Chapter 1

Coaching for Mathematical

Proficiency
Ultimately, the goal of every mathematics coach is to improve the chances that students become
­competent and confident in mathematics. This simply stated purpose is anything but simple to
­accomplish. Each coach or leader works within the context of his or her own setting to decide how to
best focus efforts toward this goal. In one setting, a coach might focus on helping teachers to learn
content more deeply, considering the way in which mathematical ideas are connected within their
grade or course and across grades or courses. In another setting, the focus may be on teaching, with
efforts to consider how particular instructional moves provide or prevent opportunities for each
student to engage with the content. If you have been coaching for a while, you might feel that your
work is anything but focused, with various initiatives happening in different schools or classrooms.
But ­everything that you are doing is in some way or another focused on mathematical proficiency
for ­every student. The purpose of this book is to help you, the leader (and to help you help your
teachers), to see the connections between your professional learning activities, teaching, and
­student learning. EverythingYou Need for Mathematics Coaching:Tools, Plans, and a Process That Works
for Any ­Instructional Leader might be thought of as your Reader’s Digest, providing you with a short-
ened version of critical topics in coaching and teaching (e.g., facilitating discourse) and a collection
of resources to assist you in working on that topic.
Recognizing the busy lives of coaches, we try to boil down the discussion of these topics to the
bare necessities, offer you a menu of places to go for more information, and provide a collection of
tools that can be used for professional learning or for one-on-one coaching (the Preface elaborates
on each of these features, and each chapter offers an opening note to guide you to what you need).
In the chapters that follow, we zoom in on specific topics; in this first chapter, that abbreviated dis-
cussion is about the big picture. The second chapter also focuses on the big picture, with an overview
addressed to teachers (that you can download and share), along with tools to support their learning.
The remainder of Chapter 2 is addressed to you, the coach or instructional leader.

Leading for Mathematical Proficiency (LMP) Framework

It is natural, even wise, to seek justification and rationale when asked to change. When thinking of
a change in teaching practice, there are many possible ways to justify it. Learning of research that
something worked, hearing about a situation in which a practice “worked,” or hearing a testimonial
about an idea that really engaged students are ways that some teaching practices get picked up and
 tried. We would like to suggest that fundamentally we must start at what it is we want students to be
able to do—not which standards they will learn, but what we want them to do if we are truly prepar-
ing them to do mathematics. What it means to do mathematics is best described in the Mathematical
Practices (NGA & CCSSO, 2010).
The Leading for Mathematical Proficiency (LMP) Framework (see Figure 1.1) frames the goals
of professional learning on developing mathematical proficiency in all students. The LMP Frame-
work is dually focused to both help you, as coaches, see how pieces of your efforts fit together in a
­purposeful manner and to help you, as facilitators, communicate these connections to teachers and
other s­ takeholders. The bottom line is that we must regularly revisit these connections to ensure that
there is a clear purpose and cohesion to the activities that are occurring.

Figure 1.1 Leading for Mathematical Proficiency (LMP) Framework

Provide
opportunities Enacting
Mathematical to learn
Practices

Shifts in Support
Classroom
Require
Practice

Focus
Include Zones
Planning

Each of the major components of the LMP Framework has lists of more specific targets.
­Specifically, there are eight Mathematical Practices and eight Shifts in Classroom Practice. A coach
may choose to focus on any number of focus zones, but we have identified eight. These are related to
each other in complex ways and are presented in Figure 1.2 as an advanced organizer of the discus-
sion of these major components.

Mathematical Practices
From the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (NGA & CCSSO, 2010), and now
­included in many state standards, these expectations for students must be the ultimate goal of
­mathematics coaching. Mathematical practices describe what mathematically proficient
students are able to do, and those descriptions will endure even if the labels are changed. Figure 1.3
lists each Mathematical Practice, along with excerpts from the descriptions (only the sentences
­beginning with “Mathematically proficient students . . .” are included).
To place the Mathematical Practices as the goal of professional learning, as in the LMP
­Framework, professional learning must begin by asking,
What does each of the Mathematical Practices look like in action?
As New York Yankee player and coach Yogi Berra put it, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll
end up someplace else.” This advice for baseball also applies to instructional coaching! Related to the
Mathematical Practices, you have to be sure that there is a shared understanding of what a student is
doing if the student is modeling with mathematics (Mathematical Practice 4) or looking for structure

