In-School Instructional Support
Aims, Actions, Adaptations:
Original In-School Instructional Support Roles
Chicago Math & Science Initiative (CMSI) planners initially designed three distinct support roles: (1) facilitators, (2) area coaches, and (3) in-school specialists. During the first year of the CMSI, each of these roles was charged with different tasks to carry out the mission of the CMSI:
- Facilitators: hired as experts in specific CMSI-supported instructional materials to provide support to Intensive Support schools and were viewed as point persons within the OMS for each set of instructional materials.
- Area coaches: hired to act as an interface among the OMS, area offices, and schools. Area coaches were charged with supporting general mathematics and science instruction in all schools within their individual instructional areas. (This role corresponded with the example provided in the research literature of teachers who left classroom positions to provide instructional coaching for clusters of schools.)
- In-school specialists: hired to work in freed positions in each of the Intensive Support schools initially chosen to implement CMSI. In-school specialists were to serve as dedicated, school-based support for teachers in these schools.
