AOS 43 partners with UMaine to train literacy coaches

    LAGRANGE — AOS 43 elementary teachers have a new classroom support this year. Administrators have asked three teachers to be trained as literacy coaches using the University of Maine collaborative model called Maine Partnership in Comprehensive Literacy. This model focuses on professional development for classroom teachers. It helps teachers refine their overall quality of literacy instruction and create a common vocabulary between all teachers.

    “The first step is to develop a relationship with the teacher,” noted Carol Smith. The literacy coach makes a commitment to help a school move through a change process so being a leader in the school community is important to the process. Coaches request an invitation into classrooms to support teachers in their learning. Teachers need someone to be able to talk to about students and how to help them grow as learners.
    Smith reflected, “They need to be able to trust me as a professional to give them support and advice knowing I will not be running to tell the principal. Sometimes I have modeled a technique, and sometimes I have just listened and affirmed that the method the teacher has selected is the one I would have selected as well.”
    Coaches work to create a workshop model for literacy. The model supports students so that they become independent thinkers and creative problem solvers. “We want students who are excited about learning and believe in themselves as learners, ” suggested Brynn Oliver, a literacy coach at the Enfield Station School. “We need to give them the tools to be able to discover on their own.”
    Students are not passively sitting at their desks waiting for the teacher to tell them what to do next. In the workshop design students are learning from each other as well as using the Internet, and books and magazines at a research station. They are giving book talks about some of their favorite books to other students in the room. Students are writing articles about topics they feel passionate about, and some are submitted to magazines or contests. They are immersed in literacy for a purpose.
    Allison Woodard shared, “It is a little overwhelming at first to walk into classrooms and talk with teachers that might have been teaching for 20 or 30 years. I am so thankful for the university training that we are receiving this year. The professor that we work with gives us lots of support and encouragement.”
    The training is very intense, and the coaches spend four days a month at the university. In preparation for the classes, they need to read 25 books and watch 15 videos over the course of the year. In the second year, the coaches are ready to teach an on-site graduate course for staff. The administration is thinking about ways to give all staff the opportunity to take the class during professional development time.
    Research supports that there are three critical factors that influence a student’s growth as learners. The three factors include the teacher’s knowledge of the student, teaching techniques and knowledge of subject matter. The partnership with the university allows the district to encourage one of those factors by developing a teacher’s knowledge base. Strengthening a teacher’s knowledge base needs to happen over time. Coaches that work beside teachers on a daily basis allows that learning to happen.
    Superintendent of Schools Michael Wright describes this endeavor as part of the AOS vision created with the Supervision and Evaluation Steering Committee “where professional development happens every day not just on early release or in-service days.” Instead of the traditional professional development days in which we sit through a day and then never follow up, coaches are integrated into the fabric of everyday instruction. Moving forward, this coaching model is something that we hope to capitalize on and use with all teachers.