Running head : COACHING ACTIVITIES 1 Identifying Potentially Productive Coaching Activities

Instructional improvement initiatives in many districts include content-focused coaching as a primary form of job-embedded support for teachers. However, the current coaching literature provides little guidance about the types of activities in which coaches should engage teachers in order to support their development of ambitious instructional practices. Furthermore, when researchers do propose activities, they rarely justify why those activities might support teacher learning. In this article, we report a conceptual analysis in which we drew on the teacher learning and professional development literatures to identify types of activities that have the potential to support teachers in reorganizing their instructional practices. The findings delineate coaching practices that constitute goals for coaches learning, thereby informing the design of professional development for coaches and, more generally, school and district coaching policies.