Coach Manual

Pre-Service Training: Coaching Manual

TNTP 2015. All rights reserved.

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ContentsPre-Service Training: Coaching Manual1Introduction3Your Role as Coach3How to Use the Manual4Our Vision for Fellow Excellence5Training Components10Enrollment10Pre-Service Training10Gear Up11The Coachs Role across Pre-Service Training12Field Experience12Coaching Cycles12Learning in the Field13Lead Teaching Time13Field Development Time13Lesson Plan Review14Classroom Teams15Fellows Field Experience Schedules16Skill-Building Sessions16Scope and Sequence16Session Structure: Introduce, Model, Practice, and Plan16Facilitate Effective Practice17Session Planning20Responsive Coaching Sessions21Responsive Coaching Session Plan Bank22Pre-Service Training Culture23Cultivating Our Culture23Build Strong Relationships with Your Fellows24Fellow Evaluation26Weekly Observation Ratings26Anchor Techniques26Fellow Evaluation Responsibility Snapshot27Communication and Logistics28Staff Communication Structures28Weekly Team Meetings29Daily Instructor-Coach Collaboration Meetings29Weekly Check-Ins29Coach Schedules29Performance Evaluation30Appendix A: Electronic Documents and Templates31Appendix B: Teach Like a Champion Terms of Use32

Introduction

The teachNOLA Teaching Fellows program is an alternative teaching program charged with recruiting, selecting and training high-achieving professionals and recent college graduates from all backgrounds to teach in critical-need areas in high-need New Orleans, Jefferson Parish and Baton Rouge schools. Teachers in the teachNOLA Teaching Fellows program go through a rigorous selection process and summer pre-service training before beginning teaching. Fellows must meet program expectations and demonstrate proficiency in core teaching skills in order to be recommended into the classroom this fall. After they begin teaching, Fellows will be evaluated based on student academic achievement, principal evaluations, and completion of the TNTP Academy certification program. Most Fellows do not have formal teaching experience, but all have a demonstrated record of past success, subject-matter knowledge, and a commitment to working in our schools. Since its inception in 2006, teachNOLA Teaching Fellows has received more than 14,700 applications and has placed over 700 highly-qualified teachers in Greater New Orleans area classrooms. These Fellows currently serve in more than 75 schools spanning south Louisiana.

Your Role as Coach

We are excited to have you join the teachNOLA Teaching Fellows instructional team for pre-service training this summer! As an instructional leader in our program, your skills, expertise, and commitment to high quality public education will be essential to the success of our Fellows. You were chosen to be a Teacher Development Coach because we believe you have what it takes to guide our Fellows in acquiring the skills they will need to close the achievement gap.

As a Teacher Development Coach, you will be responsible for leading a coaching group of approximately 12-15 Fellows toward proficiency in the Fast Start skills as captured in the TNTP Core Rubric. Your primary responsibility this summer is to ensure that your group of Fellows is positioned to be effective new teachers this fall. To do this, you will actively coach your teachers to acquire foundational teaching skills using coaching cycles.

The list below provides a high-level overview of some of your job functions:

Driving an observation and coaching cycle, in which you take strategic action to improve teacher performance

Observing and actively coaching your teachers in their Field Experience classrooms

Communicating with Fellows about their performance and devise strategies for improvement Executing high-quality interventions

Analyzing the needs of your individual teachers and your coaching group overall in order to differentiate your support

Supporting and delivering skill-building sessions

Attending skill-building sessions with your coaching group and collaborating with their Instructor to give Fellows high-quality feedback

Delivering instructional sessions that support your Fellows ability to plan and deliver rigorous instruction in their classrooms

Evaluating Fellow performance

Formally evaluating Fellows in your coaching group using the revised TNTP Core Rubric, and observing and evaluating the Fellows in a coaching group other than your own during the last week of Field Experience

Formally evaluating Fellows in their execution of Teach Like a Champion techniques that support the Fast Start skills

Building and supporting a positive, productive training culture

Being a leader who embodies and reinforces a positive and challenging culture

Serving as the primary liaison with your assigned Field Experience school site(s)

How to Use the Manual

This manual will serve as a reference to help you be an effective coach. It includes detailed descriptions of the components of pre-service training and clarifies the specific responsibilities of Teacher Development Coaches.

Please read this manual in full prior to the first day of our training on April 8th. Keep it for your records throughout your time as a coach.

Thank you for your commitment to our Fellows and the students of Louisiana. Please know that the staff members of teachNOLA are also committed to you, to your professional growth, and to supporting you.

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Pre-Service Training Summer 2015teachNOLA Teaching Fellows

Our Vision for Fellow Excellence

Effective teachers have a huge and lasting impact on students lives. As you know, students grappling with the challenges of poverty need great teachers more than anyone.

There is no shortage of research on the importance of good teaching. For decades, studies have shown that there are large differences in effectiveness from one teacher to another. Just last year, a landmark study that tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years found that students with even one top teacher are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, live in better neighborhoods, and save more for retirement. They are also less likely to have children as teenagers.[footnoteRef:1] [1: Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff. The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood. NBER, 2012.]

This is why we are committed to ensuring that teachNOLA Fellows are prepared to make a real difference from day one and that they remain on track to be among the most effective teachers in their school or district within three years. To meet that ambitious goal, Fellows training must prepare them to be capable of advancing student learning as soon as they begin teaching. The TNTP Core Rubric is used to describe and assess teacher performance in four performance areas. They are:

Culture of Learning

Essential Content

Academic Ownership

Demonstration of Learning

During Pre-Service Training, Fellows are assessed in three of the four performance areas. Academic Ownership is not assessed during Pre-Service Training. We believe that teachers who develop strong skills in these performance areas will be well prepared to become effective teachers in high-need schools.

Components in Each Performance Area:

Essential Question: The core question to answer about the particular performance area. In a proficient teachers classroom, the answer to each Essential Question is yes.

Descriptor language: Descriptions of the essence of each performance area used to differentiate five levels of performance in the performance area: Skillful, Proficient, Developing, Minimally Effective, and Ineffective.

Core Teacher Skills: A non-exhaustive list of the teacher skills and behaviors that contribute to the student outcomes described in the descriptor language.

You will review the TNTP Core Rubric as part of your online staff training, and it is included in Appendix A of this manual. The Fellow Performance Management Manual, which will be provided during in-person training serves as a companion to this manual and provides a detailed explanation of how we will evaluate Fellow performance during pre-service training to decide whether to recommend each Fellow into the classroom for the fall.

Fast Start Skills

Our goal for pre-service training is that any students taught by one of our Fellows will be assured a teacher who is as good as or better than any other teacher in the very first quarter of school. To achieve this goal, our training will focus on mastery of a small number of foundational teaching skills that set strong new teachers apart from their less-successful peers. We call these four skills Fast Start skills and they are:

Communicating academic material clearly

Maintaining high academic expectations and ensuring full student engagement at all times

Maintaining a classroom where student behavior is positive, respectful, and productive

Maximizing instructional time

We know from multiple national research studies and our own experience that early teacher performance is a strong predictor of eventual success and new teachers rarely overcome a weak start. We launched Fast Start to help teachers focus on the fundamental skills they need to be immediately successful in the classroom, so they start their first year strong and with the foundation needed to rapidly develop advanced teaching skills. Only Fellows who demonstrate proficiency in the four Fast Start skills during pre-service training will be eligible to teach in the fall.

Teach Like a Champion Techniques

Fast Start incorporates techniques from Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov that are proven to help teachers raise achievement, especially in high-need schools. These techniques are drawn from Uncommon Schools, a network of high-performing K-12 schools serving low-income and minority students in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Together with other aspects of our rigorous pre-service training, they ensure Fellows are fully prepared to advance student learning in engaging and focused classrooms.

Working in partnership with the Uncommon Schools Taxonomy of Effective Teaching Practices team, we have identified several Teach Like a Champion techniques that align with the Fast Start skills. Throughout pre-service training, Fellows will study, observe and analyze exemplary models of these techniques drawn from the Teach Like a Champion book and DVDs. They will rehearse these teaching techniques with peers and practice them with actual students in summer school classrooms. As an Instructor, you will also provide real-time feedback and guidance as Fellows work to perfect these techniques through intensive practice.