4 Creating a Road Map

 Figure 1.2 At-a-Glance Elements Within Each Component of the LMP
­Framework

Mathematical Practices
1. Make sense of problems and
persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and
quantitatively. Shifts in Classroom Practice
3. Construct viable arguments and …Toward…
critique the reasoning of others.
1. Communicates learning
4. Model with mathematics.
expectations
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
2. Reasoning tasks
6. Attend to precision.
3. Teaching through representations
7. Look for and make use of Focus Zones
4. Share-and-compare
structure.
5. Questions illuminate and deepen 1. Content Knowledge and
8. Look for and express regularity
student understanding Worthwhile Tasks
in repeated reasoning.
6. Selecting efficient strategies 2. Engaging Students
7. Mathematics-takes-time 3. Questioning and Discourse
8. Looking for students’ thinking 4. Formative Assessment
5. Analyzing Student Work
6. Differentiating Instruction for All
Students
7. Supporting Emergent Multilingual
Students
8. Supporting Students with Special
Needs

(Mathematical Practice 7). The Mathematical Practices provide specific descriptors or “look fors”
related to student actions, and these can and should be tied to the content that ­students are learning.
In the Appendix, you will find the Mathematical Practices & Student Look Fors Bookmark, providing
an at-a-glance resource for professional development, lesson cycles, and personal reference.

online
resources    You can also download the bookmark at resources.corwin.com/mathematicscoaching.

Even if the list of eight Mathematical Practices is familiar, being able to think about what they
look like for a first grader or a tenth grader is not obvious. If teachers within a group have different
interpretations of modeling, for example, then they are working toward different goals—which can
make the work of PLCs confusing or ineffective. And if a teacher views these practices differently
than the coach, it can interfere with the effectiveness of a lesson cycle. Chapter 2 provides numerous
tools for helping to build a shared understanding of what the Mathematical Practices look like in
action, and Chapter 12 ­provides several professional learning activities to engage groups of teachers
in developing a shared ­understanding of these practices.

Shifts in Classroom Practice

With a vision of what a Mathematical Practice (or several Practices) looks like in terms of student
actions or behaviors, the question becomes this:
How can we (as teachers and coaches) provide optimal learning opportunities for students to
become mathematically proficient?
Creating opportunities for students to become mathematically proficient (i.e., demonstrate the
Mathematical Practices) requires implementing teaching practices that focus on helping students
acquire these practices while simultaneously working on creating deep understanding of the ­content.
Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All (PtA; NCTM, 2014) delineates eight
­Effective Teaching Practices (see Figure 1.3 on the next page). These practices are grounded in

Coaching for Mathematical Proficiency 5

 Figure 1.3 Mathematical Practices: What Mathematically Proficient Students
Are Able to Do (NGA & CCSSO, 2010)

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Mathematically

proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and
looking for entry points to its solution. . . . Mathematically proficient students can explain
correspondences between equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw
diagrams of important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity
or trends. . . . Mathematically proficient students check their answers to problems using a
different method, and they continually ask themselves, “Does this make sense?”

2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. Mathematically proficient students make

sense of quantities and their relationships in problem situations.

3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Mathematically

proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously
established results in constructing arguments. . . . Mathematically proficient students are also
able to compare the effectiveness of two plausible arguments, distinguish correct logic or
reasoning from that which is flawed, and—if there is a flaw in an argument—explain what it is.

4. Model with mathematics. Mathematically proficient students can apply the

mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the
workplace. . . . Mathematically proficient students who can apply what they know are
comfortable making assumptions and approximations to simplify a complicated situation,
realizing that these may need revision later.

5. Use appropriate tools strategically. Mathematically proficient students consider

the available tools when solving a mathematical problem. . . . Mathematically proficient
students are sufficiently familiar with tools appropriate for their grade or course and make
sound decisions about when each of these tools might be helpful, recognizing both the
insight to be gained and their limitations.

6. Attend to precision. Mathematically proficient students try to communicate precisely

to others.

7. Look for and make use of structure. Mathematically proficient students look
closely to discern a pattern or structure.

8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. Mathematically proficient

students notice if calculations are repeated and look both for general methods and for
shortcuts.

Source: © Copyright 2010 National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.

research, which is summarized not only in that important book but also in related reviews of research
(Spangler & Wanko, 2017; see Books in the Where to Learn More section, later in this chapter).
For each of these Teaching Practices, we developed a Shift in Classroom Practice. A Shift succinctly
describes the Teaching Practice along a continuum (see Figure 1.4). Teaching is a learning endeavor.
There is always some way we can adapt our practice in order to better meet the needs of students.
The complexity of teaching means novices are on a journey toward being more effective. Ongoing
­research in teaching and related fields such as brain research means that experienced teachers are
also on a journey toward being more effective. In other words, we are all on the continuum some-
where and trying to move in the “right” direction. As a coach, you support teachers in self-assessing
where their strengths lie and where they might want to shift their practices.

6 Creating a Road Map

Figure 1.4 Shifts in Classroom Practice

Shift 1: From stating-a-standard toward communicating expectations for learning

Teacher shares broad performance Teacher creates lesson-specific learning goals

goals and/or those provided in and communicates these goals at critical
standards or curriculum documents. times within the lesson to ensure students
understand the lesson’s purpose and what is
expected of them.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Establish mathematics goals to focus learning. Effective teach-
ing of mathematics establishes clear goals for the mathematics that students are learning, sit-
uates goals within learning progressions, and uses the goals to guide instructional decisions.

Shift 2: From routine tasks toward reasoning tasks

Teacher uses tasks involving recall Teacher uses tasks that lend themselves
of previously learned facts, rules, or to multiple representations, strategies, or
definitions and provides students with pathways encouraging student explanation
specific strategies to follow. (how) and justification (why/when) of solution
strategies.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem-­solving.
Effective teaching of mathematics engages students in solving and discussing tasks that
­promote mathematical reasoning and problem-solving and allow multiple entry points and
varied ­solution strategies­.

Shift 3: From teaching about representations toward teaching through

representations

Teacher shows students how to Teacher uses lesson goals to determine

create a representation (e.g., a graph whether to highlight particular representations
or picture). or to have students select a representation; in
both cases, teacher provides opportunities for
students to compare different representations
and how they connect to key mathematical
concepts.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Use and connect mathematical representations. Effective

teaching of mathematics engages students in making connections among mathematical repre-
sentations to deepen understanding of mathematics concepts and procedures and as tools for
problem-solving.

Shift 4: From show-and-tell toward share-and-compare

Teacher has students share their Teacher creates a dynamic forum where
answers. students share, listen, honor, and critique
each other’s ideas to clarify and deepen
mathematical understandings and language;
teacher strategically invites participation in
ways that facilitate mathematical connections.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse. Effective

teaching of mathematics facilitates discourse among students to build shared understanding of
mathematical ideas by analyzing and comparing student approaches and arguments.

(Continued)

Coaching for Mathematical Proficiency 7

 (Continued)

Shift 5: From questions that seek expected answers toward questions that
illuminate and deepen student understanding

Teacher poses closed and/or low-level Teacher poses questions that advance student
questions, confirms correctness of thinking, deepen students’ understanding,
responses, and provides little or no make the mathematics more visible, provide
opportunity for students to explain insights into student reasoning, and promote
their thinking. meaningful reflection.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Pose purposeful questions. Effective teaching of mathematics

uses purposeful questions to assess and advance students’ reasoning and sense making about
important mathematical ideas and relationships.

Shift 6: From teaching so that students replicate procedures toward teaching so

that students select efficient strategies

Teacher approaches facts and Teacher provides time for students to

procedures with the goal of speed engage with mathematical problems,
and accuracy. developing flexibility by encouraging student
selection and use of efficient strategies;
teacher provides opportunities for students
to evaluate when a strategy is best suited
for the problem at hand.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Build procedural fluency from conceptual understand-

ing. Effective teaching of mathematics builds fluency with procedures on a foundation of
­conceptual understanding so that students, over time, become skillful in using procedures
flexibly as they solve contextual and mathematical problems.

Shift 7: From mathematics-made-easy toward mathematics-takes-time

Teacher presents mathematics in Teacher questions, encourages, provides time,

small chunks so that students reach and explicitly states the value of grappling
solutions quickly. with mathematical tasks, making multiple
attempts, and learning from mistakes.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Support productive struggle in learning mathematics. Effec-

tive teaching of mathematics consistently provides students, individually and collectively, with
opportunities and supports to engage in productive struggle as they grapple with mathematical
ideas and relationships.

Shift 8: From looking at correct answers toward looking for students’ thinking

Teacher attends to whether an Teacher identifies specific strategies or

answer or procedure is (or is not) representations that are important to notice;
correct. strategically uses observations, student
responses to questions, and written work to
determine what students understand; and
uses these data to inform in-the-moment
discourse and future lessons.

