My Teaching Partner-Secondary: A video-based coaching model

When Seeing is Believing: A Framework for Reflective Conversations in Remote and Face-to-Face Coaching Approaches

Reflective conversations between teachers and coaches are critical to helping teachers improve their classroom instruction. Coaches who encourage teachers to "see, think, and do" are better able to facilitate meaningful reflective conversations with teachers. The "See, Think, Do" framework consists of six steps (observe, describe, process, analyze, draw conclusions, and plan) that can be used to help coaches engage in reflective conversations with teachers. The framework can be readily implemented in remote and face-to-face coaching modalities and in one-on-one and small group delivery formats. Suggestions and strategies for implementing the framework in ongoing coach-teacher conversations are provided.

Interactional quality in middle schools: Latent profiles and their associations with teacher, classroom, and school compositional factors

High quality teacher-student interactions are critical for the healthy social-emotional, behavioral, and academic development of middle school students. However, few studies have explored patterns of teacher-student interactions in middle school classrooms or the relation between teacher-, classroom-, and school-level factors and patterns of interaction. The current study employed latent profile analyses (LPA) to identify patterns of teacher-student interactional quality in a sample of 334 teachers from 41 schools serving middle school students within the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. Three distinct profiles of teacher-student interactional quality were identified that were characteristic of higher, lower, and intermediate quality and were differentially related to teacher, classroom, and school characteristics. Compared to classrooms with lower interactional quality, classrooms with "higher" or "intermediate" profiles were more likely to be taught by early career teachers, to have higher rates of observed student cooperation, and to be in schools in rural fringe areas. Classrooms with lower interactional quality were more likely to have larger student-to-teacher ratios and higher rates of student disruptive behaviors than classrooms with intermediate interactional quality and to be in schools with a higher percentage of out-of-school suspensions than classrooms with higher interactional quality. These findings suggest that interventions at the teacher, classroom, and school levels may promote positive teacher-student interactions, such as consultation to support teachers' effective classroom management, alternatives to out-of-school suspensions, and smaller student-to-teacher ratios.

A scalable empathic-mindset intervention reduces group disparities in school suspensions

Suspensions remove students from the learning environment at high rates throughout the United States. Policy and theory highlight social groups that face disproportionately high suspension rates-racial-minoritized students, students with a prior suspension, and students with disabilities. We used an active placebo-controlled, longitudinal field experiment (N_teachers = 66, N_students = 5822) to test a scalable "empathic-mindset" intervention, a 45- to 70-min online exercise to refocus middle school teachers on understanding and valuing the perspectives of students and on sustaining positive relationships even when students misbehave. In preregistered analyses, this exercise reduced suspension rates especially for Black and Hispanic students, cutting the racial disparity over the school year from 10.6 to 5.9 percentage points, a 45% reduction. Significant reductions were also observed for other groups of concern. Moreover, reductions persisted through the next year when students interacted with different teachers, suggesting that empathic treatment with even one teacher in a critical period can improve students' trajectories through school.

Focused Classroom Coaching and Widespread Racial Equity in School Discipline

We examined the effects of a teacher coaching program on discipline referrals using records from 7,794 secondary U.S. classrooms. Some classroom teachers took part in a trial: They were randomized to receive intensive coaching in a focal classroom or to form a business-as-usual control group. The remaining teachers taught in the same schools. Previous research suggested that the coaching program was associated with increasing equity in discipline referrals in focal coached classrooms (Gregory et al., 2016). The current study addressed the generalizability of effects from teachers' focal coached classrooms to diverse classrooms in their course load. Results suggested that the coaching program had no generalized effects on reducing referrals with African American students or racial referral gaps in classrooms with coached teachers, relative to the control teachers and the other teachers in the schools. We offer implications for coaching programs and directions for equity-oriented efforts to reduce racial discipline gaps.