Coaching For Impact, Not Activity

Thanks so much for tuning in to the Coaching For Impact, Not Activity podcast episode with me and Kim. If you’re here, you’re already thinking about how to move your coaching work beyond just being busy, and toward making a real difference for teachers and students.

This Mini-Guide pulls together some of the key ideas from the episode, along with practical tools to help you reflect, plan, and start telling a deeper story of your coaching impact.

And I would like to sincerely thank Kim Cofino of Eduro Learning for inviting me to do an episode on her podcast, #CoachBetter.

✅ 5 Reasons Why Coaching Impact Matters
✅ Coaching Impact vs. Coaching Activity — What’s the difference?
✅ Top 10 Ways to Start Measuring Coaching Impact
✅ Common Coaching Pitfalls — and how to avoid them
✅ “How Am I Coaching for Impact?” — Reflection & Planning Template
✅ Further Reading & Resources
✅ Stay Connected

This Coaching for Impact Mini-Guide is designed to give you practical, actionable tools you can use right away — whether you’re an experienced coach, a new coach, or a leader supporting a coaching program.

You’ll find coaching moves to try, ideas for tracking what matters, common pitfalls to watch for, and a simple reflection template to help you plan your next steps.

You don’t have to do it all at once — start with one section that speaks to you, and keep coming back to deepen your impact-focused coaching practice.

It’s not about proving that coaching exists — it’s about showing that coaching works.

When we focus on impact, we move coaching from being seen as an “extra” or a “nice to have,” to being recognized as an essential driver of teacher growth, student success, and school improvement.

Here are five reasons why it’s so important to track and share the impact of your coaching work:

1. Accountability: Coaching must demonstrate value to sustain support.

2. Data-Informed Coaching: Measuring impact helps coaches and leaders refine their work.

3. Teacher Growth → Student Growth: The heart of coaching is helping teachers grow their practice so students can thrive.

4. Coaches Grow Too: Reflection and impact data help us improve our own coaching.

5. Advocacy & Storytelling: Sharing coaching impact builds trust and buy-in across the school community.

It’s easy to track how busy a coach is, but far more powerful to show what’s changing because of coaching:

"Activity tells us how busy the coach was. Impact tells us what changed — for teachers, for students, and for the school culture — because of the coaching." ~ Donna Spangler

Teacher feedback and student learning outcomes are important tools in coaching — they give us valuable data about teacher experience and student outcomes over time and should be included in measuring coaching impact.

And while time tracking (cycles completed, hours coached) is useful for context, it should never be the sole focus, it tells us how busy the coach was, not what changed.

In order tell a truly complete story of coaching impact, we also want to capture what’s happening in between, the changes in teaching practice, engagement, and school culture that coaching helps drive.

Examples might include:

• Teacher feedback surveys

• Coaching reflection forms

• Teacher self-assessments

Why: Helps coaches and leaders understand how coaching is being experienced — and supports program improvement.

Examples might include:

• Student assessment and growth data
• Common formative assessments
• Long-term student achievement trends

Why: Important indicators of learning outcomes — often appear after sustained instructional shifts.

Examples might include:

• Coaching hours logged

• Number of coaching cycles

• PLC facilitation time

Why: Provides helpful context, but time alone does not tell us whether coaching is making an impact. It CAN help coaches though look at how they are spending their time and see if they are spending the time well or if adjustments could be made to improve coaching impact.

Examples might include:

• Walkthrough trends aligned to coaching goals

• Observation rubric data

• Teacher artifacts (lesson plans, unit designs, instructional materials)

Why: This is where we see coaching translating into shifts in teaching — the bridge between coaching and student learning.

Examples might include:

• Engagement observation rubrics

• Student voice surveys

• Participation trends in class

Why: Early indicator that practice change is positively impacting student experience.

Examples might include:

• Goal tracking (% of coaching goals met)

• Teacher reflection on coaching goal progress

Why: Direct evidence of whether coaching is helping teachers meet their goals — often seen before student assessment shifts.

Examples might include:

• % of coaching cycles/goals aligned to district or school priorities

• Principal feedback on alignment

Why: Demonstrates that coaching is strategically supporting system goals.

Examples might include:

• Teacher collaboration patterns

• PLC artifacts

• Culture survey results (collective efficacy, risk-taking, innovation)

Why: Coaching also shapes the culture of learning — these shifts amplify impact over time.

Examples might include:

• Principal and leader feedback / surveys

• Impact reports shared with leadership

• Success stories from teachers and students

Why: Coaching must be visible, understood, and valued to sustain investment.

Examples might include:

• Multi-year trends in teacher practice (walkthroughs/observations)

• Multi-year trends in student outcomes for teachers who have engaged in coaching

Why: Shows whether coaching impact is sustained over time — builds leadership confidence in long-term coaching investment.

"The strongest coaching impact stories combine quantitative AND qualitative data — to show both the headlines and the human stories of coaching success." ~ Donna Spangler

❌ Lack of role clarity: Coaches pulled into too many non-coaching tasks lose impact.
→ Stay clear about your role. Protect your time for deep coaching work.

❌ Tracking only activity: Counting cycles won’t tell your impact story.
→ Track what’s changing — practice, engagement, student learning.

❌ No support for coaches: Coaches need PD and feedback, too.
→ Build coaching PLCs, seek feedback, keep growing your practice.

Section 1: What teacher and student outcomes am I coaching toward?

Teacher Practice Goals: _________________________________________
Student Learning Goals: _________________________________________

Section 2: How am I currently measuring impact?

Quantitative Data: _________________________________________
Qualitative Data: _________________________________________

Section 3: How will I share my coaching impact?

Ideas: (impact report, leadership update, staff sharing, success stories)

Section 4: What is one coaching practice I’ll refine based on this podcast?

Action Step: ____________________________________________________

You may need to create a sign in for a free SmartBrief Account to read these entire SmartBrief articles.

✅ Multiply Your Coaching Impact, Not Your Workload — SmartBrief

✅ Coaching for Impact Starts with Collecting Data — SmartBrief

✅ Dig Deeper Offers a Framework for Coaching Teachers — SmartBrief

✅ 7 Ways to Measure Instructional Coaching for Impact, Not Activity — SmartBrief

✅ Track the Instructional Coaching Impact Across District Coaches — SmartBrief

✅ Instructional Coaching Impact — Steve Barkley Ponders Aloud Podcast with me

✅ Coaching for Impact: Six Pillars to Create Coaching Roles That Achieve Their Potential to Improve Teaching and Learning — Learning Forward document

Every coaching move matters . Let’s keep learning which ones matter most!

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Donna Spangler
Co-Founder of Coaching Moves That Matter | Executive Director, Edjacent | Virtual Coach, Sibme

📧 Emails: coachwithdonna@gmail.com OR info@coachingmovesthatmatter.com

🔗 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/donna-spangler-56835412a

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