Describing the Experience of Instructional Coaches in Supporting Elementary Coding
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Over the past decade, schools around the world have introduced coding in elementary education. A principal challenge with this effort is effectively training and maintaining teachers capable of teaching coding to children. An approach used by BootUp Professional Development is to team up with school districts that provide an Instructional Coach (IC). ICs are district-level personnel that support in-service teachers by co-planning, training, modeling, providing resources, and generally supporting teachers to implement coding in their classrooms. ICs remain in the district long after the professional development provider completes their training, potentially addressing training challenges introduced by teacher attrition. Some of the benefits provided by ICs are: (a) longevity, (b) expertise, and (c) near-peer support. However, the roles and responsibilities of ICs vary by district. In this study, we surveyed 49 ICs to better understand their role in supporting elementary teachers to integrate coding into general education. Findings show that while ICs are experienced teachers, they are relatively novice coders. ICs rely on principals and district personnel to set teachers’ coding expectations, which can either help or hinder their ability to support teachers. In this poster, we will discuss additional successes, challenges, and support structures that ICs face as they seek to support the effective teaching of coding in elementary education.