This brief developed by the Center on Great Teachers & Leaders outlines a framework for coherence that supports states in connecting college and career readiness standards, multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), and educator effectiveness by capitalizing on their shared goal: improving instructional quality to enhance educational outcomes for students. The brief asks readers to examine the shared goals, context, and identify instructional connections across initiatives that support better learning outcomes for all students.

Research on professional development shows that teachers need long term support in order to improve their practice. Coaching can be one method for providing that support (Joyce & Showers, 2002; Kretlow & Bartholomew, 2010). However, not every form of coaching is effective. In fact, just four specific coaching practices are linked to improvements in teacher practice and learner outcomes.

This module is the second in a series on coaching, a form of professional development for teachers who work in the kindergarten-12th grade setting. This module addresses how to measure the fidelity of coaching practice to increase the impact it has on teaching and learning.

This module is the first in a series on coaching, a form of professional development for teachers who work in the kindergarten-12th grade setting. Module 1 addresses the four practices coaches can use to improve teaching and student learning. These practices include observation, modeling, providing performance feedback, and using alliance-building strategies.

Successful implementation of a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) and, specifically, intensive intervention through the data-based individualization (DBI) process, demands the collection and analysis of data. As teams consider data collection, challenges may occur with assessment administration, scoring, and data entry (Taylor, 2009). This resource reviews three data collection and entry challenges and strategies to ensure data about risk status and responsiveness accurately represent student performance and minimize measurement errors.

Like any other educational innovation, the coaching of teachers must be used with fidelity in order to achieve its intended outcomes. Although fidelity is often thought of as adherence to the “key ingredients” of the innovation, it also includes aspects such as quality, responsiveness of the participants (e.g., coach responsiveness to teacher needs), and dose. This means that fidelity in coaching should continuously adhere to the effective practices of observation, modeling, delivery of performance feedback, and use of alliance-building strategies.

The MTSS Fidelity of Implementation Rubric and Summary Sheet are for use by individuals responsible for monitoring the school-level fidelity of MTSS implementation. They may also be used by schools for self-appraisal evaluation; however, they were not designed for compliance monitoring and therefore should not be used for this purpose. The rubric and the summary sheet are designed to be used together and are aligned with the essential components of MTSS.