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Coaching Journal
Lin-Chiou Lee
Fall 2018
Coaching Journal – Lee 2
Strategies
Prior to this session; through my Technology Use and Needs Adopter Survey, I started to
gather information about Mrs. Morrow’s current technology integration status, her comfort level
with technology use personally and academically, the new technologies she is interested to learn,
and the best time for us to learn and practice together. This very first coaching session was
dedicated as a “one-to-one interview” for Mrs. Morrow and I to “develop that one-to-one
[partnership] relationship” (Knight, 2007, p. 91). We opened up about our own strengths and
weaknesses in technology skills and instructional strategies. Since the majority of current
activities, Mrs. Morrow acknowledged that she would like to design class activities where students
have more opportunities and choices to use technology to demonstrate learning, collaborate with
their classmates, and solve problems with a real world connection (personal communication,
October, 2018). With Mrs. Morrow’s desire wanting to provide more student-centered technology
use, we both agreed to explore various tools to ensure student choices and utilize online pre-
assessments and formative assessments with Google Forms to provide timely feedback.
Towards the end of the meeting, we reviewed the TIM-O-Matrix that will be used to
evaluate Mrs. Morrow’s technology integration level. She understood how the TIM-O matrix
authentic, and goal-directed in five different attributes – entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and
transformation. We ended the session by finalizing a time for me to observe her classroom
instruction to best evaluate her current technology integration level using the TIM-O-Scale.
At the very beginning of the session, Mrs. Morrow has expressed her frustration with the
fact that she could not seem to keep up with all the instructional technology tools she has come
across. She also did not want to be pressured to implement technology just because everyone else
was. With these words lingering in the air, I could tell that she was skeptical and reserved to the
idea of us collaborating together even though she has expressed interest to work with me in the
first place. With me reassuring my addition being more of a co-teacher than an evaluator, Mrs.
Morrow has certainly opened up to me more. I did convince her to let me observe and evaluate her
current technology integration level using the TIM-O-Scale because she was also curious to find
out which attribute she falls under – entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, or transformation.
This coaching session to me was all about the art of persuasion. How do Mrs. Morrow and
Mrs. Morrow in implementing new technology in the classroom under her own volition? The “Peer
Coaching” model seems to be the answer here. I want both of us to be active participants at all
times, working as a team to decide what and how to improve instruction to maximize student
learning while effectively integrating technology. Mrs. Morrow’s needs are always identified and
communicated first before we collectively decide the best coaching steps necessary. Under this
model, Mrs. Morrow is guaranteed to acquire technology integration strategies she can use right
away because they are relevant to her content and instructional beliefs (Beglau, Hare, Foltos,
Strategies
During this round of the coaching session, we centered our reflective dialogue around my
classroom observation based on the TIM-O-Scale. Since Mrs. Morrow also had the chance to self-
assess her own instruction through a series of questions in the TIM-O system, she was surprised to
see she was mostly in the Adoption/Entry level for her technology use. After thoroughly and
carefully going over her current technology use based on the TIM-O ratings, Mrs. Morrow seemed
to feel better about my observation and her self-evaluation results and was ready to adjust her
classroom instructions. Since the teacher must “have [the full] say in what she does and does not
do” (Knight, 2007, p. 41), I immediately redirected Mrs. Morrow’s attention to decide which
category of technology use she preferred to work on first. Based on her input, we came up with
ideas to attain the Adaptation level in the active and collaborative categories.
The very first thing Mrs. Morrow would like to do was to maximize the use of Google
Classroom. She could not wait to have her students post their answers to the daily Warmup
question and interact with one another after I showed her how it could be done. Not only Mrs.
Morrow acknowledged that she would mainly technology for direct instruction but also her
TIM-O ratings confirmed the lack of active and collaborative roles of students’ technology use.
We reviewed several of the performance tasks she had used and planned to implement before
understanding based on Mrs. Morrow’s comfort level of offering student choices. We ended the
session by arranging two separate class periods for me to observe her as I co-teach and facilitate
her classroom instruction using the technology tools we both agreed on.
Mrs. Morrow was definitely shocked when she saw her technology integration level was
lower than what she expected. After the initial shock, she immediately was ready to dig deeper into
the why by sharing what I did not get the chance to observe. On top of my suggestions, Mrs.
Morrow was eager to contribute to our discussions what she thought might also work before we
went over how to make them work. I felt that Mrs. Morrow and I were true partners because we
This coaching session to me was all about fostering that partnership relationship to ensure
true collaboration. It was definitely easier said than done. I constantly needed to make sure that I
did not “tell” Mrs. Morrow how to use the tools I suggested to improve her instruction because I
was not there to evaluate her and tell her what to do. My biggest challenge was to figure out how
to appropriately demonstrate all the tools without overselling them so that Mrs. Morrow would see
the value of making the switch on her own. The answer here was to keep that perfect balance
between coaching and the “partnership philosophy” based on “equality, choice, voice, dialogue,
reflection, praxis, and reciprocity” with Mrs. Morrow to ensure effective communication
before, during, and after the implementation (Knight, 2007, pp. 24-26 & 29). My continuous
effort will be to make sure that Mrs. Morrow receives the right amount of support from me without
being forceful.
Coaching Journal – Lee 6
Strategies
Mrs. Morrow began the session by self-assessing herself again using the TIM-O-Scale.
Based on her results and my observations, we continued to have our reflective conversation about
my coaching and her technology practice. To increase students’ active and collaborative roles in
their own learning, I suggested it was time for us to boost communication of the prioritized
standards identified by the county so that students could better understand what they must know
and how they are expected to demonstrate their understanding throughout the course.
Mrs. Morrow and I took a closer look at utilizing the ACFTL (American Council on the
Teaching of Foreign Languages) progress indicators with her students. We would be working on
fully digitizing these standards within Google Forms so that every student could use this online
performance checklist to either self-evaluate or knew how Mrs. Morrow would be evaluating him
or her in speaking and writing throughout the entire course. We divided up the work between the
two of us and would continue the collaboration through Google Forms. We ended the session by
deciding to meet up in three weeks to discuss how to implement this ACFTL checklist.
Based on my interaction with Mrs. Morrow, she was definitely open to new innovations
under her own timeline and excited to experiment with newly-acquired technologies even though it
might not be successful at times. Even though Mrs. Morrow might not be the technology savvy
teacher who would volunteer to mentor and provide technology training to others, she was
definitely a key player to gradually move those who are slow or isolate themselves within the
traditional instructional methods to reach the technology integration thresholds set forth by the
school. Mrs. Morrow told me she was glad that she went out of her comfort zone by
Coaching Journal – Lee 7
collaborating with me and would highly recommend other Spanish teachers to take a chance
with me as well.
This coaching session to me was all about continuing that reflective conversation about
practices. How do I continue to show Mrs. Morrow that I am a valuable asset to her teaching? How
do I continue to make my opinions and expertise relevant to her teaching philosophy? I really
enjoyed being a teaching partner to Mrs. Morrow because I have also learned a lot from her during
this process. Being an instructional coach is like being the ultimate mind reader and problem
solver. However, I know that I cannot solve the problem unless I start to listen very carefully and
work very closely to my colleagues. As an instructional coach, I am forever grateful for all the
teachers who are willing to go out of their comfort zones and decide to try something new. My
next step is to get more teachers on board to make that switch with me.
Coaching Journal – Lee 8
References
Floria Center for Instructional Technology. The Technology Integration Matrix. Retrieved from
https://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix/.
Orr, G. (2003). Diffusion of innovations, by Everett Rogers (1995). Retrieved October, 4, 2018
from https://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm.