The coach supports teachers by helping them with the “what” of teaching. The coach collaborates and supports teachers in using the curriculum to analyze students' strengths and target areas for improvement. Whether you're a new teacher or have been teaching for 20 years, you can benefit from your school's instructional coach. Here are five things to go for.
Your instructional coach may be trained to provide you with a training cycle. Think of coaching cycles as personalized professional development. A training cycle begins with a pre-conference to determine what you want or need to work on. During the pre-conference, you will sit down with your instructional coach and create an area of focus.
Next, your coach will observe your class. During the observation, your coach will take notes on what you discussed. After the observation, you will have a post-conference meeting to discuss the data you collected and the next steps you should take. Your instructional coach can provide you with the resources and support you need to help you achieve your goals.
Instructional coaches can provide models in their classroom. That means they can demonstrate teaching strategies that you might want to see in action with your class. Coaching is a fantastic opportunity for experienced teachers to develop even more. But also for new teachers, it can give them the confidence, skills, and self-awareness needed for a long and successful teaching career.
Researchers and educators have emphasized the importance of teacher education for decades, describing it as an essential component of continuous and effective professional development. Now more than ever, we need improved solutions, such as real-time and online teacher training. It is said that providing teachers with the theory on which the new strategies they are learning are based, in addition to demonstrations of the strategy and the opportunity to practice them in their own classrooms, is key to providing teachers with all the skills they need to improve. But on their own, those still aren't enough.
We know from research, practice, and even personal experience that teachers who receive continuous, high-quality support teach more effectively. Specifically, individual coaching, with the help of high-quality pedagogical leaders (i.e. But how is this training support in practice? While each coaching relationship is different and will depend on individual and contextual factors, there are specific actions that pedagogical leaders can take during individual coaching sessions that have been proven to facilitate teacher learning and behavior change. Our new technical guidance note on implementing effective individual support synthesizes such evidence from around the world to provide explicit guidance on how pedagogical leaders can provide effective individual support to teachers.
This note details what a high-quality training cycle entails, based on our technical guidance note on how to structure effective individual support, which details how policy makers can design effective individual support systems for teachers. How can pedagogical leaders break the ice and establish a good relationship? A trusting coaching relationship based on shared objectives, open communication and clear expectations is essential. The way in which this 1-1 relationship is established is initially important. By meeting with teachers for the first time, pedagogical leaders can build a genuine connection by learning more about the teacher and the local school community.
In addition, pedagogical leaders can also clarify expectations by explaining that they are there to support teachers, not to inspect them, emphasizing that their job is to defend teachers and help them grow. Instructors partner with teachers to help them improve teaching and learning and increase student outcomes. Peer coaching is when teachers of similar or equal status support each other through mutual problem solving, observation, collaborative teaching, and planning. That's where the use of video comes into play; video is a great way to support educational and peer-to-peer training.
Depending on your teacher's situation, time and resources, you can choose from many different training methods. Deciding to adopt different training strategies has some risks, but it can also have enormous rewards. When put in place, educational counseling can also change school culture because improvement efforts are carried out throughout the school, not just by individual teachers. Using your school's instructional coach for these purposes can be very beneficial not only for you but also for your students.
At the same time, coaches aren't always sure what teachers need and want, or how best to support them. After the observation, a post-observation meeting provides opportunities for the teacher and coach to discuss, analyze, and reflect on what has been observed and how to move forward. Instructors may also have a flexible schedule and be able to find time to find resources for you. A matrix based on the teacher's belief in himself and on his belief in the students can facilitate effective instructional training.
A recent meta-analysis of research on educational coaching shows that it has promising results for the improvement of practice and the subsequent academic advances for students. .
