A Couple of Ideas for EdTech Coaches to Track Coaching Interactions

As an edtech coach, it is vital to track your teacher and student interactions. Administrators love data and want data to support their investment in your edtech coach position. In our upcoming book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, my co-author and wife, Katherine Goyette and I, discuss ways to measure your effectiveness and impact as an edtech coach. We recommend using the 4 C's for this. We like to say, "if you plan with the 4 C's in mind, the tech will take care of itself". The wisdom is that if administrators observe students engaged in the 4 C's, you've effectively integrated technology.

Edtech coaches wear many hats. Where the 4 C's measure the effectiveness of edtech coaching and integration, hard data for your everyday coaching interactions are also important. Take a look below at the Google Form I use to track all of my coaching duties from meeting with teachers, walking classrooms, providing feedback and training students, quasi-IT duties and more.

The first "question" is where I choose the school site of the teacher or student I am supporting. Depending on the choice, it will take me to a list of teachers for that school site. 

After selecting the school site, I select the name of the teacher or select "Student". If "Student" is selected, when I get to the summary at the end of the form, I add the student's name there.

After selecting the teacher name or "Student", the form takes me to a Checkbox question of a variety of "services" provided. 

When finished "checkboxing" services provided, the form takes me to a question to select the date and add a summary of the interaction. Here is where I provide the details of the coaching interaction.

There are a myriad of ways edtech coaches can track their interactions and measure effectiveness. One option I encourage you to take a look at comes from fellow Google Certified Innovator Suzana Somers. She has created a great tool called connecthub.io. It is a platform designed to help instructional coaches save time and better visualize the impact of their coaching. Click here to check it out. Whether you create a Google Form or use a tool like connecthub.io, find or create a tool that works for you. If you're a classroom teacher or administrator, I encourage you to reflect on the ideas presented in this post and think of ways to adapt them toward your role.

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. If you would like to unsubscribe from this blog, go to bit.ly/tcjinbox. Our book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning is due out in October/November of 2020, published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Keep an eye out on this blog and on social media. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech, #DBCIncBooks and #CVTechTalk for updates.