COACHING JOURNAL

Entry #1 (3/7/22):
At first, I was nervous to approach my colleagues to ask them to work with
me on these coaching journals as I have never really seen myself as a coach, but
rather as someone who is there to assist in times of need. I decided to approach
members of my Second Grade Team as they are who I am most comfortable
working with. We all have different levels of technology ability, as well as comfort
levels in incorporating technology within the classroom. My coworker Cindi Cabral is
a veteran teacher of 22 years who has agreed to work with me and help me
progress in my role as instructional technology coach for the time being. Cindi and
I chose to work together because she is always asking for new ways to engage her
students and find tools for them to work on independently. One of our main
concerns going forward is that our school is not one-to-one for devices, we only
have about 4-5 devices per classroom, whether those are iPads or laptops.
Therefore, we are required to check out laptop carts for our students to use if we
want all of them to work using technology. There’s always some hiccups along the
way but it is our job to work around those hiccups and persevere in our given
environment. I look forward to working with Cindi and watching her grow in her
career and as a technology innovator.

Entry #2 (3/16/22):
Cindi and I met together to discuss what is expected in these coaching
sessions and what she would like me to work on with her moving forward. Cindi
mentioned to me how she is still hesitant with implementing technology in her
classroom as she does not feel fully prepared or understand all of the tools being
presented to her. There are so many different technology tools out there to use in
the classroom, so I understand her feeling overwhelmed by all of the available
technologies. Currently, Cindi is using RazKids to incorporate technology into
reading, and SMART slides in her math block for a whole-group lesson. She
mentioned how she would like to incorporate more technology into her classroom,
especially in the area of math. She’s looking for a technology tool that can be used
for enrichment or remediation and is individualized to the students. I talked with
her about LoTI levels and the importance of trying to reach for those higher LoTI
levels to ensure engagement and authenticity for our students. Using the Identify
questions on page 84 of Knight’s textbook (2018), Cindi and I went over the lesson
that I observed of her current math block and use of technology. Overall, Cindi
felt very comfortable with the lesson that she taught and using SMART slides for
technology, but there was not individualized use of technology for the students,
which is the goal that we have decided to work on moving forward. Current goal:
find a technology tool for math that can be individualized for each student and be
used for remediation and enrichment, is user friendly for both teachers and
students, alongside continuing to use SMART slides for whole group instruction.
We briefly talked about using SplashLearn for our independent technology tool for
students, but Cindi is open to looking at some different tools as well. As her coach,
I will take a dive into different applications that are available to the students from
the county and which of those applications meets Cindi’s goal.

Entry #3 (4/5/22):
After meeting with Cindi to discuss our Identify video, we discussed a time
to meet and go over some tools that I had found and what we need to do moving
forward. Cindi and I reviewed her current goal which is to find a technology tool
for math that can be individualized for each student and be used for remediation
and enrichment, is user friendly for both teachers and students, alongside
continuing to use SMART slides for whole group instruction. Our original
technology tool to implement was SplashLearn, but upon further research, I found
that SplashLearn was not as user friendly for teachers and students. Given that
our classes are set-up for us through our CLEVER accounts, we do not have the
ability to lump all of our students into one large group. They are separated into
three separate classes and we could not individualize the assignments. With that
being said, I found that Prodigy, a math app, would be more beneficial and easier to
implement, especially given that the app is available for us on the school iPads.
Cindi and I reviewed a checklist, specifically the “I Do, We Do, You Do” checklist
provided by Knight (2018). I Cindi a suggestion to change her student passwords to
their county provided numbers as their generated passwords are quite funky. Cindi
agreed that it was a good idea, and upon further questioning, Cindi confirmed that
she did not want to change anything on the checklist. I then walked Cindi through
setting up her Progidy account and linking her class from CLEVER. I demonstrated
what reports are available once students complete an assignment and how you can
individually assign certain tasks to students who require additional practice. I gave
Cindi a copy of student directions for them to use when they login on the iPads or
laptops. We discussed providing students with a “What Did I Learn” checklist that
they could complete after they have logged in to Progidy, to grasp what they
worked on that day and how they did. At the end, we determined that Cindi was
going to come observe my class using Prodigy and then implement it in her own
classroom to see how it works!

Entry #4 (4/15/22):
Going into this last coaching session, I felt more comfortable with this whole
process. In the beginning, I was nervous and hesitant as I am still a relatively new
teacher working with veteran teachers. Cindi has been a great mentee and is so
welcoming and kind, always willing to change things up and go with the flow. The
Improve video was all about looking at how Cindi implemented our new technology
tool, Prodigy, into her math lessons. I went into Cindi’s classroom to observe her
using technology and noticed her utilizing SMART slides for whole-group
instruction. The students were engaged in the lesson and she had them coming up
to the board to circle rows and columns, so they were actively participating. After
the whole-group lesson, the students completed an independent worksheet and
those who finished with additional time were allowed to login to Prodigy. Cindi
helped them login using the student printed directions. Once students were logged
in, Cindi came to the realization that the creation of the avatar was taking a lot
longer than expected, which meant that some of the students didn’t even get to
the practice. Because only a few students had time to login, Cindi mentioned that
she would probably have all of her students login and set up their avatar first, then
the next time that they login, they will be ready to practice math skills. When I
asked Cindi the confirm directions question, she mentioned how she would like to go
over student data. We logged back into her account and identified two students
who were struggling with identifying shapes, so Cindi said that she will assign them
additional practice for that particular skill. We went through the “Review Progress,
Invent Improvements, and Next Steps” questions (Knight, 2018). I think that Cindi
is doing a great job adapting to this new technology. It was difficult at first as she
is not super comfortable with all of the tools being presented. She was open to
change and willing to work together to find something that would work well for her
and her students. I am going to follow up with Cindi in about a week and a half once
all of her students have had the opportunity to login and try out Prodigy. I look
forward to seeing continuous progress from Cindi and her students!
 References

Knight, J. (2018). The impact cycle: What instructional coaches should do to foster
powerful improvements in teaching. Corwin Press: Thousand Oaks.