Why Instructional Coaches?
What is the value of an instructional coach?
An instructional coach is a key member of any school staff. The coach is a change agent helping teachers improve their instructional practices and analyze data in order to improve student outcomes. Joyce and Showers illustrate the importance of an instructional coach in the graph. This data shows that when teachers attend a professional development session that focuses on research and theory that there is only a 5% personal mastery by the teacher and a 5% transfer of skills back into the classroom.
If research, theory and demonstrations are provided along with time for teachers to practice what they are learning during the professional development session then teachers showed an
80-90% personal mastery of the concepts taught but there is still only a 5-10% transfer of skills into the classroom. When follow up coaching is added as part of the professional development, the transfer of skills to the classroom increased dramatically, with 80-90% of teachers actually exhibiting the skills that we want to see.
What are the implications of this research for schools?
Instructional coaches are an essential component to insuring that all students receive the instruction that they need to reach their potential. An effective instructional coach leverages their own expertise in pedagogy as they partner with teachers to help them plan and implement lessons that will meet the needs of the students in their classroom. In addition to their skills as a master teacher, good instructional coaches do the following things:
An instructional coach is a key member of any school staff. The coach is a change agent helping teachers improve their instructional practices and analyze data in order to improve student outcomes. Joyce and Showers illustrate the importance of an instructional coach in the graph. This data shows that when teachers attend a professional development session that focuses on research and theory that there is only a 5% personal mastery by the teacher and a 5% transfer of skills back into the classroom.
If research, theory and demonstrations are provided along with time for teachers to practice what they are learning during the professional development session then teachers showed an
80-90% personal mastery of the concepts taught but there is still only a 5-10% transfer of skills into the classroom. When follow up coaching is added as part of the professional development, the transfer of skills to the classroom increased dramatically, with 80-90% of teachers actually exhibiting the skills that we want to see.
What are the implications of this research for schools?
Instructional coaches are an essential component to insuring that all students receive the instruction that they need to reach their potential. An effective instructional coach leverages their own expertise in pedagogy as they partner with teachers to help them plan and implement lessons that will meet the needs of the students in their classroom. In addition to their skills as a master teacher, good instructional coaches do the following things:
- Always Model Good Instruction. Regardless of what you're teaching other teachers, an effective coach uses good pedagogy. This modeling and the follow-up conversations with teachers about the strategies you use, are extremely important! Modeling good instruction includes the use of formative assessment, differentiation & reflection time. Modeling self-exploration and offering the teachers you work with the opportunity to fail forward are also critical. Without this modeling and follow-up conversations teachers are not going to understand how what they need to do differently in their own classrooms.
- Build relationships. Trust is key when it comes to the teacher/coach relationship. Trust takes time to develop and
- Create a culture of collaboration - fail forward. play
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