EAPRIL Conference Proceedings 2015

EAPRIL Conference Proceedings 2015

WEB-BASED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO IMPROVE TEXT DISCUSSIONS Elaine Wang*, Lindsay Clare Matsumura**, Donna DiPrima Bickel***, Richard Correnti****, Dena Zook-Howell*****, Deanna Weber Prine****** and Marguerite Walsh******* *Ph.D. Candidate, Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pitssburgh, PA 15260, US, [email protected], **Associate Professor, LRDC, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pitssburgh, PA 15260, US, [email protected] *** Fellow, Institute for Learning, LRDC, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pitssburgh, PA 15260, US, [email protected] **** Research Program Coordinator, LRDC, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pitssburgh, PA 15260, US, [email protected] ***** Fellow, Institute for Learning, LRDC, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pitssburgh, PA 15260, US, [email protected] ****** Research Program Coordinator, LRDC, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pitssburgh, PA 15260, US, [email protected] ******* Ph.D. Candidate, Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pitssburgh, PA 15260, US, [email protected]

ABSTRACT The goal of our project is to leverage web-based technologies to develop a scalable professional development program that increases the rigor and interactivity of classroom text discussions. Specifically, we are engaging in a series of iterative design cycles to develop an online workshop and remote coaching system. In the current mixed-methods study, we investigated the feasibility of the system, teachers’ affective experience with the remote coach, and potential effects on teachers’ practice. Key findings from the first design cycle include that teachers felt supported by the online workshop facilitator and coach and believed that they significantly benefited from reflecting on their videotaped lessons with the online coach. Our results also provide evidence that teachers implemented coach feedback to improve their lesson design and the rigor of their classroom text discussions.

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INTRODUCTION Research on professional development that affects students’ learning and achievement provides evidence in support of several essential features of effective professional development programs (Yoon, Duncan, Lee, Scarloss, & Shapley, 2007). That is, such interventions need to be based in the curricula to be taught, they need to explicitly build teachers’ pedagogical knowledge base, and they need to provide in-classroom guidance to teachers to apply new knowledge in their practice. Professional learning programs with an instructional coaching component satisfy these criteria. Yet, decades of research show that such professional development programs, especially coaching, are very difficult to implement well (Duessen, Coskie, Robinson, & Autio, 2007) First, many local education agencies (LEAs) lack the human capital and resources necessary to develop high-quality professional development institutes and to train and supervise coaches (Matsumura, Garnier, & Resnick, 2010; Matsumura, Sartoris, Bickel, & Garnier, 2009). Second, coaching resources are often not used effectively in schools (Blamey, Meyer, & Walpole, 2008; Duessen et al., 2007; Matsumura, Garnier, & Spybrook,, 2012). Duessen and colleagues (2007) found, for example, that only about 28% of coaches’ time in schools was spent working with teachers. Coaches often perform a range of administrative tasks in schools that detract from their core duties to support teachers’ instruction (Duessen et al., 2007; Matsumura & Wang, 2014). Finally, many LEAs simply cannot afford to support full-time coaches in schools. Web-based technologies are a promising solution to addressing the problem of scaling effective teacher learning opportunities (Allen, Hafen, Gregory, Mikami, & Pianta, 2015; Dash, Magidin de Kramer, O’Dwyer, Masters, & Russell, 2012; Downer, Pianta, Fan, Hamre, Mashburn,& Justice, 2011; Powell, Diamond, Burchinal, & Koehler, 2010). Online workshops and coaching provided by a university or professional organization/institute could provide under-resourced schools access to human capital resources, including expert coaches who are qualified to serve as mentors of instruction. Remote coaching also could help ensure that professional development resources are focused exclusively on supporting teachers, as opposed to administrative tasks that could be performed by individuals without specialized knowledge of instruction. The purpose of our present study is to develop a web-based professional development program that could serve these purposes. Specifically, we aim to develop an efficient way to bring high-quality learning opportunities focused on improving reading comprehension instruction to teachers in underresourced LEAs.