NCTM Teaching Practice: Elicit and use evidence of student thinking. Effective teach-
ing of mathematics uses evidence of student thinking to assess progress toward mathematical
understanding and to adjust instruction continually in ways that support and extend learning.
Source: NCTM Teaching Practice Statements from National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). (2014). Principles to Actions: Ensuring
Mathematical Success for All. Reston, VA: Author.

8 Creating a Road Map

 Importantly, the Shifts in Classroom Practice are represented on a continuum and must be under-
stood this way, not as a dichotomy. In focusing on improving learning opportunities for students and
moving to the right on any of the Shifts, we recognize teaching as a complex and intellectually stim-
ulating endeavor as we seek to figure out what specific actions might move us along the continuum.
The Teaching Practices and Shifts in Classroom Practice can also be synthesized into look fors related
to teacher actions. In the Appendix, you will find the Teaching Practices & Shifts in Classroom Practice
Look Fors Bookmark, providing an at-a-glance resource for professional learning.

online
resources    You can also download the bookmark at resources.corwin.com/mathematicscoaching.

Any one of these (interrelated) Shifts, or a combination of them, can be the focus of professional
development, coaching conversations, and data gathering. The classroom practices described on the
right side of the Shifts—whereby students are encouraged to understand, to reason, to hear, and to
respond to ideas presented by their peers, and whereby the teacher challenges and supports their
efforts to solve high-level mathematical tasks—are necessary in providing optimal learning oppor-
tunities for students to become mathematically proficient.

Connecting the Shifts to the Mathematical Practices

Imagine mapping the Shifts in Figure 1.4 to the Mathematical Practices in Figure 1.3 (or use the two
Look Fors bookmarks). Identify one Mathematical Practice and see which Shifts in Classroom Practice
you think would support student development of that Mathematical Practice. Did you identify one
Shift? Three Shifts? Or did you see potential in each Shift? All of these responses could be considered cor-
rect. Work on any one Shift can affect student learning, as can work across the Shifts. Now imagine that
you have done this same activity for all the Mathematical Practices. You will have a complex mapping
of Mathematical Practices to Shifts.You can see that to develop mathematical ­proficiency for students,
all the Shifts in Classroom Practice matter. And any one of the Shifts in Classroom Practice can contribute
to student development of any number of the Mathematical Practices. In Chapter 12 of this book, we
provide several professional development activities for engaging teachers in making these connections.
There are numerous ways to use the Shifts as tools to focus professional learning. You may
­decide to have your entire group of teachers from a particular setting (e.g., a course, grade, school,
or entire district) select and focus on one Shift and have that be at the center of curriculum/lesson
design, lesson study, or coaching cycles. Instead, or in addition, you may want to engage teachers in
identifying their own Shift independently, selecting one that they feel will make the most difference
in their own students’ learning or one they feel is most needed to “move to the right.” Instead of
selecting a Shift, you may wish to have teachers take on all the Shifts, assessing where they are (see
Self-Assessment Tool 2.1) and moving forward across the Shifts. A hybrid of these ideas is to select
a subset of the Shifts that is most closely connected to a particular focus (e.g., formative assess-
ment) and to work on that subset of Shifts (see a self-assessment tool as the first tool in each of the
Focus Zone chapters).

Focus Zones
The Shifts themselves are multifaceted and complex. It may not be clear how these comprehensive
teaching practices address needs for students or challenges in a particular setting. This raises the
following question:
How do we (as coaches and teacher leaders) help teachers make the Shifts in Classroom
Practice that lead to mathematical proficiency?

Coaching for Mathematical Proficiency 9

 When it comes to professional learning, it can be helpful to find a zone in which to work—one
that addresses immediate needs of teachers and/or significant needs within a school or district set-
ting. Generically, a zone is a separate area with a particular function, and that is exactly how we use
the term here related to professional learning about mathematics teaching. A particular function
might be to engage students or to analyze student work. Focusing on a zone provides an opportunity
for pragmatic discussion, learning, and documenting of zone-specific strategies, ideas, and practices
that can then be connected to the LMP Framework, with an eye constantly on developing mathe-
matically proficient students.
There is certainly a myriad of possible focus zones. In this “everything-you-need book,” we
could not include every possibility! We selected eight Focus Zones based on these criteria:

• Is commonly encountered by mathematics coaches (based on surveys and input from

you, the mathematics coaches)
• Has a research basis connecting the Focus Zone to student learning
• Has the greatest potential to shift classroom practices to the right

Our selected Focus Zones are listed in Figure 1.5. Each of these Focus Zones is a chapter in this
book. And in that chapter is a Coach’s Digest with resources for you and your teachers, as well as a
Coach’s Toolkit, which is a set of seven to ten tools to support professional learning and coaching
cycles specific to that Focus Zone.

Figure 1.5 Focus Zones for Mathematics Professional Learning

Chapter Focus Zone

Chapter 3 Content Knowledge and Worthwhile Tasks
Chapter 4 Engaging Students
Chapter 5 Questioning and Discourse
Chapter 6 Formative Assessment
Chapter 7 Analyzing Student Work
Chapter 8 Differentiating Instruction for All Students
Chapter 9 Supporting Emergent Multilingual Students
Chapter 10 Supporting Students With Special Needs

Connecting Focus Zones to the LMP

Identification of a Focus Zone might occur in a variety of ways. As part of goal setting for the year, a
group of teachers may select a focus (based on their self-assessment of the Shifts in Classroom Practice,
for example). Or this could be part of a one-on-one coaching conversation—for example, with a
beginning teacher. Together, you may agree that the focus of your work together will be on ques-
tioning and discourse.You both select this Zone because you see it as a way to work on Shift 4 (from
show-and-tell toward share-and-compare) or Shift 6 (from teaching so that students replicate ­procedures
toward teaching so that students select efficient strategies). In both cases, the Shifts were selected in order
to develop one or more of the Mathematical Practices, such as Mathematical Practice 1 or both
Mathematical Practices 1 and 3.

10 Creating a Road Map

Enacting the Framework
We have described the LMP Framework in the way it can be used in designing p ­ rofessional
learning experiences, beginning with the goal of student outcomes. Once the design is in place,
it is essential to revisit the connections in the Framework (see the arrows on the right side in
Figure 1.1). The selected Focus Zones support the Shifts in Classroom Practice.
Seeing how changes in a specific Zone, such as content and worthwhile tasks, are impacting
several Shifts honors the efforts of teachers. Most importantly, it is crucial for teachers to see how
efforts in a Focus Zone and/or on a Shift in Classroom Practice increase students’ opportunities to
learn (OTL). For example, as teachers use questioning and discourse (Focus Zone 5) to shift toward
“teaching so that students select efficient strategies” (Shift 6), they need to see the different ways
that students are developing flexibility and efficiency and the related Mathematical Practices that
are therefore now evident in their students. It is very powerful to see how a particular instructional
move or new routine can make significant changes in students’ opportunities to learn important
mathematics!
As you work on these three components of the LMP Framework, you may be leading profes-
sional learning and/or participating in coaching cycles. Professional learning ideas are provided in
Chapters 2 through 10. Chapter 12 is focused specifically on presenting professional development,
and Chapter 13 is focused on facilitating professional learning. The coaching cycle can play a critical
role in professional learning, so it is important to consider some basic ideas to ensure coaching cycles
are effective.

Coaching Cycle
The coaching cycle is commonly presented as a three-phase process: pre-observation, observa-
tion, and post-observation. This cycle and the titles of each component originated from clinical
supervision models (Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, 2001; Goldhammer, 1969). When this
clinical supervision model is used in educational settings, it is typically incorporated as part of an
evaluation system. Coaching, however, is not about evaluation; it is about learning. Therefore, we
believe that mathematics coaches should not be involved in formal teacher evaluation. So we will
adapt the language of the coaching cycle to focus on the collaborative activity in which the coach
and teacher engage during each phase of the cycle and use the terms plan, gather data, and reflect
(see Figure 1.6).

Figure 1.6 The Coaching Cycle

Plan

Gather
Reflect
Data

Coaching for Mathematical Proficiency 11

 The coaching cycle is dynamic and contextual. By dynamic, we mean that the cycle is flexible.
You can begin at any phase of the coaching cycle. Of course, the ideal situation is that you have
enough time in your day to conduct a complete coaching cycle with every teacher with whom you
work! O ­ bviously, that won’t happen. But that doesn’t mean that you then abandon the coaching
­cycle. Even if you do not have a planning conversation with a teacher or are not present during the
lesson to collect any data, you can still have a reflecting conversation with the teacher that will sup-
port his or her growth. A teacher could ask you to come to her or his class and collect some specific
data during a lesson.You could do this without previously having a planning conversation about the
lesson. If you do not have the luxury of the time needed to complete the entire coaching cycle, en-
gaging a teacher in any one part of the cycle is a valuable learning experience. By contextual, we mean
that the implementation of the coaching cycle will be influenced by many factors, such as the teacher
and coach’s relationship, their beliefs about teaching and learning, and their educational experiences.

