."

In one school that Tavi and Tikvah work with, a middle school Judaic studies teacher has been using creative assessments in her class and wanted to try Socratic seminars. Many examples of them can be found online, all in general studies classes. With the teacher, we adapted the Socratic seminar guidelines for her Navi (Prophets) class, and after watching videos of history teachers using Socratic seminars, figured out how the teacher wanted to run hers.

The teacher reported that the students loved the seminar, asking to do it again, and said it taught them to actively listen to each other. Another outcome, one that touched her the most, was that a student who struggled socially shared an anecdote that captured the attention of her classmates, who peppered her with questions. The teacher had never before seen this student as engaged socially, and we remarked that it was powerful to see this in a Judaic studies class, where we especially want students to feel a positive connection to each other and their learning.

Coaching again played a key role in taking a strategy that a workshop might introduce and modifying and fine-tuning it so a teacher feels comfortable using it. This is particularly true for Judaic studies teachers who don’t have a bank of online resources where they can see a pedagogy being employed in their discipline. Both anecdotes also show how the coaching model fostered intellectual ways for students to engage with Judaic studies, and also social, emotional and ultimately spiritual ways. Additionally, coaching allowed the teachers to think more broadly and deeply not only about the specific tool or pedagogy they were trying, but about their larger aims as Judaic studies teachers.

Coaching Administrators

Tavi is also a coach with the Jewish New Teacher Project, which provides mentoring to beginning teachers and administrators. Administrators new to their positions often enter their roles with a thoughtful vision of the learning environment they’d like to create. They graduated from classroom teacher to administrator with a passion to shape not only the classroom experience but their school at large. However, too many administrators quickly find themselves reverting to a daily schedule largely dictated by procedural meetings, behavior referrals and large-group supervision. Through ongoing coaching, these administrators have an opportunity to review the way they are prioritizing their day, consider their visionary items that are crucially important, albeit not urgent, and maintain a balanced leadership model that will serve their students, their teachers and their school needs well.

For administrators to be able to carve out this time is critical if we want Jewish day schools to continue to improve and innovate. The Stanford study says, “Professional development tends to be more effective when it is an integral part of a larger school reform effort, rather than when activities are isolated, having little to do with other initiatives or changes underway at the school.”

Giving administrators and teachers the support they need as they grow professionally and realize their educational visions is one critical way to make education more sustainable and appealing. A robust professional development program that includes coaching and mentoring, and is part of a school’s overarching goals for improvement, gives educators the message that the school community is there to help them meet the many needs students have, and that it recognizes the key role educators play in shaping and invigorating the Jewish community.

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Jewish Educator Pipeline

Spring 2024