As a Coach, you should anticipate that some Fellows may feel that these techniques seem regimented compared with their own educational experiences. We are counting on you to remind Fellows that these practices are used by great teachers in their classrooms every day. In time, Fellows will develop their teaching voice and make these techniques their own, but mastering these techniques in pre-service training will allow them to start their careers with a repertoire of proven strategies that typically take new teachers years to learn.

We expect Fellows to demonstrate proficiency in at least 4 of the prioritized Teach Like a Champion techniques during pre-service training to earn eligibility to begin teaching in the fall. Their proficiency level will be assessed in classroom observations. Additional techniques learned at PST are correlated to school year growth. While they are not formally assessed, they are an integral part of our training approach, and Fellows are accountable to practicing these techniques off-stage and successfully implementing them in their classrooms.

Anchor Techniques

We have found that performance in four Teach Like a Champion techniques has a strong correlation to Fellows performance during the school year. We call these techniques the Anchor Techniques, and they include 100%, What to Do, Strong Voice, and Positive Framing. These techniques are assessed by Coaches in the Field Experience classroom using a set of observation criteria that builds in complexity across three levels of performance.

Figure 1: Teach Like a Champion Techniques included in Pre-Service Training

Anchor Techniques (assessed in Field Experience)

Taught, but Not Assessed

100%

What to Do

Strong Voice

Positive Framing

Strong StartEngineer EfficiencyCold Call

No Opt OutControl the GameSLANT

Do NowBegin with the EndDo It Again

Pacing-Work the Clock

Figure 2, below, shows these Teach Like a Champion techniques aligned to the Fast Start skills. More information on Uncommon Schools Taxonomy of Effective Teaching Practices can be found at http://uncommonschools.org/our-approach/teach-like-a-champion.

Culture of Learning: Are all students engaged in the work of the lesson from start to finish?

100% - Insist that 100 percent of students comply with requests and directions

What To Do - Give specific, positive commands

Strong Voice Use economy of language; Do not talk over; Do not engage; Square up/stand still; Use quiet power

Positive Framing - Make corrections positively and consistently

Do it Again* - If students fail to complete a basic task, require them to do it again

Strong Start Have students complete an entry routine that is productive, scholarly, and efficient.

Do Now - Students complete a short activity as soon as they sit down

Engineer Efficiency Have quick and routine transitions that students complete without any direction from the teacher

SLANT* Ensure that students Sit up, Listen, Ask questions, Nod their heads, Track the speaker

Essential Content: Are all students working with essential content for their subject and grade?

Control the Game-Have students read aloud using high-leverage strategies to ensure meaningful student engagement

Begin with the End* Use the following process for planning: 1) plan the unit first before planning individual lessons; 2) for each lesson, use a well-framed objective to describe the goal of the lesson; 3) determine how to assess how well students mastered an objective; 4) select lesson activities to teach the objective

4Ms* - Lesson objectives should be manageable, measurable, made first, and most important on the path to college

Exit Ticket* - End a lesson with a single question or short sequence of problems and cull the data to see what students learned

Name the Steps - Break complex skills into manageable steps and give each step a name

Board = Paper* Teach students to take effective notes by ensuring that their notes are identical to teacher-presented content

Double Plan* Plan what you and your students will be doing during the entire lesson

Demonstration of Learning: Do all students demonstrate that they are learning

No Opt Out - When a student cannot or does not respond to a question correctly, return to that student and ensure s/he answers correctly

Cold Call - Call on all students, hands are raised or not; students know they are responsible for answering questions throughout the lesson; calling on students is positively framed

Essential Traits

In addition to demonstrating proficiency in the Fast Start skills and Teach Like a Champion techniques, we expect Fellows to embody the following Essential Traits shared by successful participants in our programs.

Critical Thinking: The teacher thinks critically, makes sound judgments, and generates multiple solutions to challenges.

High Expectations: The teacher believes that he/she can become an excellent teacher and lead high-need students to high levels of academic achievement, including students with disabilities and those performing below grade level.

Application of Feedback: The teacher incorporates feedback to rapidly improve his/her practice.

Professionalism: The teacher displays exemplary professionalism, including reliability in meeting commitments and deadlines, professional oral and written communication skills, and professional interactions with others.

We expect Fellows to demonstrate these traits consistently throughout their participation in our program. When a training staff member observes a Fellow failing to adequately demonstrate these traits, the staff member will give the Fellow feedback that his or her actions do not meet program expectations. In cases where a Fellows failure to adequately demonstrate the essential traits is of significant concern, he or she will receive a warning letter and may be removed from our program if he or she continues to fail to adequately demonstrate the essential traits. See the Fellow Performance Management Manual for more information on addressing Essential Traits during pre-service training.

Our Vision for Fellow Excellence7

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Training Components

The training experience begins with an online enrollment course that precedes the five-week pre-service training program. After the conclusion of pre-service training, Fellows participate in content and context-specific in-person and online sessions in preparation for the school year.

Big Goal: Every student taught by a Fellow will be assured a teacher who is as good or better than other new teachers in the 2015- 2016 academic year.

Enrollment

As soon as a candidate for teachNOLA Teaching Fellows accepts the offer to join our program, they begin preparing to increase student achievement in Louisianas schools. As part of a comprehensive enrollment course, Fellows will read foundational texts, including Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov of Uncommon Schools and demonstrate comprehension and knowledge of pre-requisite content through completion of three independent study modules to prepare them to fully engage with training content this summer. The enrollment module topics include an Introduction, Excellent Teaching, and the Teaching Profession.

Pre-Service Training

The heart of Fellows training experience is the five-week pre-service training program designed to produce teachers who will be as good as or better than any other new teacher in the schools we serve. Pre-service training will be comprised of three primary components aimed at promoting mastery of the Fast Start skills:

Skill-Building Sessions: Fellows will analyze Teach Like a Champion techniques aligned to the Fast Start skills as demonstrated through videos of techniques in the classroom; analyze the discrete parts of each technique; and practice the techniques with peers before implementing them with students, receiving real-time feedback on their practice. They will learn to identify instructional practices that address the rigor of the Common Core State Standards, then plan and practice delivering lessons that meet this high bar

Field Experience: In classroom teams of three or four, Fellows will spend 3.5 weeks in a summer school classroom. Fellows will lead instruction from the first day of Field Experience and use Field Experience as an opportunity to demonstrate the Fast Start skills in a realistic setting. Coaches will visit Fellows classrooms to observe and coach at least twice per week and Fellows will be expected to implement feedback immediately.

Responsive Coaching Sessions: Coaches will work with small, flexible groups of Fellows on specific skills and Teach Like a Champion techniques that they need to improve in their classrooms.

Pre-service training will be managed by a team of educators who share your commitment to increasing student achievement in New Orleans. Our pre-service training team includes our Training Director, Meredith Cotter, who oversees the management of pre-service training and ensures progress toward goals; Coach Leads, who each manage approximately seven Teacher Development Coaches or Instructors, analyze cohort wide performance trends, and coordinate Field Experience logistics; Instructors, who are each responsible for the development of approximately 36 Fellows via skill-building sessions; and Teacher Development Coaches like yourself, who are responsible for the development of approximately 12 - 15 Fellows through observations, debriefs, Responsive Coaching Sessions, and evaluation. All pre-service training staff members and Fellows will contribute to a rigorous and supportive culture that promotes hard work and keeps us striving toward ambitious goals, even in the face of obstacles.

Throughout pre-service training, Coaches and Instructors will evaluate Fellows demonstration of the Fast Start skills and prioritized Teach Like a Champion techniques. At the conclusion of training, we will use data on Fellow performance in these areas to decide whether to recommend each Fellow into the classroom for the fall. Only Fellows whose performance in pre-service training meets our rigorous expectations will continue with teachNOLA to become teachers of record in New Orleans. More information on this decision can be found in the Fellow Performance Management Manual.