BACKGROUND TO THE PRESENT STUDY The design of our online program grows out of our prior study of an ‘in-person’ professional development program, specifically, the Content-Focused Coaching (CFC) program in literacy developed at the Institute for Learning (IFL) (Staub, West & Bickel, 2003). In our previous study, IFL fellows provided intensive training to coaches over multiple years to learn how to plan for and enact rigorous and interactive classroom text discussions – a high-leverage practice for increasing students’ reading comprehension skills (Murphy, Wilkinson, Soter, Hennessey & Alexander, 2009). Specifically, the coaching intervention focused on applying Questioning the Author (Beck & McKeown, 2006) and Accountable Talk (Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick, 2008) techniques. Questioning the Author (QtA) draws on cognitive science research that characterizes text comprehension as an active and inferential process of building a mental representation of a situation described by a text (e.g., Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). Accountable Talk draws on sociocultural theory

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(Vygotsky, 1986) and research in the learning sciences (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 1999). This approach emphasizes the importance of participants building on the ideas of others, making logical connections between ideas, drawing reasonable conclusions, and making explicit the evidence behind claims. In turn, the coaches worked with teachers in designated schools in grade-level teams to study and plan lessons, as well as individually with teachers in their classrooms to model lessons and provide guidance to implement Questioning the Author and Accountable Talk techniques. Results from the ‘in-person’ version of CFC showed positive effects on text discussion quality and students’ reading skills, especially for students who were English Language Learners (Matsumura, Garnier, & Spybrook, 2012; 2013). While our research showed positive effects of CFC compared to traditional ‘in-person’ coaching and professional development offerings based in the LEA, we found that the CFC coaches’ work in schools was also often hampered by factors such as lack of principal support, pressure to perform a range of administrative tasks, and lack of time in the school day to meet with teachers (Matsumura et al., 2009; 2012). Grade-level team meetings, for example, often dealt with tasks and issues unrelated to CFC. Moreover, we provided a great deal of training and support to CFC coaches. It is likely that many LEAs would not have the resources necessary to train and support coaches to the level of expertise needed to significantly increase the quality of instruction. The impetus for our current research, therefore, was to translate the key components of the CFC program to an online environment. In so doing, we hoped to circumvent some of the implementation problems inherent in the delivery of ‘in person’ professional development as well as provide a way for LEAs to access high-quality professional development content and expert coaches. Here, in these proceedings, we present early findings from the first year of our project. Specifically, we describe teachers’ response to our online workshop and remote coaching (a single cycle), as in their views of the usefulness of the program for increasing the quality of their instruction, the relative burden of the activities, and the degree of comfort in interacting with peers online and with the remote coach. We also examine the potential influence of the workshop and coaching interactions on the quality of classroom text discussions.

INTERVENTION DESIGN The design of our online professional development program is guided by a situated view of learning (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Collins, Brown, & Holum, 1991; Collins, Greeno, & Resnick, 1994). From this perspective, learning and cognition are embedded in activity. Learners develop expertise through guided participation in practices that are authentic for a particular discipline or profession. Guidance for participation is provided in the form of modeling and supports such as tools, protocols, templates, and feedback from more knowledgeable practitioners (e.g., a coach). Through repeated opportunities to apply new concepts and/or practices to diverse and increasingly complex problem solving contexts, learners internalize these supports (or scaffolds) and develop deeper, flexible, and nuanced concepts and skills. Articulating and reflecting on what is learned further supports learners to recognize salient features of expert enactment, and ultimately, apply this information to self-monitor their practice.

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Online Workshop Drawing from a situated view of learning, the learning activities in our eight-week online workshop center on planning for and enacting text discussions – practices that are authentic to the daily work of teachers. Teachers begin by studying the theory underlying interactive and rigorous text discussions and viewing models of expert discussions and lesson plans. This is important for ensuring that teachers have a coherent vision of the instructional model taught in the workshop prior to developing individual skills. Teachers then apply conceptual tools (i.e., scaffolds) such as checklists for identifying critical ‘talk moves’ on the part of teachers and students in discussions, and templates for lesson planning that foreground targeted features of a practice. The lesson planning template, for example, guides teachers to apply Questioning the Author techniques such as identifying places in texts that might pose difficulties for students and planning questions in advance that support students to construct a shared and coherent understanding of a text. Teachers then articulate their understanding of how to plan for and enact discussions, and reflect with peers in online discussion boards about their learning. Class sets of both fiction and non-fiction texts appropriate to the upper elementary grades are provided to teachers as a basis for lesson planning to encourage teachers to apply the workshop content to their classroom context. Teachers begin by planning lessons based on a fiction text, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, a novel that centers on children’s experience of war and water scarcity. The workshop leads off with fiction because elementary grade teachers in the United States tend to be more comfortable teaching fiction than non-fiction texts. In other words, fiction provides a more familiar instructional context to teachers in which to apply new concepts learned in the workshops. Teachers then move on to planning lessons based on a non-fiction text, a less familiar context for teachers, that also deals with water scarcity (Not a Drop to Drink published by National Geographic). We chose texts with a similar theme to encourage teachers to make connections across genres in their instruction.

