Activity Reports

My last post gave you a general overview of the role of an instructional coach. Five of the roles were marked with asterisks which signify that they are power roles, and a great majority of my time should be concentrated in these areas. One category not defined as a power role, but still included was the role of accountability. You may ask, "What does that mean?" Well, in my district, an instructional coach is funded in part by the district. To hold coach's accountable for their time and to report our benefit to our school board, our district decided that coaches would keep an Activity Report. The report, created on an EXCEL spreadsheet, allows the coach to log the date, activity, and the coaching role in which they are serving. The Instructional Coaches' Activity Reports are submitted each month to our district's professional development site and the data compiled in a complete report to our school board. Although, you can't read this well, you may be able to make out that Column 1 includes the date, Column 2 the amount of hours logged (each 15 minutes), Column 3 the activity, Column 4 my school number, and Column 5 the role in which I served. What you see here is a four day snapshot.

Last year, the simple excel sheet, like the one above, seemed like an extra burden in an already overcrowded scheduled. Due in part, I suppose, because I never took the time to sort the data and analyze how I was really spending my time. Therefore, I used the tool in compliance mode. This year, with the new spreadsheet which includes a tab for each month, a summary report, monthly graphs, and a yearly graph, I've attempted to move from compliance to commitment. Ok, I admit, commitment might be stretching it, because I don't know anyone who wants to log what they do every 15 minutes for months at a time. However, at least this year, I acknowledge the benefit of having the data. And, I've made an attempt to follow through and analyze my data.




So here is what I learned:

• I worked 21 days in October. (There were 23 working days, but I had two personal days.)
• I worked a total of 196.75 hours. (At least that I actually logged.)
• Divide the number of hours by days worked and I average 9.37 hours a day. (Seems reasonable to me)
• I spend most of my time in the roles of Classroom Supporter and Learning Facilitator. (2 Power Roles)
• I spent the least amount of time as Data Coach. (That's because Dibels and DRA's are in August and September, and FCAT is in February and March.)
• I spend more time observing and giving feedback than I do modeling. (I'm wondering if this is because we have so much capacity, and so many demos in other teacher's classrooms. Or, perhaps I just need to do more modeling.)
• I work with many grade levels often, especially 2nd - 5th. (Am I stretching too thin, offering some support to all, but not good support to any?)
• I was a Learner 15% of my time. (Really, this is not an accurate percentage. I could combine my observation time with my actual Learner time to get the bigger total, because I learn every day from the incredibly talented teachers I observe.)

Now, I'm wondering...

• If we had Power Roles for the teacher, including things like Planner, Implementer, Learner, Data Collector/Analyzer, Curriculum Specialist etc... How would their time be divided?


• If my school of 1,250 students had 2 full-time coaches, would I spend more quality time in classrooms?


• Should I be spending less time doing some of the things I am currently doing?


• Do teachers know what I do and do they find it helpful for moving their work along?


• Is my work transparent enough to each staff member?


• Do school board members see the benefit of what I did in October? How about enough to continue funding?

If the actual Activity Report interests you, feel free to take a look at mine. ttp://www.box.net/shared/mjb1mphonm