Gear Up

After the end of pre-service training, Fellows will participate in professional development and planning sessions to bridge their pre-service experience with TNTP Academy and set them up for successful first weeks of school. During Gear Up, Fellows will generate a core set of tools and materials, such as ambitious academic goals, long term planning documents, and classroom management plans aligned to their fall teaching assignments that will position them to measurably close the achievement gap with their students during the school year.

Training Components11

Pre-service Training Summer 2015teachNOLA Teaching Fellows

The Coachs Role across Pre-Service Training

Your role as a coach is to measurably improve the performance of your teachers. You are directly involved in each component of Fellows five-week pre-service training experience in order to drive their development. This section of the manual contains a logistical overview of each component of pre-service training and explains your role in ensuring Fellows measurable and continuous growth this summer.

Field Experience

In Field Experience, Fellows have the opportunity to apply what they are learning through sessions and coaching and demonstrate their proficiency in the Fast Start skills in a realistic teaching environment with students. Your time with Fellows in Field Experience is your most powerful lever for increasing Fellow performance, and helping Fellows maximize growth during Field Experience is at the heart of your role. As a Teacher Development Coach, you will play a critical role managing both the logistics and quality of Field Experience. You will be actively engaged in Fellow development through Fellow observations, coaching meetings, and more during this part of the pre-service training schedule.

Coaching Cycles

The most powerful opportunity you will have to improve Fellows effectiveness this summer is the coaching you will do during Field Experience. As a Teacher Development Coach, youll lead coaching cycles for each of your teachers to promote rapid, continuous improvement.

1. You will observe each of your teachers classrooms and, based on their performance and the interventions that they need to improve, offer active in-lesson coaching, such as modeling, cueing, etc. This first observation will be non-evaluative, and strictly an opportunity for you to:

Analyze the Fellows classroom

Prioritize the most critical skills for development

Actively support improvement through in-lesson interventions

2. You will follow this observation with a coaching conversation where you will discuss teacher performance in the lesson, offer direct feedback, and chart or refine a path for measurable improvement that week. Both performance conversations you will have during the week are a time to:

Discuss performance on the Fast Start skills

Establish a shared understanding about what is happening in the classroom and what the teacher should be focusing on in their development

Build your teachers skills through on-the-spot practice

Agree on next steps for the further interventions (e.g. additional in-lesson interventions, practice sessions targeting specific Teach Like a Champion techniques) needed to improve performance.

3. Over the next few days, you and your Fellows will execute the interventions you have planned, including additional active coaching during lead teaching, additional coaching conversations, field development time or peer collaborative work, or responsive coaching sessions. When you are executing interventions, you will:

Continually analyze the efficacy of your interventions and make adjustments

Change course when needs or performance change

4. Four times during weeks two through four of Field Experience, you will need to conduct a formal 20-30 minute observation for each of your Fellows and rate their performance on the TNTP Core Rubric. Unlike your other required observations each week, these observations are evaluative, and after the first week, the scores will count toward Fellows summative evaluation at the end of pre-service training. You will also offer formative, non-evaluative ratings on the four Anchor Techniques to support Fellows development in these critical skills. Additionally, in the last week of Field Experience you will provide a holistic rating for each of your assigned Fellows on the four Anchor Techniques.

5. With these ratings in hand, you will sit down again with your Fellows to discuss progress and gaps and to create a plan to achieve measurable growth in the Fast Start skills in the upcoming week.

Though the actual coaching activities will look different from teacher to teacher based on their needs, you will execute this five-part cycle for each Fellow until the final week of pre-service training, when Fellows will be observed and evaluated by you and a different staff member as part of their summative evaluation.

Learning in the Field

You should see the entire Field Experience, not just lead teaching time, as an opportunity for Fellows to grow in the Fast Start skills. The expectation is that you and your Fellows will use Field Experience strategically to work toward development goals and to improve performance continually, not just week to week, but class period to class period. You will also work to ensure that improvement is consistent by targeting skills that Fellows can apply not only to the lesson at hand, but to all future lessons they deliver. Therefore, all Fellows will engage in key learning experiences during Field Experience:

Lead Teaching Time

Field Development Time

Lesson Planning

Lead Teaching Time

During lead teaching time, Fellows will lead teach, and have an opportunity to implement what they have learned in skill-building sessions and through coaching by teaching lessons in a realistic classroom setting. We believe that extensive practice in the Fast Start skills will make Fellows as prepared as possible to raise student achievement in their own classrooms; as such, we have structured our calendar to ensure that all Fellows will take on full instructional and management responsibilities on the first day of Field Experience and receive approximately 5-10 hours of lead teaching time per week for the duration of pre-service training. Most Fellows will be placed in classrooms with two to three other Fellows in the cohort.

Fellows will receive observations, active coaching and coaching conversations with you at least twice each week during their assigned lead teaching periods, and you will also be responsible for evaluating Fellow performance both in executing Teach Like a Champion techniques and in proficiency along the TNTP Core rubric during lead teaching time as well.

Field Development Time

During Field Experience, non-lead teaching time is nearly as important for development as lead teaching time, and will be highly structured. Field development time offers more useable time for coaching, practice and guided development experiences during the summer school day. The required activities include:

Debriefing with a coach (these may be scheduled before and after school as well)

Completing TNTP Learning Portal courses to build content and instructional knowledge

Analyzing video of themselves teaching (2 times weekly)

Assessing student work and analyzing errors and misconceptions

Planning and adapting lessons

Practicing lesson delivery or techniques in small groups

The next steps and targeted interventions you establish with your Fellows will be the primary driver of how Fellows spend their field development time, and you will be an important thought partner for Fellows to assist them in calendaring out their time. To ensure that every moment of Field Experience is used to improve prioritized development areas, Coaches must establish accountability systems so that both you and your Fellows know what they plan to accomplish and what the actual outcomes for the time are. At the end of each coaching conversation, when you are discussing next steps, incorporate a discussion of your Fellows plans for field development time, and ensure that Fellows are set up to use this time to act on next steps such as practicing skills or planning.

Lesson Plan Review

To ensure that the skills acquired in their sessions are translating to Field Experience classrooms, Fellows will be required to customize and internalize lesson plans for every lesson they are scheduled to teach and may also practice delivery of these lessons with you. Lesson plan feedback is another lever for supporting growth in prioritized development areas and for increasing your Fellows proficiency in delivering lessons.

All Fellows will have access to a baseline curriculum for summer school that provides prioritized Common Core State Standards and assessments for the summer session. In addition, all Fellows will also have objectives and a scope and sequence for their course, detailed lesson plans for the first days of PST, and daily exit tickets provided to them. Fellows are responsible for translating these materials into daily lesson plans in weeks two through four and for customizing and internalizing provided plans. You and your Fellows will spend time during the first week of PST getting to know the curricular materials and establishing the level of customization and planning each Fellow will need to undertake this summer. Fellows will be provided scaffolded lesson planning materials this summer because we believe that they will be better positioned to rapidly improve if their focus can be directed at lesson development and delivery, rather than starting from scratch with backwards planning documents.

As a coach, you must keep in mind that lesson planning is a means to effective lessons delivered to students, and not an end in itself. Remember, a teacher is never working toward a perfect plan; rather, teachers use plans to arrive at a more perfect lesson. As such, you will need to differentiate your approach, including increasing or decreasing lesson plan feedback to individual Fellows based on their development needs.

To get the best return on the time you invest in reviewing lesson plans, apply these best practices:

Analyze Fellows development needs, and prioritize feedback accordingly. Start by thinking about how your Fellows lesson plans affect the performance that youre seeing in their classrooms, and consider whether improved planning could address the development areas youve identified for your teachers. Then, focus your feedback on the elements of the plan that could most improve those development areas, rather than giving feedback on everything.

Leverage lesson plan review as part of their overall development. If a teacher is struggling with a skill because shes not adequately planning, work on targeted lesson plan revisions together during a coaching conversation, then use the next set of submitted lesson plans to drill down on the type of planning you worked on together.

Correct Instead of Critique[footnoteRef:2]. When you review lesson plans, go beyond identifying whats not working, and tell your teacher how to correct it with concrete suggestions. Then, ask the teacher to revise the lesson plan using your suggestions before delivering the lesson in Field Experience. [2: Rule 8 from Practice Perfect by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi.]