Phases of the Coaching Cycle

In this section, we briefly share the purpose of each phase, effective practice within each phase, and
tips for using this book to support a coaching cycle.

Plan
Your goal during the planning phase of the coaching cycle is to support the teacher in effective
­lesson planning. This action may vary, depending on the teacher with whom you are working and
the focus of the conversation. For example, you might be working with a beginning teacher who
needs support in selecting goals and aligning lesson activities, or you might be working with a vet-
eran teacher who is striving to engage all learners. Regardless of the specific situation, the coach-
ing relationship should be collegial and reciprocal, one in which both the coach and the teacher
are full participants, each learning from the discussion. Planning tools are in each of Chapters 2
through 10. Each tool provides “instructions to the coach” and general instructions as needed.
The downloadable ­version of the tool does not include the “instructions to the coach,” so it can be
e-mailed to teachers or printed for them.

Gather Data
During this next phase of the coaching cycle, the coach is collecting data for the teacher. Thus, you
and the teacher together decide what data will be gathered and what type of tool you will use for the
data collection (see Coach’s Toolkit in Chapters 2–10 for possibilities). The key to effective data
collection is setting aside judgment and only collecting observable data (what you see and hear).
For example, consider these two comments recorded on a data-gathering tool:
“Teacher asks open-ended question.”
“Teacher asks students to explain how they solved Problem 4.”
The first statement is a judgment about the type of question being asked. The latter statement is
the actual data. Engaging the teacher in making judgments about the data collected can take place
in the Reflect phase of the coaching cycle.You will notice that many of the data-gathering tools in the
Coach’s Toolkits provide significant space for recording data and then ways to later code that data
with the teacher. The tools can be copied for teachers but are also are available for download so you
can type data on the tool.

Reflect
Planning and data gathering are important, but their potential impact is realized through reflecting
on the lesson and data. When we take the time to process our experiences, we gain insights that are

12 Creating a Road Map

 essential to our professional growth. It is during the Reflect phase that any data gathered for the
teacher is shared for discussion and analysis. It is also possible to have a reflecting conversation with-
out any data to analyze. In either case, the questions you ask will support the teacher in reflecting
on the lesson in critical ways. As with planning and data gathering, Chapters 2 through 10 provide
options for reflecting.
Having tools to support each phase of the coaching cycle can help keep the focus on its ­intended
goal. However, while we have placed tools under the headers of Self-Assess, Plan, Gather Data, and
Reflect, many of the tools can be used in other phases. In the many stories we have heard from
­coaches, we often hear of only a single tool being used across the coaching cycle—for example, the
coach uses the self-assessment tool but gathers evidence on sticky notes. These tools are meant to be
a menu—select any that make sense for your setting/context.

Navigating the Coaching Cycle

Of course, simply understanding and having tools for the coaching cycle is not enough! In Chapter 11,
we describe coaching skills that are critical for all coaching interactions, such as building trust and
rapport, listening, paraphrasing, and posing questions. For each skill, we present a synopsis that
includes a description of the skill, tips for effectively implementing the skill, insights from the field,
and additional resources for further study. We recognize that these skills are complex, and becoming
proficient in them is an ongoing process that develops over time. The briefs provided in Chapter 11
are intended to be a Reader’s Digest version—at-a-glance support, reinforcement, and links to other
resources that can support your work as a mathematics coach.

Getting Started
As you engage in coaching, we hope the LMP Framework provides a road map for you and
your teachers. The Framework components place the purpose for change on goals for students
(Mathematical Practices) via Shifts in Classroom Practice that can occur when professional devel-
opment e­ fforts focus on particular Focus Zones. As a coach, you can help teachers make strategic
­decisions on where to f­ocus, as well as make explicit the connections between the components of
the Framework (see Figure 1.2 and Tool 2.3). Your collaborative decision-making supports and is
supported by the coaching cycle, as well as other professional learning opportunities.
Chapter 2 begins with an overview of the components of the LMP Framework already ­described,
but it has been written for a teacher or administrator audience. This can be used to begin the conver-
sation with teachers about setting goals related to mathematics learning and teaching. In your busy,
multifaceted efforts to support teachers and their students, we truly hope that this book provides
almost everything you need—at least as a starting place—because we recognize that your efforts as
a mathematics coach are critical to improving mathematical learning opportunities for all students.

Coaching for Mathematical Proficiency 13