Instructional coaches' framing of a mathematics reform

PurposeInstructional coaches are pivotal to articulating the agenda of system-wide reform, yet their role remains largely unexamined. Their approach with educators is contextually situated within the schooling system in which they work to reflect the historical and sociocultural system influences. Given the downward trend in New Zealand's international test scores for mathematics, it is timely to review the role of instructional coaches.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors draw on qualitative data derived from interviews with experienced coaches to investigate how they brokered the vision and pedagogy of a system-level reform in mathematics. Using a sensemaking lens we specifically examined the collective stories they employed as explanatory tools.FindingsThe analysis revealed that coaches drew on factors from school and classroom contexts of professional development practice and from collective beliefs about effective practice, alongside the project materials incorporated in the design of the project. System-level stories of reading reform influenced coaches' leadership of professional practice in implementing the New Zealand Numeracy Development Project, a progressively scaled-up professional learning and development initiative designed to improve teacher knowledge and pedagogy.Originality/valueThis paper highlights the critical importance of coaches' knowledge and expertise, the complexity of the implementation process and the coherence of the infrastructure that supports them in instructional reform.

Final Reading Outcomes of the National Randomized Field Trial of Success for All

Using a cluster randomization design, schools were randomly assigned to implement Success for All, a comprehensive reading reform model, or control methods. This article reports final literacy outcomes for a 3-year longitudinal sample of children who participated in the treatment or control condition from kindergarten through second grade and a combined longitudinal and in-mover student sample, both of which were nested within 35 schools. Hierarchical linear model analyses of all three outcomes for both samples revealed statistically significant school-level effects of treatment assignment as large as one third of a standard deviation. The results correspond with the Success for All program theory, which emphasizes both comprehensive school-level reform and targeted student-level achievement effects through a multi-year sequencing of literacy instruction.