Make it concise. When you are giving feedback on lesson plans, make your feedback concise. Consider using the Review>Comment feature in Microsoft Word to embed clear, quick feedback on specific elements of the lesson, or the Track Changes feature to model specific wording, rather than writing longer feedback narratives.

Here are a few ways that you might approach lesson plan feedback, given different development priorities:

Figure 4: Sample Lesson Plan Feedback Approaches

Development Need

Focus in Lesson Plan Feedback

Fellow is struggling with maintaining high behavioral expectations because directions and expectations are unclear to kids

Focus your feedback on the written components of Double Plan and What to Do in order to push the Fellow to think through teacher and student actions throughout the entire lesson cycle. With this work in place in the lesson plan, it will be easier to coach the teacher on execution during a coaching conversation or upcoming observation.

Fellow has weak content knowledge with is struggling to include accurate content, and has omitted content necessary for students to achieve the lesson objective, which is holding him back in delivering lessons

Focus your feedback on the key points and introductions to new material in each submitted lesson plan, and push on heavy scripting in the introductions to new material so that the Fellows thinking is transparent.

Fellow has been struggling with low levels of engagement during her lesson because students dont have anything to do while she delivers content, which is holding her back in maintaining high academic expectations

Focus your review on the student side of the Double Plan and ask lots of questions about what she will require students to be doing (e.g. writing, sharing an idea with a peer, etc.) during the introductions to new material

Fellows will submit lesson plans in the TNTP Learning Portal and you will be provided a schedule for giving lesson plan feedback. A likely timeline is: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday lesson plans for the upcoming week will be submitted by midnight on Thursday and returned by Coaches by Sunday at noon. Plans for Thursday and Friday lesson plans will be submitted by Monday at midnight and returned to Fellows by Wednesday at noon. You will only be responsible for reviewing selected lesson plans.

Classroom Teams

Building relationships with fellow teachers and establishing strong peer learning relationships will help your teachers grow at pre-service training and thrive in their careers as educators. This summer, your Fellows will be assigned to a classroom team, consisting of up to four Fellows who teach the same students at summer school. Your Fellows should meet regularly with their classroom team and use members of their group as resources in developing lesson plans, working with their students, and improving their mastery of the techniques and Fast Start skills. Given their shared grade level, classroom team members are ideal partners for field development time options such as peer technique practice or targeted peer observations.

High functioning classroom teams will allow you to leverage peer learning as a meaningful development tool. When these groups are supportive and push each other to grow, you can use them as a strategy for targeting development areas, and promoting overall improvement.

Fellows Field Experience Schedules

All Fellows at a Field Experience site will follow the same schedule, which clearly defines lead teaching and Field Development Time for all participants. Field Development time will account for any time that a Fellow is not lead teaching. This schedule will enable Fellows to receive feedback from their coaches and make immediate adjustments to their approach, engage in personal reflection and practice or visit another teachers classroom. This schedule maximizes the purpose of Field Experience as hands-on practice and will integrate data analysis, reflection, and targeted practice into each Fellows daily schedule.

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Skill-Building Sessions

You will help facilitate skill-building sessions attended by your group of Fellows. Through skill-building sessions, you will collaborate with an Instructor to help Fellows acquire the prioritized Teach like a Champion techniques. It may be helpful to think of skill-building sessions as Fellows introduction to new material and guided practice with the techniques that will help them in their classroom where they will have an opportunity for independent practice.

Skill-building sessions will give your Fellows structured opportunities to learn and practice the prioritized Teach Like a Champion and instructional techniques that will support their development in the Fast Start skills. There are two strands of skill-building sessions cultural sessions and instructional sessions. Techniques aligned to the Culture of Learning performance area are taught and practiced throughout training in the cultural skill-building sessions. In instructional skill-building sessions, Fellows will learn additional techniques that support development in Essential Content and Demonstration of Learning through building skills in planning lessons and delivering instruction. As a coach, you have a role to play in both cultural and instructional skill-building sessions. Instructors will lead facilitation of cultural and instructional skill-building sessions (with the exception of week one, when both coaches and instructors facilitate). When the instructor is leading sessions with your teachers, you will serve as a secondary facilitator who can model skills, manage practice activities, and provide feedback to Fellows. You will need to proactively collaborate with Instructors in order to make these sessions effective. You will read more about working with these colleagues in the Communicate Effectively with Your Colleagues section of this manual.

You will also lead facilitate some skill-building sessions, particularly during the first week of PST. Splitting facilitation in this way allows us to frontload more skills earlier in the training. For these sessions, you will receive session plans as well as supporting materials and you will be responsible for preparation and facilitation.

Scope and Sequence

Daily cultural skill-building sessions will follow a set scope and sequence, and Fellows will learn and practice new techniques each day, receiving continuous formative feedback from the Instructor, Coaches, and their peers. The scope and sequence for cultural sessions frontloads the techniques that Fellows will need to establish and maintain high academic expectations and classroom management systems in order to make good use of their time in Field Experience.

Fellows will have daily instructional sessions, in addition to their cultural sessions For details about the instructional skill building sessions see the scope and sequence document in Appendix A

Session Structure: Introduce, Model, Practice, and Plan

Each skill building session uses a similar structure, which includes four components: Introduce, Model, Practice, and Plan. Here is a brief description of each component:

Introduce: Each session begins by stimulating engagement and activating prior knowledge. You or the Instructor will introduce the new technique using a video, when relevant, and provide context about using the technique in classrooms. Introductions generally include:

A Do Now that will usually serve to activate prior knowledge of the new technique,

A video that will hook Fellows by providing a cinematic representation of the new technique when appropriate, and/or

Context to increase engagement and further establish the purpose and credibility of the technique. While providing context, Instructors will inspire Fellows by explaining how the technique is effectively used in the classroom.

Model: After the Introduction, you or the Instructor will model the new technique by sharing videos of highly effective teachers demonstrating the technique in their classrooms or by modeling a strategy yourself, and by providing guided notes. Modeling coupled with guided notes will support internalization of the focus technique prior to practice. Depending on the topic of the session, there may be multiple modeling segments in order to gradually build up Fellows understanding of complex techniques.

Practice: Practice is the primary focus of all skill-building sessions and often happens at multiple points in a session. Fellows will build their muscle memory by practicing discrete techniques during both active and metacognitive practice. You, the Instructor, and your Fellows will work to create a culture of feedback, and whether you are leading or co-facilitating a session. One of your primary roles will be ensuring the Fellows are getting high-quality feedback on their work.

Plan: The final stage of sessions will provide Fellows with the opportunity to plan for using the technique in upcoming Field Experience lessons. Each session will conclude with an Exit Ticket that can serve as a check for understanding and provide formative data that you can use to inform future sessions.

Facilitate Effective Practice

As noted when discussing practice during coaching conversations, practice can be a transformative development experience for teachers. Practice is the primary means we use to develop Fellows in pre-service training, and practice experiences are at the heart of every skill-building session. Our point of view on practice is informed by the book, Practice Perfect, 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better (Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi). Our goal is to build a culture of practice within pre-service training, and your role in facilitating effective practice is vital in our efforts.

Activities during skill-building sessions include metacognitive and active practice. During active practice activities, Fellows engage in drills and role plays designed to simulate on-stage teaching and student responses. During metacognitive practice, Fellows are also provided with time to script their responses and approaches to using the techniques in their Field Experiences. These activities help Fellows think about thinking. It is important to invest Fellows in both types of practice. Help Fellows see the purpose behind metacognitive practice and its connection to active practice.

Principles of Practice

Because many adults are not used to the idea of practicing their craft with peers, you will need to deliberately build a culture that values practice. Practice does not come without struggle or mistakes, but in the end, Fellows should experience success and see practice as a valuable tool for improvement that they can continue to use beyond pre-service training. We will use six principles of practice to guide our approach to practicing techniques and skills in skill-building sessions and responsive coaching sessions. Applying these principles as we design and lead practice help us ensure that Fellows embrace practice as a path toward more effective teaching.