Web-Based (Remote) Coaching Upon completion of the online workshop, teachers engage in web-based coaching with a fellow from the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Learning. In the first year of the project (described here) teachers engaged in a single coaching cycle11. The coaching begins with teachers teaching one of the lessons they planned in the online workshop (for either the fiction or non-fiction texts). In subsequent cycles, teachers will move on to implementing the instructional model with the texts they normally use in their school. From the perspective of our theoretical framework, diversifying the contexts (i.e., texts) in which learned skills are applied is expected to support knowledge generalization and deepen teachers’ understanding of concepts taught in the workshop (e.g., how to pose an open-ended question, how to determine whether or not to stop and teach a particular vocabulary word) through continued opportunities to apply and receive feedback. As described earlier, the purpose of the coaching phase of the program is to support teachers to implement what they learned in the workshop in their classroom practice. To aid in the implementation process, we developed a conceptual tool, termed the Framework for Teacher and Student Text Interactions, which encapsulates the instructional model that is the focus of our program (see Figure 1). Teachers receive the Framework at the end of the workshop and use it as a tool for reflecting on instruction throughout the coaching cycles. The Framework thus serves two purposes: 11

In the implementation of the full model (years 2 and 3 of the project), teachers will engage in 5-6 coaching cycles.

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First, it functions as a boundary object (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Star & Griesemer, 1989) that links the concepts introduced in the workshop to the coaching interactions and ultimately, to teachers’ practice. Second, the Framework creates a focus for joint-productive engagement around particular dimensions of instruction. The descriptive language for a particular dimension (chosen in advance by the teacher and coach as a focus of coaching) is used as a lens through which to consider the extent to which the teacher and student ‘moves’ that characterize a dimension are evident in class discussions. The Framework thus creates a mutual goal to work toward, and a common language for looking at instruction. Dimensions

Teacher Moves • Select a text with grist/ complexity that • Select a complex text supports extended responses and • with grist meaning-making in discussion • Identify stopping points during reading • that provide opportunities to unpack Segment the text text difficulties • Plan initial questions and potential follow-up questions • Ask open-ended questions that require • students to respond in more elaborate ways to explain idea in the text • Pose questions to • Ask questions that surface students’ construct the gist potential misunderstandings • • Ask questions in sequence that help students construct understanding of the key ideas in the text • Ask questions that link text ideas to • Pose cognitively broader issues in the discipline or world demanding questions • Ask questions that require text interpretation and analysis • Utilize Talk Moves that support • Accountability to Accurate Knowledge: Develop Accountability • Marking • to Accurate Knowledge • Pressing for accuracy • Building on prior knowledge • Utilize Talk Moves that support • Accountability to Rigorous Thinking: • • Challenging students • • Pressing for reasoning • Develop Accountability • Expanding reasoning • to Rigorous Thinking • Modeling • Recapping •

•

Develop Accountability• • to Community • • •

Utilize Talk Moves that support Accountability to Community: Keeping the channels open Keeping everyone together Linking contributions Verifying and Clarifying Invites everyone’s participation

Student Moves Show interest in the topic Demonstrate motivation to persist and grapple with challenging content to make sense of text Engage in making sense along the way (i.e., during reading)

Demonstrate understanding of key ideas in the text Respond using own words rather than repeating the text verbatim Respond in longer ways that connect ideas within the text

Form generalizations, claims, and/or arguments about the text

Demonstrate accurate knowledge of the ideas in the text Identify knowledge not yet available but needed to address an issue

Synthesize several sources of info Construct explanations Test understanding of concepts Formulate conjectures and hypotheses Employ generally accepted standards of reasoning Employ standards of evidence appropriate to the subject matter • Challenge the quality of each others’ evidence and reasoning • Engage in active participation in classroom talk • Listen attentively to one another • Elaborate and build on each other’s ideas • Work to clarify or expand a proposition

Figure 1. Framework12 for Teacher and Student Text Interactions to improve reading comprehension 12

In addition to addressing text discussions, our full framework includes an extension to writing, which is omitted here in the interest of space.

