Description:

Co-Principal Investigators: Allen, Joseph; Pianta, Robert C.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to create a more scalable, replicable, and school-system-friendly version of the My Teaching Partner-Secondary (MTP-S) one-on-one coaching approach that has moderate evidence of effectiveness [WWC review] for improving student achievement outcomes. The research team incorporated the principles of MTP-S into the professional learning community (PLC) structure currently embedded in many school districts. This new version of MTP-S, called My Teaching Team (MTT), does not require participating teachers to add new meetings to their already busy schedules but rather supports them to make more effective use of the time they are already spending in collaboration with their colleagues.

Project Activities: The researchers iteratively developed and tested the feasibility of implementing MTT. Following a series of development-focused iterations of implementing the intervention, they carried out a small pilot trial comparing observed teacher team activities, classroom interactions, and students' self-reported classroom experiences for those teachers that implemented MTT to those who continued with their typical PLC meetings. This small-scale pilot evaluation included qualitative measures and assessments of intervention fidelity, usability, and feasibility within the treatment condition.

Key Outcomes: The main features of the intervention and findings of the project's pilot study are as follows:

• My Teaching Team (MTT) places teachers in an active learning and collaborating role; provides specific, empirically supported content tailored to everyday practice; and incorporates sustained group focus and explicit follow-up on planned interactive approaches across the school year. MTT includes:
• Orientation materials and a handbook for facilitators
• Orientation materials and a handbook for teachers with prompts for planning and reflection assignments
• Session guides and slide presentations with detailed facilitator notes for each of 16 MTT sessions
• Multimedia mini lessons for each MTT topic, which include discussion prompts, classroom video clips for analysis with accompanying prompts and debriefs, and planning prompts
• Teachers who adopted MTT protocols were observed to do so with good implementation integrity and reported satisfaction with the intervention (Stuhlman et al., 2022).
• Compared to PLC teacher teams, the teacher teams using MTT were observed to spend more meeting time discussing teaching practice and less time discussing logistics/mechanics, and they engaged in more video sharing and provision of feedback to teacher team members in the MTT sessions that explicitly encouraged this (Stuhlman et al., 2022).
• The number of MTT meetings a teacher team completed and spending more time in meetings using encouraged MTT practices (such as discussing effective classroom interactions and sharing videos of classroom interactions) predicted students' self-reports of greater engagement and observations of higher levels of emotional support provided in the classroom (Stuhlman et al., 2022).

Structured Abstract

Setting: This project took place in middle and high schools in northern and central Virginia.

Sample: Study participants included 55 secondary school teachers and 224 students in 7th through 12th grades. Participating teachers were 83 percent White and 63 percent female. Participating students self-identified as White (64 percent), African American (22 percent), Latinx or Hispanic (10 percent), Asian American (9 percent), Native American/Alaskan Native (3 percent), and Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native (2 percent). Note: percentages total to greater than 100 percent because students could select more than one race/ethnicity.

Intervention: The My Teaching Team (MTT) intervention incorporates features of the My Teaching Partner-Secondary approach and the professional learning communities approach. MTT uses a group-based, peer-coaching model intended to support positive and productive group dynamics; place teachers in an active learning and collaborating role; provide specific, empirically supported content tailored to everyday practice; incorporate sustained focus on follow-up across the school year; and maximize relevance to each specific school context while retaining a focus on aspects of classroom practice with demonstrated positive impacts on students' learning and development.

Research Design and Methods: The researchers carried out a series of development-focused iterations of the implementation of MTT, relying on feedback from participating teachers and administrators to make improvements in the intervention approach and materials. During each iteration, the team completed a five-phase process of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. In the final year of the project, six teams of teachers volunteered to participate in either the treatment or business-as-usual condition. This small trial compared team meeting and classroom practices of teachers who implemented MTT in their team meetings to those who continued with their business-as-usual team meetings to learn more about the promise of the MTT intervention. The researchers assessed intervention fidelity, usability, and feasibility within the MTT condition. They also assessed the extent to which research-supported collaborative practices were used in team meetings and research-supported teacher-student interactions characterized classrooms for teachers in the two groups. Consenting students of teachers who adopted MTT and teachers who continued with their usual team meeting practices also reported on their classroom experiences.

Control Condition: Teams of teachers who volunteered to participate in the control group had not previously participated in MTT and maintained a business-as-usual approach in their PLC.

Key Measures: The researchers gathered information about the usability and feasibility of MTT via teacher surveys, observations of team meeting practices and implementation integrity, as well as interviews with teachers, principals, and other administrative staff. The researchers evaluated classroom practices via the Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Secondary (CLASS-S), which provided information about teacher's use of various components embedded in the intervention. They also assessed student self-reported feelings of connection, engagement, and students' reports of their perceptions of the quality of classroom interactions. Finally, they obtained cost estimates for the intervention in terms of time and fiscal costs.

Data Analytic Strategy: The researchers relied on triangulation, respondent validation, and fair dealing to analyze the qualitative information collected during the development phases and used descriptive statistics to assess usability, feasibility, fidelity, and cost. They used Mann Whitney U tests for comparisons of observational data on collaborative practices and discussion topics in MTT sessions versus those in typical practice comparison group sessions. They used multiple linear regression analyses for connecting MTT implementation and use of research supported collaborative practices during team meetings to classroom practices and students' experiences as well as analysis of teachers reports of MTT usefulness. Separate models were run for each outcome and included teacher gender and race/ethnicity in regressions predicting student-reported outcomes.

Cost Analysis: The researchers analyzed the costs of the MTT intervention using the Cost Analysis in Practice Project's CAPCUT 1.2 calculator https://capproject.org/templates. Results of this analysis indicate that the MyTeachingTeam intervention, including purchase of all classroom video-recording equipment, would cost school divisions slightly less to implement than observed business-as-usual weekly teacher team meetings ($1685 per teacher for 1 year of MTT vs $1722 per teacher for 1 year of business-as-usual weekly team meetings). Furthermore, cost estimates provided from Teachstone, Inc. and entered into CAP templates indicate that the MyTeachingTeam intervention would cost school divisions approximately 25 percent of what the MyTeachingPartner-Secondary intervention would cost ($1685 vs $6542 for 1 year of intervention, or $3,086 vs $12,114 for 2 years). Teacher time commitment for teachers participating in MTT is approximately 62 percent of the teacher time commitment for MTP coaching and approximately 76 percent of teacher time commitment for weekly business-as-usual meetings.

Related IES Projects: Increasing Adolescent Engagement, Motivation, and Achievement: Efficacy of a Web-Based, Teacher Professional Development Model (R305A100367), Efficacy Replication Study of the Impact of MyTeachingPartner-Secondary (MTP-S) (R305A180241)

Products and Publications

ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.

Project Website: https://education.virginia.edu/research-initiatives/research-centers-labs/center-advanced-study-teaching-and-learning/castl-research-projects/elementary-secondary-grades/my-teaching-team-mtt

Select Publications:

Stuhlman M, Mikami AY, Hofkens T, Allen J, Pianta R and Smit S (2022) Integrating Research-Supported Coaching Practices Into Secondary Teachers' Team Meetings: Early Indications of Potential to Impact Collaborations, Classroom Interactions, and Student Engagement. Frontiers in Education. 7:883226. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.883226