Encode Success

It is important that Fellows practice the right way to teach; they are building their instructional muscle memory. If they practice doing it wrong or poorly, it will be even more difficult to develop them quickly in the Fast Start skills. Check for mastery throughout the practice activity to make sure the success rate is high and simplify if necessary so that Fellows start successfully.

Model First

Before attempting it themselves, Fellows need to see what skillful implementation of instruction looks like. In each session, you will use models, both video examples and live demonstrations, of skillful teachers in action to help Fellows internalize the Teach Like a Champion techniques and Fast Start skills. The models give Fellows behaviors and phrases that they can replicate when they first implement the techniques, setting them up for success in the classroom. Instructors and Coaches play an integral role in modeling practice in advance. You will call your shots when modeling to draw attention to key points, and as Fellows begin to practice, be ready to model the skinny parts to reteach isolated parts of the technique. Since Fellows new to teaching, you will need to be explicit in explaining the purpose behind your actions. For example, Im going to model how I would positively frame a direction in which students have to Do It Again. Please look for one thing that I do well and one thing that I should try to improve or try differently. Coach and Instructor modeling not only improves the quality of the actual practice, it also provides an important model for delivering feedback.

Isolate Then Integrate

Fellows start by practicing one small technique or component of a technique and practice it well. For example, before integrating the components of Strong Voice - Economy of Language, Square Up/Stand Still, Do Not Talk Over, and Do Not Engage participants will practice Economy of Language on its own. Eventually Fellows will work up to integration of techniques, but this should not happen until Fellows have experienced success with the small components of the technique.

Repeat and Spiral New Skills

We want to Fellows to have the opportunity practice discrete skills over and over again and eventually add more skills. Many of the practice activities that Fellows engage in require them to take multiple turns practicing different aspects of the techniques. This repetition is designed to do two things: automate the new skills to free up cognitive capacity to deal with bigger issues in the classroom; and give Fellows a chance to see what works, what they need to change, and make small adjustments before they layer on more complex elements of a technique.

Practice Using Feedback (Not Just Getting It)

One of the best ways to improve performance is to ensure that Fellows are getting actionable feedback. Each practice activity will include a Feedback Cheat Sheet, which will support Fellows, Instructors and Coaches in giving feedback related to the most important parts of a technique that provides concrete steps for what to do differently. However, it is not enough to just receive feedback. Your job is to create a culture in your skill-building sessions in which Fellows immediately apply the feedback so that they see themselves getting better right away. Fellows will practice implementing the feedback they receive through repeated practice opportunities. More on feedback best practices in the Using Feedback section below.

Make It Safe (and Fun!)

It is important to be aware of the initial discomfort and insecurity that practicing causes for many adults. People often resist practice in clever ways, such wanting to discuss the practice rather than actually do it. You can alleviate their discomfort by making practice safe. Demonstrate your investment by modeling practice and feedback with the Instructor and other Coaches. Allow a few moments for teachers plan for practice before they actually practice. This mental preparation not only builds confidence in participants, it also mirrors the advanced planning for everything Fellows will do with students. Safe practice also comes when participants know what to expect from their peers. Insist that when role-playing as students, Fellows should not act out egregiously or unexpectedly but instead keep the focus on the isolated part of the technique being practiced. Adults will also feel safe practicing if they are having fun. Infuse joy into your practice activities, incorporating cheers, props, and applause. Celebrate bright spots and progress, smile, laugh, and have fun!

Each of the practice activities outlined in the skill-building session plans will include the following elements to help Fellows get the most out of practice:

A clear purpose: In the same way we establish lesson objectives for students, you will set the purpose for practice before it begins. For example, Today we are practicing transitioning students from a large group to small groups. The goal is to maximize your instructional time by using low narration and clear directions to teach students a routine.

Defined roles: Each practice activity has explicit expectations for student, teacher and coach roles during practice. Generally, Fellows will rotate through each role so that everyone has an opportunity to practice as the teacher and provide feedback as the coach. Defined roles also help Fellows maximize their practice time because time is not wasted on confusion over who should do what.

Staged models: Before diving into practice, its crucial that you model for Fellows how they will practice and how they will give feedback. Prior to every session, you should prepare your modeling with the Instructor and other Coaches so that your modeling of the practice and your feedback establishes expectations for how Fellows will respond to one another, and the feedback highlights the typical areas of teacher growth that are indicated in the session plans.

Timing: Many of the practice routines included in skill-building sessions are carefully timed to ensure that everyone in the group gets a chance to practice. In your session preparation, plan ahead for how your groups will keep track of the time and know precisely when to rotate roles or move on to the next part of the drill. Two time-keeping strategies include asking Fellows to use individual timers (one per small group) or posting a stopwatch application on the screen for the whole group.

Grouping: The practice routines you will facilitate involve different groupings, from pairs to larger groups of 6-8. Be prepared to use a variety of methods for grouping participants to demonstrate grouping ideas for participants to apply in their own classrooms. Your advanced planning for grouping strategies also helps to maximize session time and help Fellows move quickly into practice and not spend a lot of time on identifying groups, transitioning, or assigning roles.

Using Feedback

Actionable feedback is a vital component of effective practice. Fellows will share feedback with their peers every time they practice a technique. Model your expectations for feedback by regularly providing both positive and critical feedback to Fellows during sessions and pausing practice as needed to make sure that peer feedback is focused on the right things. In many sessions, feedback prompts are provided for each practice activity in the form of a Feedback Cheat Sheet. The following principles are guidelines for using feedback during skill-building sessions, and are included in the Participant Manual for Fellows to reference:

Socialize Giving and Getting

When adults do not have a lot of experience giving feedback, it is important to normalize the process as soon as possible. When you model the practice activities, use the Feedback Cheat Sheet for the session to model what constructive feedback sounds like and model the quantity of feedback that should be provided. Make giving feedback a regular part of your sessions and find opportunities for Fellows to give you feedback.

Common Language

Use technical vocabulary from the technique notes to build a common language about teaching.

Get Past Nice

Tell Fellows how they can get better. Communicate constructive feedback clearly and directly. Feedback Cheat Sheets provide sentence starters to support Fellows, Coaches and Instructors in providing constructive feedback (Next time try). Getting past nice allows us to be the best we can be for our students.

Be Quick

Minimize the time spent talking and maximize the time spent practicing. Keep feedback short and direct. Limit feedback to one glow and one grow.

Power of the Positive

Tell Fellows what they have done right so that they can do it again and improve on what they are already doing well.

Describe the Solution (not the problem)

Make feedback specific and actionable. Use What to Do (vs. what not to do) to tell Fellows how to succeed.

Try Something New

Constructive feedback does not always have to focus on something Fellows did wrong. Consider suggesting something they could do differently. This is especially helpful in later rounds of practice when the success rate is already high.

Lock It In

Be sure that Fellows interpret feedback correctly. As time allows, ask them to summarize what they heard, and identify the next step they will take to implement the feedback.

Session Planning Customizing Sessions

For each skill building session you facilitate, you will be given a session plan that includes activities and accompanying handouts. Every session plan includes a cover page with the following information:

Materials: A list of all resources and tools you will need to facilitate the session as designed, including handouts, video clips, and audio/video equipment

Readings: The associated readings from Teach Like a Champion

Set Up: A list of the tasks to complete prior to the start of the session to maximize session time

Agenda: The activities and allocated time for the session

Objectives: The objectives identifying what Fellows should be able to do by the end of the session

Take Aways: The key messages for the session

As is the case with any curriculum, its important to make modifications for your group. While the activities and routines in each session plan are provided and designed to meet the session objectives, you should customize sessions to highlight your own strengths and creativity as a facilitator. Effective instruction relies on thorough and purposeful planning. You may wish to collaborate with other coaches on skill building session plans and materials to get new ideas and share the workload. When customizing sessions, keep the following general guidelines in mind:

The session objectives should be at the forefront of any customization. Activities should be purposeful and designed to meet session objectives.

Be mindful of time. If you make changes to activities, make sure you are also making changes to the agenda to maximize session time.

