The Development of a Coaching Model: Challenges and Implications for Intervention Research

Instructional coaching is one way to support teachers’ implementation of evidence-based practices, but gaps exist in knowledge about effective coaching interventions to support teacher learning at the secondary level. In this article, we first introduce an adaptive intervention model (AIM) for coaching, AIM Coaching, a coaching model designed for middle school instructional leaders to use to support teachers as they implement evidence-based literacy instructional practices across a Tier 1 school-wide literacy model. We also describe the theory of change that guided our work, a description of the accompanying professional development instructional leaders received, and the literacy practices that are linked to the model for the purpose of this work. Second, we describe the challenges we encountered and decisions we made during the development process, solutions that addressed those challenges, and implications of those solutions.