Coaching Scenarios
As coaches identify their roles and responsibilities for their coaching programmes, they must consider the support they receive from the Peer Coaching Programme and their school and/or local authority. As you read the Examples of Support and Sample Roles and the Coaching Scenarios, you will learn that coaches have more impact on teaching and learning if there is a strong connection between the facilitator of the Peer Coaching Programme and the local authority and school personnel who support the coaching initiative.
Examples of Support and Sample Roles
Peer Coaching Programme provides:§ Eight Peer Coaching Programme training sessions.
§ Coaching Tools and Peer Coaching Programme Web sites.
§ Guidance in creating a Coaching Portfolio.
§ A coaching Discussion Board.
§ Training and use of online support resources.
§ Membership in the coaching learning community.
Examples of school/local authority support include:
§ Funding to release coach for part of the day.
§ Schedule accommodation to permit common planning times for coach and collaborating teachers.
§ Regular meetings between the local authority programme co-ordinator and local authority coaches.
§ Equipment for coach and/or collaborating teachers.
§ Opportunities for collaborating teachers to visit teachers’ classrooms that effectively integrate technology.
§ Funding for registration and/or travel for conferences.
§ Support for evaluation efforts of coaching programmes.
Possible Coach Roles and Responsibilities include:
§ Coaching individuals or groups of collaborating teachers to develop their skills in integrating technology into the curriculum.
§ Providing examples of standards-based, technology-rich projects that are relevant to participating teachers.
§ Planning technology-rich lessons or activities with collaborating teachers.
§ Modelling/team-teaching lessons that integrate technology.
§ Identifying and sharing useful learning resources or teaching strategies with participating teachers.
§ Providing feedback on lessons or learning activities.
§ Assessing participants’ skills and knowledge of technology integration.
§ Offering teachers just-in-time assistance with technology skills needed to implement classroom projects.
§ Planning and leading small group training sessions to help participants gain skills and knowledge to integrate technology.
§ Providing staff with information on conferences and professional development opportunities.
§ Providing information on self-paced training materials.
Part-Time Coach Scenario
When the local authority provided networking and equipment for Mary’s school, the staff realised they needed help learning to integrate these new tools into their classrooms. The school’s leadership team successfully bid for government funding to make a Peer Coaching Programme work in their school, sufficient to release someone in the school to coach on a part-time basis. Mary was chosen to coach because she was recognised as an outstanding teacher who used technology to enhance and enrich her lessons. Mary worked as a reading specialist in the morning, but in the afternoon she coached others to integrate technology. The same funding source provided Mary with two release days each year to use as she needed. (Other schools have used their own operating budgets to release coaches, and still others have used local authority professional development funds for this same purpose.)
As a technology coach, Mary met with teachers from each level at the start of the school year to get a sense of what projects they would be working on that year. Mary developed ideas about how technology might enrich some of these projects and then began gathering teaching resources. The school leadership team supported Mary’s coaching efforts by rearranging schedules so that all teachers who taught at the same level had a common planning time. They also provided two days of release time for each participating teacher so they could plan and develop learning activities. One afternoon each week, Mary met with each class year team to jointly plan an upcoming lesson or unit. At these meetings, Mary provided a PowerPoint template, pointed the teachers toward useful Web sites, or taught a technology skill needed to complete the unit. Initially, Mary provided most of the resources. But as the year progressed, many of the teachers with whom Mary worked began to share ideas and Web resources that were valuable for projects planned by their class year. The weekly planning meetings changed to include debriefing and reflection as well as planning. In addition to working with class year teams during the afternoon, Mary used some of the release time provided by the building to bring in a substitute so she could meet with teachers that had morning planning times.
Mary also routinely provided coaching outside of the scheduled planning meetings. Most days she had a chance to talk to teachers she was collaborating with before or after school, in the staff room, or in the hallways. Teachers often used these informal meetings to seek advice, guidance, or get support for the projects they were teaching. In these impromptu meetings Mary provided the teachers with a sense of confidence because they knew they had immediate support to successfully complete their projects.
In addition to planning and providing resources, Mary played an active role in helping implement projects. She modelled technology integration lessons, demonstrated classroom technology management, and team-taught parts of lessons in teachers’ classrooms. In some cases the classroom teacher planned and led the lesson while Mary assisted. By working closely with Mary, teachers could reflect about their work and receive immediate feedback. The teachers and Mary reported that they felt energised by this type of collaboration.
Twice a month Mary offered “Tech Time” for 30 minutes after school so teachers could create one small project for immediate use.
Level or Departmental Coach Scenario
Linda, the school librarian, and Manuel, a language arts teacher, worked in a school that had received a lot of technology, but noticed only a few teachers using these tools on a regular basis. The school had earlier adopted a model where much of the school’s professional development was focused on teachers meeting regularly in class year teams to compare pupil work samples and plan a more integrated curriculum. This model was at the heart of the professional development strategy written into their school’s improvement plan. As the school looked for a way to use this model to meet the needs of teachers who wanted to use technology, they heard about several schools that used coaches or mentors to lead professional development for their teacher teams. The school felt that coaching would add value to their team-based professional development approach and asked Linda and Manuel to be coaches.
The departmental teams already had common planning times, but other pieces needed to be added. They used available funds to hire a half-time library support person. This allowed Linda to create a flexible library schedule so that she could meet with teams of teachers. The school also paid the teachers for extra planning time, and accessed funds to pay for additional release time for their coaches to work with other teachers. Linda and Manuel found that teaching with technology brought teaching and learning resources that would not have been possible just a few short years earlier. The pupils were eager to use technology for researching, writing, and publishing their work. Their colleagues agreed to use Linda and Manuel as coaches so they could use technology to enrich their classroom activities.
Coaching became an effective way for the teachers to learn new technology skills and teaching and learning strategies for integrating technology into their classrooms. Each coach met with a team of teachers during their planning time to plan activities, share resources, compare student work samples, or learn a new technology skill. At one of their first meetings the teachers all agreed on a common focus: student writing. Next, they talked about how to organise their classrooms so that each team of pupils could gather around one computer. Then the coaches helped the teachers get started with small projects they could use with their pupils the very next day. Eventually they started planning out longer projects and ongoing activities related to their writing focus.
While these weekly planning meetings were important for laying out goals and charting progress, Manuel and Linda found that many coaching activities happened during informal meetings with teachers throughout the school day. During these informal meetings, collaborating teachers often discussed teaching strategies, received tips for valuable online resources, or answers to immediate software questions that kept their lessons on track and their confidence high. Linda’s and Manuel’s coaching duties went far beyond planning and just-in-time support. Several times a year they scheduled substitutes for teams of teachers so they could observe pupils using technology in a coach’s classroom. At other times they team-taught a lesson with their colleagues. Coaching increased the sense of collaboration among the teachers on these teams. The teachers knew there was someone to turn to if they had a question or wanted to share ideas about a new lesson or project. By working together, teachers became more successful at using technology to enrich student learning.
Microsoft Peer Coaching Programme Coaching Handbook UK 2008
Coaching_Scenarios Session 1 Activity 4 p1