RUNNING HEAD: COACHING JOURNAL Harvey 1

ITEC 7460 Coaching Journal

Ginny Harvey

Kennesaw State University

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I. Introduction

This semester, I am partnering with a teacher from Summerour Middle School in the

Gwinnett County Public Schools District. Summerour is a lower income Title 1 school, which

demographics are roughly 75% Hispanic, 10% White, 8% African-American, and 7% Other

This educator, Mr. West, is a veteran teacher of nearly 20 years I met through a colleague at my

school. He is a self-contained learning disabilities teacher, and in the past worked at a couple of

different elementary and middle schools as a resource teacher.

II. Journal Entry #1: September 8th, 2023

Mr. West spent all 19 of his years of teaching in Gwinnett County. When asked about his

background in terms of technology, he shared his thoughts about the feeling of constant change

in the county makes it very difficult to keep up with the technology. He also brought up how he

feels like it seems to change every year, so he doesn’t feel like he needs as much help with

changing his practice knowing it’ll all be different again next year. Spoken like a true veteran.

So adamant in his resolve of a constant changing system that’s become too difficult to

keep up with, Mr. West is excited to learn about other technologies that will help him in his

science classroom. His school uses an application called Gizmo, which I’ve never heard of

before, but will be researching in preparation of this coaching. He struggles with this website, as

well as Google Workspace, and would like to become more proficient in both of these things by

the end of the semester. His main request was to find information making it easier for a 61-year-

old to keep up with technology, of which I told him I’m happy to help him with!

In his initial thoughts and feelings about the coaching, Mr. West shared his lack of

comfort in using technology. He is worried because he ranks himself a 3 or 4 out of 10 in

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technology and feels behind on the modern times. Though he feels somewhat comfortable with

testing applications such as Edulastic due to training he’s received already at his school, his

biggest difficulty is he feels that they go over the software and programs too quickly for him. He

needs it to be more slowed down. He gave the example of his sixth grade science CLT sends out

the Gizmo every week, and he struggles to make it work for his students so sometimes he just

gives up and doesn’t do it. Furthermore, he hopes there is another software besides Gizmo he

could use that might be more useful to him.

I will be honest and say coaching has never been a strong suit of mine. I get frustrated

when my parents can’t figure out how to use their computers, and they call me random times of

the day. That being said, this is a skill that is an absolute necessity in Instructional Technology,

and though a challenge, I am willing to face it head on. This person definitely struggles with

technology and will need a lot of intervention and baby steps to get them to where they need to

be. That being said, I am confident through patience, and providing enough tools, I will be able

to help this person use the Gizmo tool effectively in their classroom by the end of the semester.

My plan for doing this is essentially going to involve email, as well as I plan on zooming

with this person as much as I can. Their school is about 30 minutes away from mine, but gets out

two hours later. I have plans already to visit the school, more than the allotted time for the

coaching videos to prep the teacher before they implement the lessons using this technology. It’s

useful to know there is a stool specifically this teacher needs help with, and will make it easier in

helping to work with them. One thing that the participant did not mention was that they shared

their eClass page with me. I was feeling a little overwhelmed when I looked at it, because it was

mostly barren. I think I may as a side project help them build their eClass looking to how it

should be. These are my two main goals for this semester as a coach, this willing participant!
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III. Coaching Journal #2

When meeting with Mr. West, I will be using the Dialogue Coaching approach. “Dialogue

coaches do not give advice; they share possible strategies with teachers and let teachers decide

whether they want to try one of them or some other strategy to meet their goal.” (Knight, 2017,

p. 13). We plan to meet biweekly via Zoom to discuss his goals and identify, plan and improve

where he needs to grow. Mr. West viewed a video of his science lesson on the parts of the cell,

and we both noticed that it was difficult for students to see his drawing of the cell on the board.

We considered the possibility of his getting a smartboard or using some sort of device to

streamline this process.

Mr. West expresses a desire to use technology more effectively in the classroom and

mentions the need for simpler, user-friendly technology to engage students. He highlights his

interest in virtual reality and interactive tools to make learning more engaging. Mr. West

acknowledges his challenges in adapting to new technology, especially as an older teacher, and

suggests that ongoing support and training would be beneficial. He also discusses the use of the

Gizmo program for science classes, which he finds challenging to teach effectively, and

expresses the need to improve his proficiency with it.

For student-focused goals, Mr. West seeks to streamline the process for students to access

online resources, making it more efficient and user-friendly. He emphasizes the importance of

helping students with processing difficulties navigate technology more easily. For teacher-

focused goals, Mr. West wishes to learn one or two new programs and become proficient in their

use to enhance classroom effectiveness.

