What is it about?
This article introduces the D.E.S.I.G.N. Model, a coaching framework that helps teachers learn through dialogue, reflection, and collaborative inquiry. It reframes instructional coaching as a human-centered process that supports adaptive teaching and professional growth.
Featured Image
Photo by Timur Shakerzianov on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Instructional coaching scholarship has offered valuable models for feedback, implementation support, and reflective facilitation, yet less attention has been given to how coaching conversations themselves shape teacher learning. The D.E.S.I.G.N. Model contributes a new dialogic framework that positions interaction, inquiry, and collaborative meaning-making as central mechanisms for reflective professional learning and adaptive instructional decision-making.
Perspectives
Current instructional coaching research has deepened understanding of feedback, facilitation, and professional support, but fewer frameworks explain how teacher learning is actually constructed within coaching conversations themselves. The D.E.S.I.G.N. Model introduces a dialogic and interaction-centered approach that positions reflective inquiry, collaborative meaning-making, and adaptive reasoning as central to professional learning and instructional decision-making. This work reflects my long-standing commitment to understanding how teachers learn through conversation, reflection, and shared inquiry in authentic educational settings. Drawing from three decades of literacy coaching and action research, I wanted to develop a framework that better captures the relational, human, and context-responsive nature of professional learning in practice.
Krishna Belino Cart
The George Washington University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Learning in the Moment: The D.E.S.I.G.N. Model for Instructional Coaching as Interactional Design Work, May 2026, Center for Open Science,
DOI: 10.35542/osf.io/8q95x_v1.
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Resources
Slides Used in 2026 American Educational Research Association Annual Conference. April 10, 2026. Los Angeles, CA
Presented at the 2026 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, California, this interactive poster introduces the D.E.S.I.G.N. Model, a dialogic framework that reconceptualizes instructional coaching as interactional design work. The presentation explores how coaching conversations can support reflective inquiry, collaborative meaning-making, teacher agency, and adaptive instructional decision-making through structured coaching dialogue. Drawing from literacy coaching, professional learning, and reflective practice scholarship, the session highlights the framework’s recursive coaching architecture, interactional coaching moves, and implications for mentoring, teacher development, and human-centered professional learning.
2026 Summer Study: Parent Cohort - Literacy Strategies
A pilot study examining how literacy-based instructional strategies support parent-guided Scripture comprehension and reflective learning.
Contributors
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