Why Coaching? Why not?

In my early days of learning to teach in the 1990s, every few weeks an expert teacher in the room would tick off certain achievements on a list with a commentary about what to develop next. A short debrief would highlight an area on which to focus, to which I would try to find some solutions: trial and error was the methodology. I would attend CPD sessions during the odd INSET days smattering through a year. The next big thing might be introduced in a fanfare and them determinedly slip away over the coming months. Those of us who survived would get gradually better, normally reaching our plateau after a few years, where we would stay.

With the coming of Performance Management, and the Upper Pay threshold, we came to understand ourselves as part of a teaching continuum of best to worst; the encroaching updated Ofsted frameworks becoming more and more a rubric on which to account for ourselves. And yet, we were in many ways more confused than ever about whether we actually knew what we were doing or not.

Educational research, for all its detractors, has nevertheless provided us with some answers as to some Golden Rules: a ‘consensus view’. Yet, no matter how many CPD sessions I participated in and led, nothing genuinely seemed to change what teachers did in their classrooms when no one is looking. Schools, especially those under challenging circumstances, were not providing the consistently world-class teaching that the UK is determined to deliver.

A number of pieces of research and analysis have mobilised a paradigm shift in the way we understand how authentic professional learning takes place. My own advocacy for it originating in 2008 as an aspiring AST of Science, began with Phillipa Cordingley and an introductory Coaching course.

“Over many years CUREE has reviewed and analysed the evidence of what works in professional development for teachers. The conclusions that stands out are that a) professional development is much more likely to be successful when it involves collaboration between staff and b) that mentoring and coaching done well is one of the most effective methods.

The evidence shows that when teachers (and/or leaders) worked together on a sustained basis (over at least one term but more usually two or three terms), this collaborative and sustained CPD was linked to positive effects on:

students' learning, motivation and outcomes
teachers' commitment, beliefs, attitudes, self-esteem and confidence in making a difference to their students' learning
teachers' repertoires of strategies and their ability to match their teaching approaches to students' different needs
teachers' attitudes to their students, the curriculum and to learning, and
teachers' commitment to CPD
leaders’ ability to stay focussed on the strategic issues, reflect on practice and support each other” [1]

The nature of the collaboration and coaching can be varied, taking into account the context of the school and also the mindset and experience of each teacher.

Great teaching begins with an astute and deep knowledge of our subject. As we don’t always know what we don’t know, CPD surely must involve the engagement with curriculum, under the guidance of a domain specific expert, with a commitment to reciprocal learning from teachers. This may be under a model of co-coaching, where a teacher seeks out a specialist, or via a co-planning model where schools methodically cycle through long and medium term planning to open dialogue about assessment, through moderation, by setting learning goals and dissecting the purpose and efficacy of content specific pedagogy.

Hand in hand with this individual knowledge and understanding, goes a progressive mastery of how to teach. One to one coaching and mentoring is “a structured, sustained process for supporting professional learners through significant career transitions” and “for enabling the development of a specific aspect of a professional learner’s practice”[2]. It of course entails building a trusting and respectful relationship, where observation and feedback are non-judgemental. The central tenet I think, is one where both coach and teacher believe in their capacity to be better, not because there is something wrong, but because the job of teaching is simply too important not to do everything we can, to be excellent for our students. In my experience, teachers can rapidly, incrementally develop their practice; they can maintain a sense of ownership of the process; and this takes place in the context of their own classroom. It entails challenge, as the best coaching always does, so may at times feel painful, but is all the more satisfying when progress is achieved.

The feedback structure I use I first based on several texts included Leverage Leadership [3], Practice Perfect [4] and Better Feedback for Better Teaching [5]. I use the ‘See it, Name it, Do it’ model; this is aligned with a recent article [6] outlining effective instructional coaching processes, “the cycle involves three elements: Identify, Learn and Improve.” Essentially it begins with a regular, frequent and ongoing cycle of short observations. These are then followed up with a coaching dialogue of review, praise, feedback, reflection, modelling, deliberate practice, planning and goal-setting.

Peps Mccrea [7] in his discussion of how to develop expert mental models in teaching, describes:

“Not all study, practice and iteration is equal. Crafting professional learning experiences that have an impact on what teachers know and how they act, and that have an impact on pupil learning is rare to achieve (Coe et al., 2014; IES, 2016). We can give ourselves the best possible chance of success by ensuring our training is:

1. Problem oriented – Experiences should be framed and constructed around the most persistent problems teachers face (Kennedy, 2016a).

2. Incrementally sequenced – Manageable chunks of high-leverage mental models are navigated in a gradual, cumulative order, towards a clearly specified and measurable prototype of expertise (Deans for Impact, 2017). Each area is deconstructed, represented and practised with purpose until change takes hold (Kennedy, 2016b; Wiliam & Leahy, 2014).

3. Supportively Stretching – Each step in the sequence must challenge existing knowledge and practice, pushing teachers out of their comfort zone (Deans for Impact, 2017) and expose them to a variety of application situations (Woolf et al., 2017). This process is best supported by an expert teacher educator who can provide bespoke direction, prompt reflection, offer timely feedback and generate accountability in socially sensitive ways (Kraft et al., 2016; Wiliam & Leahy, 2014).”

It also reminds me of another article by Harry Fletcher Wood [8]: that coaching is for everyone at any and every point in their career, but that the nature of the coaching will be different if one is working with a novice or an expert. A model of co-coaching (peer) may be an alternative here. Also, that deliberate practice of a technique can feel completed but “the work of gaining insight never can”. If a coach is unwilling to veer from their coaching structure, they may not allow a teacher to gain authentic insight into their decision-making. Coaches need to be sensitive to a teacher’s disposition and their values, adapting to the unpredictable responses that may come with insight. Effective coaches persistently shift focus towards linking the teacher actions to the impact on student learning. This acts as a reality check and if additionally used alongside video clips of their practice, can act as a profound initiator for changing a teacher’s behaviour to a more ‘consensus view’ of great teaching.

Of this style of coaching, though there are meta analyses and longitudinal studies, my specific example [9] of six schools recorded that, 82% of coaches strongly agreed their practice had benefitted; 75% strongly agreed that it helped school improvement – seen as a way to promote consistent application of school principles; 65% would value career long teaching.

It is now generally agreed that holding a workshop and expecting teachers to implement certain practices is ineffective. The fostering of genuine professional learning that leads to real improvements in the classroom “has to position teachers as partners, and be job-embedded, explicit and adaptive” [6]. Coaching does just that. So why not?

References

1 Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) (accessed Oct 2019) Mentoring and coaching - a central role in professional development. Available at: http://www.curee.co.uk/mentoring-and-coaching.

2 Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) (2005) National Framework for Mentoring and Coaching.

3 Bambrick-Santoyo P. (2012) Leverage Leadership: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools. Jossey Bass.

4 Lemov D. et al (2012) Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better. Jossey Bass.

5 Archer J. (2016) Better Feedback for Better Teaching: A Practical Guide to Improving Classroom Observations. Jossey Bass.

6 Knight J. (2019) Instructional Coaching for Implementing Visible Learning: A Model for Translating Research into Practice. Center for Research on Learning, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA Educ. Sci. 2019, 9(2), 101; Aailable at: https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9020101.

7 Mccrea P. (2018) Expert Teaching: What is it, and how might we develop it? Institute for Teaching.

8 Fletcher Wood H. (2018) Designing Professional Development for Teacher Change. Institute for Teaching.

9 Matthews P. (2017) The Power Of Incremental Coaching – Improving Teaching Quality. Ambition School Leadership.

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Why Coaching? Why not?

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