ERRR #074a. Josh Goodrich on Instructional Coaching

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Josh Goodrich has been working in and with schools for over a decade with experience as an English teacher in  both London and Thailand, as an assistant principal, a national lead for professional development for over 50 schools in the Oasis Trust and, more recently, the as founder of Steplab, now working with over 80,000 teachers to improve teaching and learning through instructional coaching.

Josh and I were first put in touch by Peps Mccrea, who suggested that we’d have lots to talk about when it comes to helping teachers to improve, and Peps wasn’t wrong!

Since then, Josh and I have had countless discussions about supporting teacher development, and I’ve even seen him in action, coaching teachers and running PD in a variety of schools during my recent trip to the UK. 

It’s no exaggeration to say that Josh is the best instructional coach that I’ve seen in action. His ability to pinpoint a key skill for a teacher to work on, to make his suggestion in an enthusiastic and positive way, and to guide teacher practice to mastery is second to none. If there’s one thing that helped my coaching the most, it’s simply seeing Josh in action when I followed him around for a day and watched him observe and give feedback to five different coachees in just a couple of hours, and then run a whole school PD session at Aim North London, where he is now deputy principal. 

My interview with Josh is in two parts. In part a, Josh and I talk about the theory of instructional coaching. We talk about generating teacher change, about navigating directive vs. facilitative coaching methods, about what Josh calls ‘Responsive Coaching’, and about the challenges, and opportunities, of implementation. 

In Part b, you’ll hear Josh guide me through two cycles of improvement in my own classroom and hear the principles, in action.

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Links/resources mentioned in the show

• For an excellent guide covering what Instructional Coaching is, a summary of the research evidence for Instructional Coaching, guidance for how to set up coaching in a school, advice on how to select and train great coaches, and more, check out the Steplab Beginner's Guide to Instructional Coaching.
• Upcoming Instructional Coaching Intensive with Josh Goodrich and Peps Mccrea, March 6th, 2023
• Harry Fletcher-Wood's early blogs on Instructional Coaching
• Epton, Tracy & Currie, Sinead & Armitage, Christopher. (2017). Unique Effects of Setting Goals on Behavior Change: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 85. 1182-1198.
  • The big finding: The studies included in the present review show clear evidence that there are no differences dependent upon if the goals were set by someone else, self-set or participatively set goals. This is in contrast to: (a) predictions made by theories such as self- determination theory that suggests the autonomy from self set goals should increase motivation and thus improve behavior change (Deci & Ryan, 2000); and (b) recommendations that collaborative goals should be used in clinical settings (Matre et al., 2013; Shilts et al., 2013). (This is Josh's summary note)
• Book: The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact – Chip & Dan Heath
• Book: Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior – Edward Deci & Richard Ryan
• Ollie's Books, Cognitive Load Theory in Action and Tools for Teachers
• To get a summary of this episode, sign up at www.patreon.com/errr 

Declaration of interest: Through the process of working with Josh Goodrich on this podcast, Ollie became convinced of the efficacy of Steplab and Josh’s IC approach more generally. Ollie has since become the first Australian member of Steplab staff and is therefore now commercially associated with Steplab.

This episode of the ERRR Podcast is brought to you by John Catt Educational. Use this link, along with the code provided within the podcast to get 30% off all books from John Catt Educational! https://www.johncattbookshop.com/books/errr

This episode of the ERRR podcast is brought to you by Catalyst. Catalyst transforms students' lives through learning by developing excellent teachers and Leaders through evidence-based professional learning programs. Find out more at https://catalyst.cg.catholic.edu.au/

Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.