Mathematics Coaching to Improve Teaching Practice: The Experiences of Mathematics Teachers and Coaches

The purpose of the study is to determine how coaching can be used effectively to improve instruction and student achievement while exploring teachers’ specific emotions during mathematics education reform initiatives that challenge the teacher’s beliefs about teaching and learning in mathematics. It also examines how teachers incorporate the reform changes into their practice in order for the new instructional practices to have the expected effect. I explored teacher learning which refers to the correct use of reform strategies by mathematics teachers so that they have the intended effects on student achievement with the support of a coach during reform initiatives. Through questionnaires, interviews, observations and archival material, the study determines the relationship between teachers’ specific emotions, teacher learning and teacher coaching in secondary school mathematics classrooms. As a result, the study highlights the issues associated with the implementation of mathematics education reform initiatives and implications. The findings show that mathematics education reforms produce emotional responses that can be described as both negative and positive. For example, some emotions include pride, joy, fear, feeling drained and ineffective. The four teachers in the study experienced these emotions because of factors such as a lack of knowledge of how to implement mathematics reform, beliefs about teaching and learning in mathematics that were inconsistent with the reform initiatives, the nature of coaching, and gains in student achievement and engagement. They also experienced negative emotions because of favorable in-school factors such as an administration that supported teacher efforts to implement mathematics reforms. The study shows that: a) coaching may not help teachers reconstruct their professional self-understanding when it fails to address their self-image issues; b) teacher learning may occur even when the teacher’s beliefs are inconsistent with reform initiatives; and c) even when teacher learning results from coaching, reforms do not present themselves as expected in the classroom. Coaches experienced positive and negative emotions as a result of how well the reforms were being implemented by teachers. The experiences of the two coaches during mathematics reforms indicate a need to support coaches as they help teachers use the reform strategies. The directions for future research are described.Ph