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Commentary on the Special Issue on Instructional Coaching Models: Common Elements of Effective Coaching Models

Policymakers and educational leaders are increasingly focused on teacher performance and student outcomes, with the implicit assumption that teachers are fully responsible for their students’ gains on critical high stakes assessments, particularly in reading, math, and science. The Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2015) put increasing pressure on teachers to instruct in ways that may not align with their training, beliefs, and current practice. Hence, this special issue is particularly timely in presenting nine different articles focused on instructional coaching. There are some important differences in the underlying theories and aims of the coaching research and programs presented, but there are some important common assumptions and findings as well. In this commentary, I focus on the essential common assumptions and findings. These are: (a) that teachers are responsible for their students’ outcomes, and one can improve the way teachers instruct that will, in turn, improve their students’ performance on standardized assessments; (b) that teachers should be empowered as part of the coaching program and that dialogue between coaches and teachers and, for some models, among teachers as fellow professionals, is more likely to make sustained changes in practice than more traditional workshop and lecture; (c) that observation and feedback are active ingredients of effective coaching; and finally, (d) a number of articles discussed the use of technology to increase the efficiency of coaching, which promises to reduce costs and improve scalability.