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Coaching Cycle Each coaching cycle is comprised of three phases: a pre-lesson conference to determine instructional goals for the coaching cycle, written reflection on practice, and post-conference joint-reflection on the videotaped lesson segments.

Pre-lesson coaching conference to determine instructional goals A coaching cycle begins with teachers e-mailing the coach a lesson plan (beginning with the lesson plan from they developed in the course). During individual pre-lesson phone conferences (approximately 30 minutes long), the coach responds to the lesson plan with questions or comments and determines with the teacher the dimensions of the Framework that are to be the focus of the coaching cycle. The coach sends a summary e-mail to teachers to document the pre-lesson conference and reiterate the goals of the upcoming videotaped lesson.

Written reflection on instruction Subsequently, teachers videotape themselves enacting the planned lesson and upload the videos (approximately 30 minutes long) onto a secure server. The coach then views and edits teachers’ videotaped lesson using QuickTime Pro in order to identify three short segments (two to three minutes in length) that highlight specific and valued events in the instruction. The coach uploads the video clips to the Online Coaching Interface (OCI) developed at the University of Virginia’s Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL-OCI). The coach then writes comments and reflective questions for each lesson segment that draws attention to particular teacher and student interactions in the discussion. The teacher is notified that the clips have been uploaded and is invited to generate a short written response to the coach’s comments. The goal of the written feedback is to provide an opportunity for the teacher to gather their questions and ideas prior to the post-lesson conference. The teachers’ written response serves a similar function for the coach; that is, it provides the coach with insight into the teachers’ instruction and intentions that the coach can then use to better tailor their comments to teachers in the post-conference conducted over the phone.

Post-lesson conference: Joint reflection on the videotaped lesson A coaching cycle ends with individual post-lesson phone conferences (approximately 45 minutes long) in which the coach and teacher watch and reflect on the lesson segments together guided by the Framework (teacher and student talk moves that characterize a particular dimension). The coach and teacher also determine ‘next steps’, which includes identifying the dimensions from the Framework that are to be the focus of the next coaching cycle.

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Technology Support Prior to beginning the professional development program, we provided an in-person orientation/training session to participating teachers. During the session, we presented teachers with the video camera and tripod they would be using and briefly demonstrated how to use it. Teachers received a packet of support materials (e.g., condensed version of camera instruction manual, steps for uploading videos, etc.). In addition, we provided teachers a link to the project website, where they could view short demonstration videos that lead teachers through the steps of using and placing the video cameras, and uploading their videotaped lessons to the server. Finally, throughout the study, teachers had access to continued support from our project manager via email or phone.

RESEARCH METHODS Participants Our participants consisted of seven teachers from three schools in a large urban school district in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. The district served 25,000 students from kindergarten to 12th grade (PPS, 2013). Approximately 60% of these students are Hispanic, 30% are African-American, and 9% are of Caucasian, Middle Eastern, or Asian descent. More than 90% of the students were considered to be from low-income families. About 15% of students receive special education services, and about 13% are identified as English Language Learners (ELL). All of the teachers in the study are female. Five are Caucasian, one is African-American, and one identifies as biracial. Six of the teachers hold a Bachelor degree, while one holds a Master degree. All hold a regular teaching certification. Four are relatively new teachers (with 2-3 years of experience), while three are seasoned, with 9, 10, and 20 years of experience. Of the seven teachers, three taught 4th grade and four taught 5th grade. The teachers were considered to be strong practitioners by their principals. They were desirable as first-year participants/collaborators in our study because we did not want to burden struggling teachers by having them take on an additional professional commitment. Although we believed the program could benefit such teachers ultimately, this being the first year, the intervention was still under significant development. We regarded the teachers we did recruit as partners in the development of the intervention, and we looked to them to provide continuous feedback about our program. Teachers were compensated for their time and participation.

Data Collection Teachers videotaped their classroom text discussions at baseline, prior to the workshop, and again at the end of the workshop and first coaching cycle (N=3 observations). Teachers also completed a survey at the end of the workshop and completed logs (brief surveys) each time they interacted with the University of Virginia’s Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and learning (CASTL) online coaching platform. Finally, teachers were interviewed at the end of the intervention to gain further insight regarding their experience in the intervention. Questions included their response to the webbased professional development program as a whole (e.g., strengths and weaknesses), perceived changes in their instruction, and level of comfort interacting in the online environment and with the remote coach.