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One of the main goals Mr. West mentioned was his desire to make his eClass/D2L page more

user friendly for his students. I plan to share my page with him and provide ideas that might

make this more useful to him in the future.

IV. Coaching Journal #3

Mr. West and I discussed his goals, expectations, and the timeline for integrating technology

through an in person visit, as well as two Zoom chats. In each discussion, Mr. West expressed

his interest in using technology to enhance his teaching and reach his students more effectively.

Mr. West set goals for improving his eClass page. He mentioned his desire to post agendas on

eClass announcements and potentially redesign the aesthetics to make it more engaging for

students to be more easily accessible to get to the lesson of the day. I discussed the importance

of gathering feedback and troubleshooting issues. Mr. West mentioned his openness to feedback

and his expectation that I would assist him in resolving any tech-related problems. I explained

the need to regularly evaluate the impact of tech tools and eClass page improvements on

teaching and learning. Mr. West acknowledged the importance of adapting the coaching plan

based on feedback and results. I emphasized the importance of maintaining records and

encouraged Mr. West to engage in continuous learning and exploring new tools. He expressed

his willingness to embrace ongoing growth and development. I discussed his plan to conduct

training sessions on the selected tech tools (Padlet and Gizmo). Mr. West expressed his

enthusiasm for these tools and his readiness to learn and integrate them into his teaching

practices.

Overall, Mr. West responded positively to the checklist and expressed his eagerness to work

with me to achieve his technology integration goals in the classroom. The selection of Padlet and
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Gizmo as tech tools aligns with his preferences, and he is open to the coaching process, including

improvements to his eClass page and ongoing collaboration.

V. Coaching Journal #4

In our final coaching session, the teacher and I met to implement their lesson plan. This came

after multiple meetings via Zoom to plan for this lesson on Inheritance in Mr. West’s 7th grade

life science course. First, students were directed to view the lesson of the day via the 7th Grade

Life Science eClass/D2L page. Under the “announcements” tab on the top of the page, students

viewed a place that stated, “Today’s Agenda”, with a link to the HTM accordion template file

with the run-down of the events for the day. This easy access made is more practical for students

to view the lesson, without having to click under “content”. Mr. West exclaimed throughout the

lesson his excitement to his students at having the ease of access to this tool; a couple students

seemed to agree with his sentiments.

The lesson began with answering a Padlet. This tasked students with answering the

question “What is inheritance?” In order to scaffold for students in this self-contained course, it

clarified by asking, “What does this word mean?”. Though limited answers were provided,

students shared their thoughts on the meaning of this term. It allowed student voice and input,

something not as easily shown in a traditional class period prior to this lesson.

The lesson continued by watching and discussing an Inheritance edPuzzle. Mr. West

hadn’t used this tool prior to today’s lesson either, and he was as fascinated as the students,

asking over and over to the students, “Isn’t this fun? Let’s have more of these in class!”. It was

enjoyable to see his exhilaration at the lesson, sharing with students his own nuanced learning of

how to use technology in the classroom. Mr. West shared that he plans to continue using these,
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and that he will share his find with other teachers in the building. It’s exciting to see that this

continues to be something Mr. West can take away from this experience.

Students completed a Gizmos activity on Inheritance. This involved dragging and

dropping aliens into a reproductive simulation, which demonstrated for students how the process

works in an interactive activity. Mr. West enjoyed figuring out this activity alongside the

students, sharing his excitement for this new activity I suggested he use. One troubleshooting

error we ran into was the fact this only allowed students to do this for a short period of time

before the demo ended. There was a bit of an error logging in that kept students from the full

version of the game, something that we discussed and attempted to troubleshoot in our debrief.

Still, students had fun playing with this game as a class, and it was definitely the highlight of the

activity!

After the lesson, the teacher and I met and debriefed on our findings and reflected on how

students responded. The teacher was enthusiastic at how the use of technology enhanced his

classroom experience, and expressed this adamantly throughout the post-reflect session. He plans

to continue this trend in the future with his students in how he organizes/structures his lessons

and implements digital tools in his lesson structure. He plans to share edPuzzles with his

colleagues, and sees benefit in this and Padlet. Though still troubleshooting Gizmos, Mr. West

feels more confident using this tool, and plans to continue learning more.

Overall, I enjoyed working with and mentoring this teacher immensely. I was pleased to

see his enthusiasm continue to grow despite his feeling of struggle with engaging with these

tools. Though I tried to provide advice on digital tools available rather than directly intervene, I

believe sharing tools such as Padlet and edPuzzle gave this teacher the ability to find success in

enhancing his classroom experience. Additionally, it is my hope this teacher found the
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aesthetically pleasing and easily accessible daily agenda something they use in the future. I

learned much patience in this experience and found enjoyment in helping this educator find

success in using a diverse range of digital tools in the classroom.