Consider the approaches to adult learning when customizing sessions. As pre-service training progresses, you will learn more about your Fellows distinct needs as learners. Modeling best practices is critical, but make sure your activities are appropriate for adults.

Use the Instructor/Coach to Fellow ratio of nine-to-one to differentiate instruction. Customize sessions so you are remediating instruction for Fellows who are struggling and providing enrichment to those who demonstrate mastery.

The Stages of Instruction sections of this manual will provide you with more specific customization requirements and suggestions for the Introduce, Model and Describe, Practice, and Plan stages of instruction.

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Responsive Coaching Sessions

Responsive coaching sessions are an important opportunity to intervene with Fellows and provide additional practice to differentiated groups of Fellows all working on the same development areas, and though they require advanced planning, they are also often a good use of capacity, because you can support growth for multiple Fellows at one time. You will lead hour long responsive coaching sessions two to three times per week.

Your responsive coaching sessions will likely range from highly informal to fairly structured sessions. For example,

you may simply pull a group of four Fellows all working on improving the same Teach Like a Champion technique, and facilitate a 20 minute practice drill or you may model a longer lesson to reteach as challenging aspect of instructional planning. Regardless of the level of formality, its important to note that these sessions are not about meticulous session plans, perfect posters or PowerPoints; responsive coaching sessions are about efficiently closing your Fellows skill gaps. These sessions should feel like a good use of Fellows time and you should be prepared with activities and materials that help your teachers get better, but you should not over-invest capacity on elements of your sessions that are not necessary for your Fellows growth. During Staff Training, youll learn more about how to quickly design effective Responsive Coaching Sessions.

In line with this understanding of responsive coaching sessions, we have provided a menu of five sample session structures that you can use when planning your responsive coaching sessions. You should feel empowered to select from these options, or to devise plans for alternate experiences that would position your Fellows for success.

Figure 6: Structures for Responsive Coaching Sessions

Responsive Coaching Session Structure

Description

Video Analysis

This protocol is helpful to isolate a problematic execution of a teaching technique and retry, and to practice challenging techniques and strategies in a safe environment.

A video analysis session might include the following:

Fellows in the group share video clips of their teaching, focused on a single area for growth (e.g. transitions, redirecting off task behavior)

Coach models a skill or technique to address the growth area

Fellows practice the skill, give and receive feedback

Teach Like a Champion Mini-Lessons

You can use exercises from the Teach Like a Champion Field Guide, revisit activities from skill-building sessions or design a new way to practice techniques in order to support Fellows struggling to execute specific Teach Like a Champion techniques.

Micro-Teaching & Role-Plays

Micro-Teaching: During micro-teaching sessions, Fellows deliver sections of their lesson plans to a group of their peers who act as students. You and the Fellows peers provide feedback on specific target skills. Micro-teaching mimics lesson delivery and is best used when Fellows need practice executing skills simultaneously (e.g., monitoring misbehavior while delivering content) and improving pacing. Depending on Fellow needs, micro-teaching might begin with the Coach modeling portions of a lesson first.

Role-Plays: During role-plays, Fellows increase their comfort with specific classroom situations, like responding to student challenges or incorrect answers. You and the Fellows peers provide feedback.

Co-Planning

During co-planning, you provide examples, modeling, and feedback to Fellows as they design classroom systems, select objectives, construct lesson plans or integrate strategies into their practice. This intervention should only be used when teacher performance gaps are a direct result of poor instructional or organizational planning.

Responsive Coaching Session Plan Bank

In addition to these responsive coaching options, you will have access to several optional, pre-planned sessions that support Fellows acquisition of various skills. Like other responsive coaching sessions, you should use these resources to meet the needs of your Fellows, and feel empowered to customize the sessions and invite the Fellows who you think would benefit from the support. This bank of pre-planned sessions will be available in the TNTP Learning Portal Staff Course.

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Pre-Service Training Culture

Through all of your work at pre-service training, you will cultivate a training culture that supports achievement of our ambitious goals. We believe the tenets represented in Figure 7 articulate the most important hallmarks of a pre-service training culture that supports our desired outcomes for teachers and students. We value and strive for the following tenets in our work over the summer.

Figure 7: Culture Tenets

Cultivating Our Culture

Teachers face persistent challenges in the high-need schools where most Fellows work. Pre-service training must reinforce Fellows understanding and investment in our group culture so that they can draw on these beliefs in the face of challenges. You must be an inspirational leader who inspires your Fellows to excellence with unwavering high expectations for kids and teachers.

Here are some other things to think in mind as you consider how to cultivate a culture of high expectations within your group:

Assume potential: You should convey your belief in the potential for students and teachers to reach excellence in five short weeks.

Expect the best: Teachers can get a lot better very quickly; the improvement between one lesson and the next can be transformative. teachNOLA has set an ambitious bar for teacher performance after just five weeks of training. You should expect, not hope, that your Fellows will meet these high standards.

Empathize, dont validate: Being an excellent teacher is very hard work, but its definitely not impossible. Listen to Fellows if they need to vent, but dont tolerate excuses for poor performance.

Focus on the endgame - student achievement: Fellows join teachNOLA because they are serious about increasing student achievement in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. You were selected because you share the same passion. Capitalize on this unified goal and ensure all actions drive towards this end game.

Build Strong Relationships with Your Fellows

Having strong relationships with your teachers enables you to push them harder and hold them to higher expectations because all parties understand that youre working toward the same goals. Use these strategies to help you build trusting relationships so that you are better positioned to coach Fellows throughout pre-service training.

Clearly Communicate that You Share the Same Goals

Find opporutunities throughout pre-service training to remind Fellows that were all working toward the same goals. Fellows need to believe that you have their best interests at heart and that when you suggest a change to their practice. They need to know that when you give them tough feedback, its because you want them to succeed. When teachers are having a difficult day, let them know that you have been in their shoes before trying to problem solve.

During coaching conversations, consider how you can frame feedback to communicate shared goals, like:

I know youre working really hard at this and you are so committed to helping your students achieve this summer. We both want to see your hard work pay off, and I think if we try _____________, youre going to see some improvement.

Throughout pre-service training, you must cultivate trust by demonstrating care and maintaining high expectations for your Fellows and their students. Before Field Experience begins, invest time in meeting with your Fellows during the first week of pre-service training to develop a rapport and clarify expectations for coaching in a one-on-one setting.

Time is allocated during the first week to meet your coaching group and invest them in the coaching strategies youll be using. Youll also share lunch, so this is the perfect time to get to know one another by sharing personal interests, reasons for wanting to teach, and learning or working styles.

One of the reasons that Im pushing you on this is I know you want your students to learn as much as possible this summer, and this is really going to help things get better in your classroom. Lets practice again, because I think you can nail this skill.

I think you can get to Developing in this skill by the end of the week, and I know that you really want to be great at this. Its going to take some hard work, but I think youre up for it.

Be Clear About Your Role in Their Development

It may seem obvious that your role is to help your Fellows improve, but because youre also rating Fellows on a rubric and providing critical feedback, its important to be explicit with Fellows that your primary role is to help them become effective new teachers.

Make Connections

Pre-service training can be a stressful experience for staff and Fellows, and your teachers will appreciate your efforts to show that you care about them as people and as educators. Here are a few ideas that you may wish to use to maintain a positive culture focused on continuous improvement in your coaching group:

Host weekly lunches for members of your coaching group to get to know each other better, and talk about how theyre doing.

Celebrate successes by publically recoginizing progress. Shout Outs are a fun strategy for this at the end of the week.

Call or email if you know someone had a tough day, just to see how they are doing.

Write an inspirational note.

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Fellow Evaluation

Fellows chose to join our program with the ambition of making a real difference for high-need students. Throughout pre-service training, we use the TNTP Core Rubric to assess and bolster Fellow performance to ensure they are prepared to meet that goal before they are eligible to begin teaching.

By the end of pre-service training, Fellows are expected to perform at-or-above the Developing level as described in the TNTP Core Rubric. However, we have determined that a combination of performance on the TNTP Core Rubric and the four Teach Like a Champion techniques we call Anchor Techniques provides a strong indication that a Fellow has the potential to develop into an effective teacher.

