Heather Williams

Coaching Session #6 – Reflection and Commitment to Change in Practice

Coachee: Heather Williams

Date/Time: April 15, 2026 4:05 p.m.

Next Coaching Date/Time: April 29, 2026 4:05 p.m.

Overarching goal with students: 24 students will engage in whole group instruction for analyzing the vocabulary within question sets prior to taking them so that students understand what the questions are asking. The students will be responsible for selecting the vocabulary words that are difficult for them. Heather will use whole group instruction, student selection of vocabulary words, and frontloading meaning of the words as strategies for building these skills with the students. Students will be taking 10-11 question sets before the end of the academic year. The initial goal will be for students to achieve 80% by March 17, 85% by April 15, and 90% by May 15. The question sets themselves will be used as the data source to determine if the strategies are working.

The March 17 goal was exceeded, however the most recent question set results were 76% with one question proving particularly difficult in what it required the students to do (choosing 3 events that would summarize the text).

Problem of practice goal: Heather has worked on the students to improve their skills on the question that tripped them up on the last question set (choosing 3 events that would summarize the text). For the remaining question sets, Heather would like to again work on Tier 2 vocabulary and wants to see if the students can use the words in their own way: 1) Can they use the words in a sentence? And 2) Can they use the words in conversation with peers? She believes this would assist the students in correctly answering any vocabulary questions as well as general comprehension.

We are setting a mini-goal for May 1 to have students’ scores on question sets to range between 85% and 87%.

Coachee reflections including most recent data: While I was not super happy with their scores, I was overall happy with the lesson.  The first two questions were more typical to what we had been working on and they did very well on this part.  The last question was more difficult for them.  They had to pick three events that summarized the passage they had read.  Although it was not what I hoped, they did not do terrible.  We were able to go over it as a class afterwards and have some really great discussion about summaries and what they needed to look for when choosing the events that would be the BEST.  They all did a great job discussing these events that needed to be key events from the passage but were not choosing the events that kept the plot of the passage moving along.  Once we discussed this they were able to understand much better.  We then took a passage for that day’s reading and chose events they thought were key events as they read.  This ended up being about 10 events.  We then worked in cooperative learning groups (numbered head together) to compare the events of choice and talk through them.  Once this was done, we then wrote a summary paragraph using the events they chose.  They enjoyed the activity and I felt through discussion and their work that they gained a stronger understanding moving forward how to choose events when presented this type of question again.  They are now also able to apply this to any passage moving forward.  I felt in the end even though the scores weren’t as great as I would have liked, the lesson and discussions after were very engaging and helped them gain a good understanding fo the concept.

Coach reflections including most recent data: Heather was quite disappointed in the students’ performance on the most recent question sets. She was able to reflect, though, on the difficulty of the question that most students did not do well on, and she has worked very hard to help students with their performance on future questions like this one. We focused most of our time talking through the options that she might use to help her students succeed on the remaining question sets this year. The students have been engaged in state assessments the past two weeks, and question sets have not been used during this time. Heather does have a colleague who is also being coached that she is able to discuss assessment results with.

The Problem of Practice is a lot like setting a SMART goal:

• A focus on the instructional core,
• Our work on the goal is actionable,
• Action toward the goal is directly observable,
• The work is connected to a broader strategy of improvement, and
• The work is high-leverage and may result in important changes to instruction and student learning

Focus questions:

What is the task?  The task will be to have students use the vocabulary within the text they are reading to create their own sentences and apply the vocabulary within discussions with peers.

In what ways do you see students needing this change in your practice? The students need more work on vocabulary so that they can be successful on future . Academic vocabulary and the high-level content vocabulary within the question sets are difficult for the students. Students have difficulty applying information about the vocabulary during testing.

What will you need to do to accomplish your goal(s)? Have students identify difficulty words, continue the use of cooperative learning strategies so that students’ thinking is visible and increase student engagement.

What is the evidence that you can use to demonstrate progress toward goal(s)? Results on students’ use of the words in sentences and discussions; question sets results for the remainder of the year.

How might this work impact other teachers? How can you share this work? Heather is already discussing her work with a same-grade colleagues.

How will the work impact your students? Students can potentially reach the goals we have set for performance on question sets. Students will enter the next grade level with expanded academic vocabulary and test-taking strategies.

What will you be looking for in your student to see that work on the problem of practice is working for your student? Student work, student discussions, and results of question sets.

Working on Next Steps

Work on implementation of your goal for problem of practice by the next coaching session.

Keep working on steps toward goal with your students that you want to meet by mid-May. Work at meeting the mini-goal of 85-87% success on questions sets by May 1.

You can create a video if you like, but that is no longer required.