Coaching can take on many different forms. There are performance coaches, skill coaches, instructional coaches, and life coaches among others. I am going to expound on coaching as it relates to education and my role as a special education teacher.
In the school system that I teach in every school has an instructional coach. One of the most beneficial things a coach can do is model, model, model. During data meetings at my school, we always start with positive items and gradually move to things that need more attention. As we brainstorm strategies that would help aid in closing the achievement gaps among our students, we also discuss how these strategies should look in action. Whenever a teacher is in doubt about successfully implementing the new strategy, our instructional coach schedules a time to model the new strategy for them. As a special education teacher, I am constantly in and out of many classrooms for inclusion. As a result, I am able to witness the instructional coach as she models new strategies for the teachers to begin implementing. When the instructional coach views the new strategy as something that I should implement also, she meets with me and we discuss the reality of how much benefit my students would receive and she informs me of when and where I should come to watch her in action.
According to Marzano & Simms (2016 p. 212), "coaching has been shown to be the most effective way to help teachers transfer the knowledge and skills they learn in training and workshops to the classroom". I could not agree more with this statement. I get the most benefit from workshops after our instructional coach as met with us for follow-up and feedback, which usually occurs during data meetings. In the past, I have attended many workshops where once I left the building, it was solely my responsibility to determine how I was going to use the information that was presented. Our reading coach does an amazing job helping us connecting the information we learned in professional development directly to our teaching.
One of the greatest attributes that the instructional coach at my school possess is the ability to turn negatives into positives through reflective conversations. I have sat in on several debriefing sessions where the instructional coach reflected on a lesson with teachers by asking questions that required us to determine why we thought a specific thing occurred. One session was with the third-grade math teacher. The question was asked why do you think many of the students subtracted when they should have added. The fact was that the teacher actually used the term subtract instead of add, which confused many of the students. For me, this was the best way to approach the issue. The coach could have easily told the teacher that she was the reason why so many of the students did horrible on the assignment, but instead, she chose to have the teacher reflect back on her own mistakes. When teachers are afforded the opportunity to reflect on their mistakes, they are able to come to the realization of the needed changes themselves, instead of being told this must change (Marzano & Simms, 2016).
Reference
Marzano, R., & Simms, J. (2013). Coaching in the classroom: The classroom strategies series. Indiana: Marzano Research.
Keona, you are so right! The most important thing a coach can do is model what is supposed to be done in the classroom. Just as it is important for teachers to model mathematical strategies, for example, to their students, modeling best teaching practices can ensure teachers are performing to the best of their ability. As stated by Marzano & Simms (2013), “a coach can help a teacher move from virtually no knowledge about a specific element of effective teaching to adapting strategies related to that element for unique student needs” (p. 211). I, too, believe the best way a coach can help teachers is by modeling the best teaching practices. Monkey see, monkey do!
ReplyDeleteKeonna,
ReplyDeleteI agree that modeling is very important. In fact, it was one of the aspects of coaching on which I focused on my own blog post. I think we often assume that other teachers intrinsically know what we are speaking when we talk in our teacher jargon. However, in a conversation I had with a teacher the other day, she stopped me and asked me what I meant by annotating a learning target. I assumed that she knew exactly what I was talking about because of how inundated we have been with learning targets; that was a huge mistake on my part. I modeled the strategy for her, which gave her a lot of clarity in regard to implementing the strategy in her own class. The modeling on took a few minutes. Marzano and Simms (2013) explained that modeling helped teachers see the appropriate use of that strategy. I couldn't agree more.
Keonna, excellent blog post! Modeling is a great way to learn from a master teacher! We learn by watching and when the reflective component is added along with modeling, it is a win win for our students! Thanks for sharing such great insights!
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