Conference Agenda

Objectives

Literacy coaches are crucial for school improvement, but research on the roles of literacy coaches in the school improvement process has been insufficient. The objective of literacy coaching programs is to enhance teacher effectiveness, but many people have misunderstandings about the best methods to achieve this goal (Kissel et al., 2011). Literacy coaches are teachers with many years of instructional experience. They work with teachers and principals to improve classroom instruction and school performance. Literacy coaches, through managing teacher training programs, contribute to school reform (Lightner et al., 2021). Research has proved that literacy coaches have the potential to impact how teachers teach and how students learn (Hunt, 2019), but there has not been enough research on how literacy coach can facilitate the process of school improvement. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand literacy coaches’ roles and effects in the Chinese school context to contribute to theory development and practice improvement.

Research questions

The main research question of this research is: What are the roles and effects of literacy coach in Chinese schools?

Theoretical framework

Literacy coaches’ roles include collaborating with school principals, classroom observation, teacher training, offering resources, and identifying effective instructional practices based on data collected from students (Kho & Ismail, 2021). Literacy coaches also have influence on student improvement and student performance (L’Allier et al., 2010). Literacy coaches are imperative in shaping a positive school culture, which contributes to school reform. However, as is the case in other countries, Chinese literacy coaches are facing role ambiguity. By investigating the roles of literacy coaches working in non-post-secondary settings, Zhang and Yuan (2019) discovered that the literacy coaches in China are not clear about their professional identities. Therefore, it is essential to explore the roles and perceived effects of literacy coaches in Chinese schools.

Methods and data sources

A qualitative research method was used to answer the research question. Twelve teachers and school leaders from schools with three different academic performance levels participated in interviews. Each interview lasted for 45–90 minutes. A comparative analysis method was used in the data analysis.

Findings

This study identified that literacy coaches have the important roles of setting direction, training teachers, evaluating the school curriculum, explaining textbooks and learning targets, polishing the class, collecting resources within the district, and helping the development of turnaround schools. Literacy coaches have a positive influence on district education improvement through enhancing teachers’ teaching quality and coordinating system resources.

Significance

This research provides a whole picture of how literacy coaches play their roles in the Chinese educational context. At the same time, the influence of literacy coaches has been identified within the Chinese educational environment. This study provides a reference for education systems around the world of how to improve education quality through cultivating high-quality literacy coaches.

Connection to the conference theme

Literacy coaches have the potential to impact how teachers teach and how students learn, so research about literacy coaches’ roles and effects will help to promote school effectiveness and improvement.

Framing

Vocational Education and Training (VET) schools are increasingly required to undergo continuous changes in order to effectively prepare students to become the next generation of skilled workers in business and industry. New requirements in the business community, from educational policy, employers, and social partners, create a need for continuous change and adaptation of educational programmes and school organization (Coates et al., 2013; de Jonge et al., 2020).

In our project we investigate what is required for VET school leaders to lead change processes. Research in the field of school improvement is concerned with what is required to create lasting positive improvements in schools (Askell-Williams & Koh, 2020; Fullan, 2020). Likewise, our project focus specifically on the sustainability of school improvement projects, understood as 1) the long-term implementation of project activities, and 2) the development of the schools’ change capacity.

Research questions

Which factors contribute to the successful leadership of school improvement initiatives in VET schools?

How can school-university partnerships guide school leaders in leading school improvement initiatives?

Context

In the research and development project ‘Sustainable Culture for Change’, we work with 12 VET schools in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Through established school-university partnerships, we contribute with continuing professional development of school leaders, especially focused on using formative evaluation models to strengthen the sustainability of the school improvement initiatives.

Methods and data material

The study is inspired by action research methods, which involve intervening in the practice that we are simultaneously researching (McIntosh, 2010).

The study builds on a literature search and longitudinal data collected throughout the past four years of collaboration. We use qualitative data such as interviews, observations, and documents in combination with simple quantitative survey data.

Findings

First, only a small number of studies found in our literature search deals with management of change in VET schools. The studies available highlight several factors important when VET school leaders are leading change initiatives. Among others, they highlight planning, staff involvement, evaluation, and organizational conditions (Bell, 2008; Clayton et al., 2008; de Jonge et al., 2020; Mitchell, 2004; Petridou & Chatzipanagiotou, 2004; Schneyder, 2002).

Building on years of collaboration with VET school leaders, our study shows how researchers can work with school leaders with a focus on the above-mentioned factors to support the sustainability of their school improvement efforts.

We will present the interventions designed and implemented in the development part of our project and reflect on the lessons learned from our work with the VET school management teams.

Educational importance

Our findings are important for school practitioners leading change initiatives as well as researchers and consultants working in collaboration with schools, supporting continuous school improvement.

Connection to the conference theme

We connect to the conference theme in the areas of leadership education and capacity building, leading sustainable and collaborative school improvement, and the professional development of leaders in collaboration between researchers and school teams.

Purpose: I present an empirical example demonstrating how a system’s educational infrastructure (Spillane et al., 2019) can shape the way teachers frame problems and solutions in their classroom, thus moving toward more equitable treatment of minoritized children.

Focus of inquiry: I offer a representative example of a disciplinary moment in a diverse International Baccalaureate (IB) elementary classroom, describing how an IB teacher - informed by her system and context - responded to hearing the racial slur “boy” on the playground. The teacher concluded that the problem was students’ lack of historical context. Her solution was to fold into the next unit an explicit discussion of race and language, relying on her IB training along with resources from her broader environment.

Perspective(s): Previous scholars have demonstrated a system’s educational infrastructure can change teachers’ beliefs and practices (e.g., Shirrell et al., 2019; Spillane et al., 2018). I consider the potential of a system’s infrastructure to challenge how teachers perceive and discipline the behavior of diverse groups of students.

Methods: This paper is informed by a larger ethnographic and comparative study, where I partnered with four elementary schools situated across two systems (Montessori and International Baccalaureate) and two national contexts (Washington, DC and Toronto). I examined how these systems and environments interacted with one another, and with the way children are treated and taught in classrooms.

Data Sources: I employed four methods of data collection: 1) participant observation in 1-2 focal classrooms per school; 2) video-cued focus groups with students, teachers, and school and system leaders; 3) semi-structured interviews with focal teachers and school leaders; and 4) a review of school and system documents.

Results: The IB system helps shape teachers’ framing of problems and solutions in their classrooms through a robust, yet skeletal, educational infrastructure. On the one hand, the IB system guides teachers using training, standards, and networks that promote the system’s desired outcome of intercultural understanding and respect. On the other hand, the IB system operates transnationally, and so it encourages teachers to fill in its instructional framework using local context, culture, and criteria. I will discuss how this teacher relied on both her IB supports and a Teaching Tolerance (now Learning for Justice) resource from her broader environment when framing and addressing the problem of the racial slur.

Educational importance of this research: As society grapples with the ongoing effects of multiple pandemics (Ladson-Billings, 2021), there is much discussion surrounding how to rebuild educational systems for equity (e.g., Policy Analysis for California Education, 2021). This research contributes to that discussion, considering how we might leverage system supports and designs in ways that change the perceptions and practices of those working with children, so that they become increasingly anti-racist.

Connection to the conference theme: This paper is aligned to a congress sub-theme regarding leading education systems that promote social justice. I consider how IB's educational infrastructure supports a transformation in perception and pedagogy for IB teachers. This infrastructure then has potential to help IB teachers and schools move toward increasingly antiracist practice.