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Data Analysis We used descriptive statistics to analyze all survey data. Qualitative analyses of interview transcripts were conducted using NVivo 10 (QSR International, 2012). Data were analyzed thematically through a process which included the following steps: affixing codes to transcripts; sorting coded material to identify patterns, themes, and relationships; looking for confirming and/or disconfirming evidence during subsequent data collection; and gradually elaborating a set of generalizations that were consistent with the patterns discerned within the data set (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Codes were arrayed on matrices organized by teacher to facilitate across case comparisons and identification of trends and patterns. To address the question of the effectiveness of our intervention on classroom text discussion quality, we analyzed the full-length video-recorded lessons using Studiocode software (Vigital, 1997-2015). All recordings (one baseline and two additional videos, per teacher) were de-identified, and the order in which they were analyzed was randomized. Each videotaped lesson was analyzed using the Instructional Quality Assessment (IQA). The IQA assesses the percent of students who contribute to the text discussion and the extent to which (a) teachers and students build on each others’ ideas, (b) teachers press students to support their assertions, (c) students use text-based evidence to support their answers, (d) teachers provide wait-time to students to generate a response, (e) the rigor of the questions teachers pose to students during the discussion, and (f) the rigor of the text used as the basis for the discussion. Each dimension is rated on a four-point scale (1=poor to 4=excellent). IQA ratings of observed text discussions (alphas ranging from .77 to .86) are associated with differences in students’ reading achievement (Matsumura, Garnier, Slater, & Boston, 2008; Matsumura et al., 2013). Additional codes specifically aligned with Questioning the Author (Segmenting the Text and Constructing the Gist of a text) also were developed. ANOVA was performed to test for significance between the baseline ratings and the ratings after the workshop (i.e., pre-coaching) and after the first coaching cycle.

RESULTS Teachers’ Response to the Program Usefulness for improving teaching quality and burden To elicit teachers’ views of the workshop activities, we asked teachers to rate each activity, videotape, and reading in the workshop and overall impression of each of the eight sessions on two dimensions – helpfulness for improving practice and burden. We also asked open-ended questions assessing teachers’ views of the most important thing they learned from that session, suggestions for improvement, and degree to which the online community provided a supportive environment for their learning. Teachers were overall positive about the amount that they learned from the workshop and usefulness of what they learned for improving their practice. They also reported that they felt comfortable in the online environment, and supported by their teacher peers in the discussion board. Some teachers also reported, however, that the workshop was burdensome and that the activities, while useful, also took more hours to complete than anticipated (e.g., two teachers reported that they spent upwards of five hours a week completing workshop activities). Teachers were likewise very positive about the remote coaching. In surveys (logs) they completed in the online coaching system, all teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that the written comments

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they received from the coach focused on issues that were relevant to their practice, were easy to understand, was worth the time it took to read and respond to the comments, and that the experience increased their confidence in their teaching. Teachers also all agreed or strongly agreed that the conferences with the coach conducted over the phone were beneficial for improving their practice. Specfically, they reported that the conferences were productive, helped them gain a better understanding of the program’s instructional model (Framework), and helped them improve their teaching and identify strategies that they could use in their classroom. In contrast to the online workshop, teachers did not report that the coaching was burdensome. Aligned with the survey responses, teachers in the summary interviews conducted at the end of the project likewise reported that the program was beneficial for improving their teaching. One teacher, for example, summarized her experience as “Awesome. [The program] was awesome…This program made you look at the way that you were teaching, made you look at instruction, and made you look at the questions that you were asking, and made you look at student engagement, and if they’re really learning.” Another teacher reported, “Even though [the program] was a lot of work, it definitely has helped me become a better teacher. And the way I looked at comprehension is so totally different than I did stepping into the classroom in September.”