At the conclusion of pre-service training, the Training Director will combine each Fellows classroom observation score with his/her scores on the four Teach Like a Champion Anchor Techniques to calculate a summative end-of-training score. This score will be used to determine if the Fellow has met the required performance bar to be recommended into the classroom.

The weighting of these scores is as follows:

Classroom Observations

Anchor Techniques

65%

35%

Fellows who have met our rigorous performance expectations will be able to secure positions as teachers of record in the fall, and Fellows who are far below our performance bar will not be permitted to begin teaching in New Orleans as a teachNOLA Fellow this year. For Fellows who fall just below our performance bar, the Training Director will consider additional evidence of the Fellows development over the course of training to determine if s/he should be recommended into the classroom.

Evaluating Fellow performance is a critical responsibility of Teacher Development Coaches because each component of a Fellows summative end-of-training score will be determined by your evaluation of Fellow performance. Here is an overview of the data well use to determine whether or not a Fellow is ready to enter the classroom, and the contributions youll make to each evaluation component:

Weekly Observation Ratings

Coaches will use the TNTP Core Rubric during one observation in the second week, and two observations in the third week and one observation in the fourth week of Field Experience to formally evaluate a Fellows performance. During the last five days of Field Experience, called the Evaluation Period, Teacher Development Coaches will switch caseloads and do one 20-minute evaluative observation of a colleagues Fellows. Observations in the first week will not count toward the summative end-of-training score in order to account for the steep learning curve that takes place at training; the three later coach observations and the evaluator observation will be averaged and make up 65% of Fellows overall score at the end of pre-service training.

To ensure Fellows are receiving accurate and fair observation scores, we will spend significant time during training ensuring we are normed on the scoring. It is also important that no in-lesson interventions or coaching occurs during evaluative observations, given the high-stakes nature of Fellows scores.

You must enter evaluative observation ratings in TeacherTrack2, our online data management system by the deadlines communicated by the program. You must enter all informal observation data, as well as formal evaluation data in our Google doc immediately following the observation as well.

In the next section, youll read about how these formal classroom evaluations fit into the broader Fellow Evaluation process at pre-service training.

Anchor Techniques (100%, What to Do, Strong Voice, Positive Framing).

During weekly formal observations, you will also be monitoring Fellows performance on the four Teach Like a Champion Anchor Techniques. Each week you will use the observation criteria to assess Fellow performance on the Anchor Techniques, track Fellow progress, and provide feedback to the Fellows so that they can improve in these critical areas. These ratings and the feedback will be formative for the first two weeks of Field Experience. During the last two days of the third week of Field Experience, you will provide holistic ratings on the four Anchor Techniques to your Fellows, and these will be used to calculate Fellows summative evaluation score.

Fellows who do not demonstrate a Developing level of performance in all Anchor Techniques on the summative evaluation may be reassessed on individual Anchor Techniques through a single observation during the last three days of Field Experience. The average score for the four techniques will then be used in the Fellows end of training evaluation, and count as 35% of the overall score.

Fellow Evaluation Responsibility Snapshot

Figure 8 provides a week-by-week picture of your assessment responsibilities during pre-service training. The shaded boxes indicate that the recorded score will be used as part of Fellows summative end-of-training score.

Figure 8: Weekly Snapshot of Coach Assessment Responsibilities

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Training Components

Fellows will attend skill building and coaching sessions in preparation for Field Experience

Fellows will engage with Field Experience and afternoon skill building and coaching sessions



Fellows will engage with Field Experience and afternoon sessions will prepare Fellows for the transition to the school year

Classroom Observations

No Field Experience during this week

Informal Observations and coaching

Coach Observation 1

Coach Observation 2

Evaluator Observation

Coach Observation 3

Anchor Technique Evaluation

Coaches track Fellow progress on rubric and provide informal feedback to Fellows

Coaches track Fellow progress on rubric and provide informal feedback to Fellows

Coaches give a holistic score for the four Anchor Techniques on the rubric

Coaches will reassess Anchor Techniques holistically rated below developing

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Communication and Logistics Staff Communication Structures

Communication is essential to ensure a smooth and cohesive pre-service training. Clear communication must exist between multiple parties, including the program office, the Training Director, Coach Leads, Coaches, Skills Instructors, and stakeholders at Field Experience sites. You must disseminate and collect accurate information in a timely manner to ensure rapid Fellow development.

Specifically, you are responsible for:

Attending a weekly staff meeting with the entire PST team

Attending daily Coach Instructor meetings prior to the start of afternoon sessions

Providing accurate and up-to-date information on program policies and logistics to Fellows

Maintaining an accessible and consistent presence for Fellows and the teachNOLA staff

Collecting and communicating Fellow performance data to appropriate parties

Pre-service training staff will communicate through:

(1) E-mail: Email is the primary form of communication among pre-service training staff and an essential component of this position, so having a working e-mail address is mandatory. You must check your e-mail on a regular basis and respond to all messages in a timely fashion, usually within 24 hours. You should create a system to manage your e-mail inboxes. teachNOLA recommends that you set up a Gmail account and calendar specifically to handle your teachNOLA mail (e.g. [email protected]). You should inform Fellows of their specific hours of electronic correspondence. Coaches must check email and respond to pressing messages before Field Experience each morning, before skill-building sessions each afternoon, and once after 8:00 PM.

(2) TNTP Learning Portal: All members of our team will have access to courses on the TNTP Learning Portal through Blackboard where we will house training courses, curriculum, resources, and announcements. You will receive additional training about the integration of the Learning Portal with both staff and Fellows training during staff training.

(3) Cell phone: teachNOLA suggests that you use a cell phone this summer to ensure a continuous and open line of communication with pre-service training leadership and staff. The pre-service training leadership team may need to reach you at various points throughout the day to keep you aware of last minute scheduling changes, updates, and/or logistics.

(4) Google Calendar: You are responsible for getting lead teaching schedules from Fellows the Friday before the next week and planning your weekly schedule in advance (See the Coach Schedule section of this manual). You should post your schedule on Google Calendar by Sunday evening at 8:00 PM and make it accessible to Fellows and teachNOLA staff.

Weekly Team Meetings

The entire pre-service team will meet weekly ensure that all staff members are prepared to execute their roles and to keep all parties informed about Fellow progress and program updates. These meetings are an opportunity for you to share best practices and resources, and problem-solve challenges. Attendance and participation at these meetings are mandatory.

How should I collaborate with my Fellows Instructor?

Skill-Building Sessions: Help model techniques, note performance, and facilitate practice.

Data Sharing: Provide the Instructor with regular updates on your Fellows performance and discuss classroom strengths, development areas, and improvement strategies for Fellows. Share trends in technique proficiency youre seeing in the classroom so that the instructor can adjust sessions to respond.

Session Plans: You need their session plans for Skill Building so you know how to participate and prioritize interventions.

Daily Instructor-Coach Collaboration Meetings

One of the most crucial communication channels at pre-service training is between you and your Fellows Skills Instructor. As noted previously, you will attend each of your Fellows skill-building sessions and help the Instructor facilitate effective practice with the Teach Like a Champion techniques. To ensure that you and your Fellows Instructor are communicating actively about Fellow development and your role in skill-building sessions, you will meet for a quick daily meeting with the Instructors with whom you collaborate. Specific agenda items for these meetings will include, but are not limited to:

Trends in Fellow Field Experience performance

Trends in Fellow skill-building performance

Development strategies for individual Fellows (including an overview of planned responsive coaching sessions)

Roles & responsibilities in upcoming skill-building sessions

Weekly Check-Ins

You will meet one-on-one with your manager once each week to discuss progress toward goals, problem solve, and discuss areas of strength and development. Weekly check-in meetings are scheduled in advance.

Coach Schedules

Each week, youll need to manage your schedule proactively in order to ensure that your Fellows receive the development they need. As you plan and communicate your schedule, you will want to find the balance between planning observations and sessions in advance, and leaving room to be responsive to Fellow needs over the course of the week.

