MyTeachingPartner-Secondary: Scaling and Sustaining a Research-Based Teacher Professional Development Program
Seeing Teaching Through a Different Lens: The MyTeachingPartner-Secondary Coaching Model highlights the voices of coaches and teachers to provide information about the MTP-S coaching model that is helping educators improve interactions with students in ways that increase student engagement and achievement.
Student engagement is difficult to maintain as students become adolescents. Partnering with Teachstone and Learning Forward, AIR is leading a grant-funded effort to test, scale, and refine MyTeachingPartner-Secondary (MTP-S). MTP-S uses instructional coaching to help middle and high school teachers maximize student engagement in the classroom.
What is MyTeachingPartner-Secondary?
MTP-S shows educators features of their teaching that foster adolescents’ engagement in class, focusing on the interactions that occur in the classroom. These include teacher-student interactions and student-student interactions.
The program occurs in a series of one-on-one coaching cycles. In each cycle, the teacher videotapes a lesson and interacts with a coach for about one hour. The cycle occurs online to eliminate travel time. The teacher and a coach discuss video clips of the teacher’s classroom and identify aspects of teaching and classroom interactions that support student engagement.
Researchers at the University of Virginia created MTP-S as a one-on-one instructional coaching program based on their work linking classroom environments to student engagement. They have demonstrated the program’s effectiveness in increasing student engagement, as well as student achievement and the quality of interactions in the classroom, in randomized controlled trials published in 2011 and 2015.
Can Teachers Participate in the Project?
During the 2022-23 school year and summer 2023, the grant supports efforts to expand the program’s user-base and refine the program design. Participants receive the program for free. In exchange, participants agree to be interviewed about their experience with the program.
Middle and high school teachers in Title I eligible schools can sign up in fall 2022 to receive the program during the 2022-23 school year. Teachers will complete a 2-hour orientation and 4 to 5 cycles (see description above and graphic at right). They receive the program at no cost, and the grant compensates them for any time spent outside of their normal contract hours.
Educators can also sign up to receive support to deliver the coaching. These educators need to complete a screening process to determine if they have sufficient qualifications and have enough time available, since they will need to complete the training and several coaching cycles. These activities require approximately one-quarter time availability at a minimum.
Does My District Need to Give Me Permission?
AIR will ensure that the teacher or coach participates with the permission of the district’s central office and school leaders, as needed. AIR, Teachstone, and Learning Forward are working to expanding the program’s user base and will engage with district leaders to help them learn from local experiences with the program.
AIR will also work with districts and state education agencies to help teachers receive continuing education credit for their participation.
For More Information
To learn more about the project, or sign up to participate, please contact SecondaryCoachingProject@air.org. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
