CoreCollaborative International has played a vital role in the Virginia New Teachers Support Program, which supports early-career teachers in schools across the Commonwealth of Virginia. A collaboration between the Virginia Department of Education, James Madison University, and Virginia State University, the initiative serves teachers in their first three years on the job. Instructional coaching and training is provided in six areas established by the state’s Standards for Professional Practice: Professional knowledge, Instructional planning, Instructional delivery, Assessment of and for learning, Learning environment, and Professionalism.
The Virginia New Teachers Support Program (VANTSP) utilizes a unique coaching framework, which is based upon eight “interrelated strands” of activity: Building Relationships, Personal Support, Contextual Considerations, Questioning, Goal Setting, Gathering Evidence, Feedback, and Plans for next steps. Within these strands, coaches engage the early-career teacher-participants to reflect and grow professionally from wherever they are, when they begin the program, to being highly effective teachers within their own individual contexts.
VANTSP reached out to CoreCollaborative International (CCI) to provide program evaluation for the second year of VANTSP’s operation. CCI began working with VANTSP at the beginning of the 2021-22 academic year. The program had already been significantly disrupted by the shifting conditions brought on by the global pandemic. Teaching expectations had changed from online to hybrid to in-person instruction, and a transition in VANTSP program leadership had further complicated the scenario.
Evaluation questions had been formulated at the beginning of the program, but in light of the shifting dynamics brought on by the pandemic and leadership transition, CCI and the stakeholders felt it was important to reassess what, precisely, VANTSP sought to learn from the program evaluation process. The team worked with VANTSP’s leadership to articulate new evaluation questions that would accurately capture the knowledge needed at the end of the program’s Year 2 and would help inform its continued success. Those newly articulated evaluation questions were:
- What value do teachers and coaches assign to the VANTSP?
- What were the experiences of teachers and coaches who participated?
- What are the lessons learned about program implementation between Year 1 and Year 2, that can help to inform Year 3 operations?
To answer these questions, CCI collected and analyzed a rich collection of data sources. These included mid-year and end-of-year teacher surveys and coach surveys, coaching reports, demographic data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Virginia’s division, and focus groups with coaches. At the time that CCI joined the project, the program had 618 teachers, supported by 114 coaches. Beyond the coaches and teachers, the larger VANTSP was comprised of Division Partners, Coordinators, and a Coach Training Team.
Year 2 data, alongside available data from Year 1, yielded insights not only on the level of satisfaction with the program but also on the quality of the experience. For example, participants reported that most coaching sessions consisted of reflective conversation and that sharing of planning materials, curriculum, and resources was a secondary activity. The most common approaches to coaching were identified as being collaborative, with a minority of approaches being more directive or and/or facilitative. And while the program was based, as described above, on six Standards of Professional Practice, in practice two of these Standards ended up getting a bit more attention than the others. These were the Learning Environment (that is, the procedures and routines supporting a positive classroom environment), and Instructional Planning (instructional strategies and student learning).
The CCI-facilitated focus sessions with coaches yielded several important themes. These included the need for VANTSP, in future iterations of the program, to do more intentional matching of coach and teacher according to agreed-upon metrics; to clarify communication from leadership in regard to selection criteria and expectations for participating in the program; and to align professional development support with the particular needs that teachers were encountering.
Having completed its data analysis, and with these findings in hand, the CCI team made key program recommendations to VANTSP leadership. The recommendations fell into the following four areas:
- Diagnosis: Recommendations here included the strengthening of program communications, further articulation of what sets VANTSP apart from other types of teacher support programming, and further refinement of teacher-coach matching.
- Coaching: Here, CCI recommended bringing all coaches and teachers together at the beginning of the year to calibrate expectations, and better equip coaches with the various methods and strategies essential for supporting the teacher-participants.
- Implementation: It was recommended that VANTSP establish clear communication of program frameworks.
- Impact Assessment: Finally, CCI recommended that VANTSP make better use of unique identifiers in its operations, which will allow for more reliable and usable data collection.
At this writing, the VANTSP continues to run, but on a smaller scale. VANTSP is no longer funded by the Virginia Department of Education, though it continues to support early-career teachers through its enduring mission of using non-evaluative evidence-based practices within an integrated coaching framework.
CoreCollaborative International’s involvement with the Virginia New Teachers Support Program points to the kind of impactful program evaluation work that CCI has become known for. CCI forges effective relationships with program stakeholders, so as to identify needs and guide anticipated outcomes – even in the context of changing circumstances. Contact CCI today to learn more about how CCI’s stakeholder-driven program evaluation can benefit your organization.