Comfort interacting with a remote coach We wondered if teachers would feel comfortable interacting with the remote coach – a person with whom they had no prior relationship. Our results from teacher interviews indicated that teachers trusted and felt emotionally supported by the coach, despite not meeting face-to-face. One teachers said, “I always felt like… something would be more beneficial for me if I had that interaction with the person face to face, but this [experience] made me think a little bit differently because…even though I wasn’t face to face with [the coach], I feel like we always stayed in contact, and if I needed anything, I knew I could come to her.” Likewise, another teacher said, “I felt very connected with [the coach] online…I felt like I was supported and I got to know her…I actually would have liked to work with her a little bit longer because she had really good suggestions.” A third teacher remarked, “When I was on the phone with [the coach]… she actually took the time to go through the chapter with me….So to me, it didn't matter if she was sitting there or I was on the phone with her because she still did the same thing, or maybe even more than someone would do if they were sitting with me…She was wonderful.” Interestingly, teachers reported that they received better attention from the online coach than from their school-based coach. The general refrain was that the remote coach was more available and made the experience more customized and substantive. One teacher said, “I don’t see my [district’s] literacy coach that often, and we don’t have in-depth conversations like with the online coach.” Another teacher noted that her interactions with her school-based coach are not as personal as with the on-line coaching: “The online coaching focuses specifically on you. And…I have the opportunity to ask her questions…and if I don’t understand something…I can get my answers right then and there…As far as the literacy supervisor, it’s more of a pop in, pop out, if you need to reach me, just email me and I’ll get back to you…when I have time type of thing… I feel like the on-line coaching, I had more access to [the coach] as opposed to the literacy coach that I have in school.” One other participant noted, “This year we had a new [district coach], and she’s very nice, but she’s been in my classroom twice. And the first time was to pop in to do something, maybe say hello, and the second time was…to do a walkthrough, because I’m sure that she needed to get her quota in.”

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Influence on Text Discussion Quality As noted earlier, teachers chose the dimensions of the Framework they wanted to focus on in their coaching. Interestingly, all teachers chose to focus on ‘Constructing the Gist’ as their instructional goal. For three of the seven teachers, this was their only focus, meaning that all of the coach’s comments in the online CASTL interface (and the general emphasis of the coaching conversation) were keyed to this dimension. Two other teachers received two-thirds of the coaching on ‘Constructing the Gist’ and also received coaching on the closely related concept of ‘Segmenting the Text’. Finally, the remaining two teachers received coaching suggestions related to increasing the rigor of the discussion in addition to helping students to construct the gist. Commensurate with this, at the end of the first coaching cycle, compared to baseline, teachers were more inclined to segment the text during discussion and pose questions that guide students toward constructing a coherent representation of the text. Furthermore, there was an increase in the extent to which teachers showed how students’ ideas related to one another in the discussion (see Table 1). These are all aspects of teaching that are related to social construction of knowledge. Promising trends are also evident for the general rigor of the discussion, which includes teachers posing more cognitively demanding questions, as well as for students linking contributions, providing more extended explanations, and providing text-based evidence to support their responses. These aspects were not the direct focus of any coaching sessions, although they were featured in the online workshop. Finally, we note that the increase in the quality of the text selection likely reflected the fact that, as part of the intervention, we provided a novel with grist to teachers to plan and enact lessons with. The novel, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (2011), is based on the true conflicts related to a lack of clean water in South Sudan. The increase in the rating then suggests that our text represents a more complex text than those that teachers might typically use in the classrooms (e.g., short sections of non-fiction text, texts with simple storylines and little nuance).

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Table 1 Classroom Text Discussion Quality Framework Dimension

Dimensions of Text Discussion Quality

Baseline PreWorkshop (n=8)

PostWorksh op (n=7)

Following 1st Coaching Cycle (n=7)

Select a Text with Grist

1. Rigor of Text (3-point scale)

2.25

2.86

3.00

Segment the Text

2. Segmenting the Text

1.75

4.00***

4.00***

Qs to Construct the Gist

3. Guidance Toward Constructing the Gist

1.88

3.43

3.83***

Q to Gain Higher Level Understanding

4. Rigor of Discussion

2.38

2.86

3.17

Accountability to Accurate Knowledge

5. Providing TextBased Evidence (Students)

3.25

3.43

3.50

Accountability to Rigorous Thinking

6. Teacher Linking Student Contributions 7. Asking/ Press (Teachers) 8. Providing Explanation (Students)

1.13

1.43

2.50**

3.88

3.43

3.67

2.75

3.29

3.33

9. Student Participation 10. Student Linking Contributions

3.75 2.63

4.00 2.71

3.83 3.67

Accountability to Community

Notes: Discussion ratings are on 4-point scale for all dimensions, except where noted; Significant differences from baseline instruction are denoted as follows: * means significant at p