How I transformed my instructional coaching practice

For the past eight years, I’ve had the privilege of serving the Growth Public Schools community here in Sacramento, California—first as a founding teacher and more recently as an instructional coach.

As a first-year coach at a startup charter school, I often felt like I was building my practice from scratch. I spent a lot of time in grade-level team meetings, and I would occasionally observe classrooms and debrief with teachers. But I knew that something was missing when it came to providing targeted instructional feedback beyond basic classroom management strategies.

At the start of last year, I set out to establish coaching routines that would consistently provide GPS teachers with meaningful and effective instructional support. Working alongside the Instruction Partners team, I took three critical steps to transform and strengthen my coaching practice:

1. I adopted a classroom observation tool aligned to our school’s vision for instruction.

To help my teachers grow, my feedback needed to point them toward a clear vision of excellent instruction. Though our school already had a vision statement in place that described how we want students to experience learning, we hadn’t yet articulated the content-specific teaching moves that would bring our vision to life. For example, our vision states that we want our students to be in charge of their own learning—but, what exactly does student-led learning look like in an ELA classroom? The Instruction Partners team suggested that I utilize the Instructional Practice Guide (IPG) as a classroom observation tool to help bring clarity and specificity to our vision.

The IPG describes “core actions” that encompass the shifts in instructional practice required by the standards in each content area. I liked this tool because it was aligned to our school-wide vision for instruction, and it went a level deeper by providing me with specific things to look for when observing classrooms. Now, when I consider whether students are “in charge of their own learning” during an ELA lesson observation, I can turn to the IPG indicators for Core Action 3 (student engagement):

• Students do the majority of the work of the lesson to uncover deeper meaning from the text and to build knowledge of the world through speaking/listening, reading, and/or writing.
• Students productively struggle to arrive at meaning making through reasoning and appropriate scaffolding such as leveraging background knowledge building, fluency, vocabulary, and syntax.
• Students provide accurate text evidence to support the explanation of their ideas and display precision in their oral and/or written responses.
• Students talk and ask questions about each other’s thinking in order to clarify or improve their understanding.

The IPG includes ratings for each indicator on a scale of 1–4 so that I can track trends across classrooms and pinpoint where to focus my development efforts for individual teachers.

When I first began using the IPG, I found that the best way to become comfortable with the new tool was through practice—observing classroom instruction through the lens of the core actions and holding debrief conversations with my Instruction Partners team.

2. I established consistent classroom observation routines.

I needed to find time in my busy schedule to observe classrooms regularly—and do so in a sustainable way. Early on, I focused on a small group of “focus teachers” (i.e., those with the greatest opportunities for growth). I prioritized observing these teachers every one to two weeks, then gradually added others to my schedule. This approach has allowed me to build consistent routines without overwhelming my schedule as I balance other responsibilities.

When I observe classrooms, I focus on collecting clear, factual evidence of teaching and learning. I take detailed notes, documenting what teachers and students say and do, and I try to avoid making any assumptions. If I am ever confused by something I observe in a classroom, I ask the teacher and students clarifying questions instead of drawing my own conclusions. This helps ensure my feedback for teachers is grounded in what’s actually happening in their classrooms.

3. I narrowed the focus of my feedback sessions.

The biggest shift in my coaching practice was learning to give more targeted and actionable feedback. Before working with Instruction Partners, the scope of my feedback was wide ranging—highlighting what went well, asking general questions, and brainstorming next steps together. Now, I focus on specific evidence from my classroom obervations and guide teachers toward identifying concrete steps that could improve instruction, especially in ways that shift more of the cognitive heavy lifting to students.

In this process, I’ve found a few “must-haves” for my feedback sessions:

• Preparation: I make sure to hold ample time to prepare my feedback, ensuring I can effectively support and guide teachers through the learning process. I review the evidence from the observation, identify a clear action step that could improve the teacher’s practice, and then plan reflection questions that help the teacher come to the next step on their own. It’s important that I model the kind of intentional and detailed preparation for coaching sessions that I expect teachers to bring to their lessons.
• Affirmation: I start every session with “glows,” naming specific strengths and successes from the lesson. I also invite teachers to share what they’re proud of in their work. Celebrating progress, especially after they made changes based on previous feedback, builds confidence and momentum.
• Teacher ownership: During feedback sessions, I guide teachers to reflect on the evidence and draw their own conclusions about next steps. I ask questions like, “What would be the impact on the students’ learning experience if you had done this instead of that?” or “Who is doing the heavy lifting here?” These questions encourage teachers to analyze their work and name their own action steps, rather than just telling them what I think they should work on—fostering a deeper sense of ownership over their own teaching practice.
• Naming clear next steps: Once teachers identify a strategy that they want to implement, we collaboratively plan what it would like to bring it to life in a future lesson. This ensures the feedback is not only clear but immediately applicable.

At the heart of every piece of feedback I give is a focus on the opportunities it creates for students—so that they are held to high expectations and experience grade-level learning.

Just as teachers continually refine their practice to meet students’ needs, I strive to stay responsive to the needs of the teachers I support. At the end of each coaching session, I ask questions like, “Was this helpful?” and “Is there anything else that would support you better?” I also gather formal feedback twice a year, asking what has worked well and where I can improve. This helps ensure that my coaching continues to meet teachers where they are so that we can collectively provide the best possible learning experiences for our students.