To complete your schedule, we suggest that you begin with your standing commitments. Then, review the performance trends in your coaching group to anticipate the needed classroom interventions, coaching conversations and responsive coaching sessions. Finally, map these needs to your Fellows lead teaching and skill building session schedules to determine the best timing for this coaching to take place. Given that Fellows lead teaching and field development time should be consistent each day of Field Experience, it should be fairly straightforward to plan standing events, like the two required weekly observations, as well as afternoon sessions using your pre-service training calendar.

You will complete a weekly schedule on our shared Google calendar which will allow teachNOLA Staff, and your Coach Lead to easily access your schedule. Because each Coach will have a slightly different schedule, it is imperative that you keep your schedule up to date and communicate changes to colleagues and Fellows as needed. We will provide more information and guidance about how to use data to prioritize your Coaching time during in-person training.

Performance Evaluation

There are three major accountability structures for assessing your performance as a Teacher Development Coach.

Performance Goals: Our number one priority for training is concrete Fellow improvement in the Fast Start skills and, by extension, increased student achievement. You will support Fellows development of the Fast Start skills in every interaction, have flexibility and autonomy to make development decisions to meet the unique needs of their group, and ultimately be accountable for your success in helping Fellows master them. Our programs broader goal of 75% of Fellows performing at the developing level in all three performance areas of the TNTP Core Rubric. Your group results should meet or exceed the site target.

Teacher Surveys: A key indicator of your performance is whether your Fellows believe that the coaching theyve received helps them master the Fast Start skills. Fellows will take two-three surveys to help program staff assess how well each Coach supports Fellow development and cultivates a culture of continuous improvement. On the surveys, Fellows will rate their level of agreement with the following statements.

1. I am aware of my progress toward demonstrating proficiency in the Fast Start skills. (Standard 3, 4, 5)

2. I feel motivated by my Teacher Development Coach. (Standard 4, 5)

3. Responsive coaching sessions help me master the Fast Start skills. (Standard 2, 4, 5)

4. In-lesson coaching helps me master the Fast Start skills. (Standard 1, 2, 3)

5. Conversations with my coach help me master the Fast Start skills. (Standard 1, 2, 3,5)

6. Overall, I feel more equipped to serve my students because of the coaching I have received from my Teacher Development Coach. (Standard 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

You should strive to have at least 85 percent of your Fellows agree or strongly agree with the above statements.

Coaching Standards: In weekly check-ins, your manager will provide ongoing feedback on your performance in the five Coaching Standards, introduced in the online training course, along with support and coaching to improve in these areas as needed. At the end of pre-service training, you will receive a formal evaluation incorporating feedback on the Coaching Standards and your progress on performance goals and surveys.

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Appendix A: Electronic Documents and Templates

Document Name

Digital File

Skill Building Scope and Sequence

TNTP Core Rubric

Appendix B: Teach Like a Champion Terms of Use

Our partnership with Uncommon Schools affords XTF with an exciting opportunity to accelerate Fellow development and position our teachers to be among the most effective new educators in the country. As an employee of TNTP, it is vital you protect our partnership with Uncommon Schools by strictly adhering to the following Terms of Use for all Teach Like a Champion and Uncommon Schools materials.

Subject to the terms and conditions of the License, TNTP may:

Provide training, based in whole or in part on the Licensed Materials (Training), to professional staff employed by and working for TNTP (TNTP Employees) or to teachers enrolled in the TNTP Programs (the Participants);

Make copies of the Licensed Materials necessary to provide copies to TNTP Employees or Participants for the purposes of Training; and

Post digital copies of the Licensed Materials on the internal network or intranet of TNTP, provided that such network contains access controls restricting access to only TNTP Employees and Participants.

Under no circumstances shall TNTP:

Use the Licensed Materials or any part thereof to provide Training to any individual or entity other than TNTP Employees or Participants;

Distribute the Licensed Materials or any part thereof to any individual or entity other than TNTP Employees or Participants;

Remove or intentionally obscure any copyright, trademark or confidentiality notice from any copy of the Licensed Materials; or

Assert or represent to any third party or TNTP Employees that it has any ownership rights in, or the right to sell, transfer, assign, rent, lease or sub-license the Licensed Materials.

I understand these terms of use and understand that I must adhere to them both during and after my employment with TNTP. I agree that I am personally liable for any breach of the Terms of Use, and further acknowledge that any such breach shall cause irreparable injury to Uncommon Schools for which Uncommon Schools shall be entitled to seek reparation.

Signature: ____________________________________________________________

Name (printed): _______________________________________________________

Program: _____________________________________________________________

Date: ____________________________

Skill Building Sessions

Field Experience

Responsive Coaching Sessions

1. Observe and/or Actively Coach

2. Discuss Performance and Plan Interventions

3. Execute Interventions

4. Formally

Evaluate Growth

5. Discuss Performance and Plan Interventions

Principles of Practice

Encode Success

Make it Safe (and Fun!)

Practice Using Feedack

Repeat and Spiral New Skills

Isolate, Then Integrate

Model First

Student learning comes first

We believe in the power of practice.

We embrace feedback.

We are joyful.

We are responsible for excellence.

Student achievement drives our work and is the reason why we work so hard. We believe that the achievement gap can be closed, and we engage students in challenging content, require them to generate academic ideas, and push them to extend their thinking because we believe that all students can and should excel at academically rigorous work. We work with a sense of urgency to achieve high academic outcomes for all students, even in the face of obstacles.

We value practice as the primary means to develop. We are willing to rehearse until weve demonstrably mastered skills. We are willing to take risks and practice new skills and techniques because we believe that practice makes perfect, and students deserve nothing less.

We have the courage to give and seek feedback. We want to get better, fast. Accurate, direct feedback in the moment helps us improve much faster than figuring it out alone. We adapt to feedback because we know it helps us provide a better education for kids.

We bring passion and joy to our work, in order to help students enjoy working toward meaningful outcomes that will expand their opportunities. We work hard and have fun.

We are committed to making a real difference for students, so we hold ourselves to the highest standards of excellence every day. Our goal is not just to be good, but to be great, and to give our students the tools they need to excel academically. We are willing to support each other in achieving excellence, and we name it when people arent on track. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own growth and achievement, as well as the growth and achievement of our students.

Appendix E: Teach Like a Champion Terms of Use32


Training Scope and

Sequence.docx

Pre-Service Training Scope and Sequence 2015

Overview This scope and sequence outlines the progression of experiences that contribute to learning Fast Start skills before and during pre-service training, and is divided into the following sections:Enrollment Modules: this section describes the knowledge base that Fellows will bring to pre-service training.Fellow Orientation: this section describes the five session series that will orient Fellows for their responsibilities during pre-service training. Skill-Building Sessions: this section outlines the progression of sessions in which Fellows will be introduced to new techniques and skills and will practice them for the first time. Enrollment ModulesThe goal of the enrollment modules is to build a foundation of knowledge about pre-service training and the teaching profession in general prior to beginning face-to-face training at the site. The enrollment modules consist of 3 modules:Module 1: IntroductionModule 2: Excellent Instruction Module 3: The Teaching ProfessionModule 1: IntroductionIn this introductory module, Fellows will learn about the student achievement gap in America, whats at stake for students, and the role an effective teacher plays in raising student achievement. Fellows also be introduced to the different components of the online course and have an opportunity to meet other new teachers joining the profession.Module 2: Excellent Instruction In order to help our students achieve, we must hold a common and clear vision of what great teaching looks like in practice. Fellows will learn about the role of Common Core standards in their instruction and will discover how to connect those standards to their daily work in the classroom. Additionally, Fellows will learn about the powerful impact that classroom culture has on student achievement and discover tools for establishing productive classroom routines and keeping students engaged. In this section, Fellows also see how effective teachers promote and maintain high behavioral and academic expectations for all of their students. They will look closely at student needs, examine reasons why students may misbehave, and discover how to address misbehavior and keep the focus on student learning and achievement.Module 3: The Teaching ProfessionBeing a teacher means constantly pushing to develop the mindsets and skills you will need to tackle any challenge that comes your way. This section introduces Fellows to habits of effective teachers, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the new teacher in a school enviro