147 - Complementary Supports for Early Career Teachers: How one Program's Story of Distinct Mentor and Coach Roles Converged with Participants' Stories of Blurred Mentor and Coach Roles

Abstract Information: During school years 2021-22 and 2022-23, Digital Promise provided research and evaluation support on a pilot mentoring and coaching program serving early career teachers (“New Teachers” or “NTs”) in six midwestern states. Initiated through a collaboration among the states’ union affiliates, the program’s core design feature was to split new teacher support into two separate roles: a mentor based in the same building as the NT (“Building Mentor” or “BM”) and a coach based elsewhere in the state and coached online by the NT (“Virtual Instructional Coach” or “VIC”). From the outset, the program told a clear story on the distinct purposes of the BM and VIC roles: where the BM shared students, families, administrators, colleagues, and a community with the NT and could help them navigate their local context and where the VIC shared a content area and/or grade with the NT and could advise them on instructional decisions, resources and materials, and pedagogy. As the first year of implementation unfolded, survey and interview data suggested that, in practice, the roles of BM and VIC crossed, with NTs seeking help on pedagogy from their BMs and advice on context from their VICs. This session will discuss how the participants’ stories strengthened the program’s conviction in the differentiated contributions of the BM and VIC and pushed the program to clarify training and communication so that participants understood the distinction and its value.

Relevance Statement: This pilot program, established through a collaboration of six midwest union affiliates, set out to address the ongoing challenge of retaining beginning teachers (“New Teachers” or “NTs”). The program recruited first- through third-year teachers (n=67 in SY 2021-22; n=50 in SY 2022-23) and matched them with a mentor based in the same building (“Building Mentor” or “BM”) and a coach based in the state and accessed online (“Virtual Instructional Coach” or “VIC”). During design and early implementation, the program told a consistent story about the distinct, non-overlapping support roles of the BM and VIC. The program believed NTs would receive better support, leading to persistence in the profession, if they had two support systems: (1) a BM who understood the unwritten knowledge that comes with years of contextualized familiarity and who could advise NTs on who and where they teach, and (2) a VIC located in another district but with a similar role as the NT– preferably the same content and grade, similar lesson plans and similar student work–who could advise NTs on what and how they teach. The program asserted that this structure would benefit NTs because the VIC could offer the healthy, detached perspective of an outsider, and could support singleton teachers who might not have another same-subject teacher in their entire district, and that the BM, freed from the need to provide instructional support, could focus on the many other needs of NTs. Although on paper, the program’s story of the BM and VIC role distinction was compelling, as we collected survey and interview data from NTs, BMs, and VICs, we heard story after story about going to the BM for pedagogical advice and asking the VIC about a school-based challenge, and we found that the majority of NTs reported using both their BM and VIC for most guidance they sought. Most importantly, the majority of participants accurately understood the program’s intended distinction between the roles, yet pursued or allowed the crossover anyway. After reporting these findings in our biweekly check-ins, on interim reports, and on our formative year one report, we expected that the program would change its story and perhaps relax its own assumptions about the distinctiveness of these roles so that its own story matched that of participants. Instead, we found that the program held fast to its conviction in providing complementary but unique support to NTs through these two roles. Heading into year two, the program redoubled its efforts to incorporate clearer expectations of these roles into onboarding activities, communications, and training. Lo and behold, participants in year two have largely reported understanding the distinction and following the structure, finding value in the distinct NT-BM and NT-VIC relationships and their respective but complementary foci, thus demonstrating how participants’ stories challenged and ultimately strengthened the program’s story.