Learning Partners: phasing in peer coaching

 

Dr Ray Daniels Clayton-Springvale-Westall Cluster, Springvale Secondary College Springvale, Victoria, Australia

 

The power of coaching

In September 2005, I attended a workshop on staff development facilitated by Dr Robin Fogarty (www.robinfogarty.com) with three teachers from Springvale West Primary School, Julie Fisher, Jo Kenny and Dani Odri. These teachers have joined me in delivering training in peer coaching to teachers from primary and secondary public schools in Melbourne's south-east. Our interest in coaching was sparked by the workshop, particularly by the research findings about the capacity of coaching to bring about the transfer of new skills from a lecture or workshop to the classroom.

If you are not knowledgeable about the research of Joyce and Showers, peruse their findings below and see if you are as surprised as we were.

• 5% of learners will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of theory;
• 10% will transfer a new skill into their practice with theory and demonstration;
• 20% will transfer a new skill into their practice with theory, demonstration, and practice within training;
• 25% will transfer a new skill into their own use with theory, demonstration, practice within the training, and feedback;
• 90% will transfer a new skill into use with theory, demonstration, practice, feedback, and coaching.

(Dr Bruce Joyce, Staff Development Awareness Conference, Columbia, S.C., USA, January 1987)

We were at the workshop to improve our staff development skills, so we could better contribute to the transformational work being undertaken in our schools.

Educational change in the Australian state of Victoria

Currently, throughout Victoria, all government schools are affiliated with a number of other schools in a cluster. A typical cluster consists of a secondary school and a number of nearby primary schools. Most have a cluster educator or coordinator to manage the change process. This is my role in the Clayton-Springvale-Westall Schools Cluster. Clusters are charged with delivering the Department of Education and Training targets in literacy, numeracy and retention. The principals of the cluster schools make decisions at the local level about how best to achieve these targets in their context. Peer coaching is a strategy we began implementing in our cluster in February this year.

What is peer coaching?

I have constructed a quiz on peer coaching to focus the minds of the teachers participating in our training sessions. It might do the same for readers. Please take the quiz by mentally ticking the statements you think are true about peer coaching.

The Peer Coaching Quiz

• Peer coaching works best with very experienced teachers if participation is voluntary.
• In peer coaching it is the teacher watching the lesson who is being coached.
• In peer coaching, 10 minutes is long enough for an observation.
• In peer coaching, no specific feedback should be given to the teacher who taught the lesson being observed, just a friendly thank-you.
• A successful model of peer coaching is when experienced teachers act as coaches for newly hired teachers.
• Peer coaching can be technical and/or a reflective process for improving teaching or implementing new teaching practices in the classroom.
• Trust and confidentiality between the coach and coachee are critical elements in peer coaching.
• Peer coaching is an effective performance appraisal model.
• Peer coaching is not an end it itself, nor by itself a school improvement initiative.
• To train a teacher in peer coaching skills takes around 13 hours.
• The study of teaching, learning and curriculum must be the focus of a peer coaching program.
• Neither praise nor blame has a part in peer coaching.
• A Peer coaching observation should last as long as it takes for the coach to notice two things to praise and two things that could be improved.
• Peer coaching works best when school leaders expect every teacher to be involved.
• To train a teacher in peer coaching skills takes 45 hours.
• If the coach is to successfully deliver suggestions for improvement in peer coaching, they need to monitor both their own body language and the coachee's.
• Peer coaching is flawed because of its contrived collegiality.
• Peer coaching takes place in structured weekly seminars focused on implementing curriculum changes through the analysis of teaching and students' responses.
• Peer coaching assumes that teachers need to act like professionals in other fields to upgrade their skills for the competitive, globalised 21st century world.
• Suggesting improvements to a coachee goes counter to the culture of teaching, which requires that teachers only be positive to one another.

In our training, this quiz is a hook to engage our audience. For those who wonder about the veracity of the statements: they are all true! Each statement represents the point of view of at least one scholar or published author in the field of peer coaching.

All of the peer coaching models could be placed somewhere on the continua below. The elements in bold represent the model of peer coaching we provide training in.

 

Voluntary participation	………………	Participation expected
Coach is the expert	………………	Collects teacher-requested data
Coach neither ‘praises nor blames'	………………	Praises and suggests improvements
Coach is role model	………………	Asks leading questions and makes suggestions
Coaching is classroom centred	………………	Happens in seminars
Feedback is provided	………………	Feedback not provided

 

We explain to the groups we work with that the approaches to implementing peer coaching are so varied that the meaning of the term is ambiguous and problematic. However, the different approaches have the common goal of improving student outcomes and all are grounded in the same seminal research of Showers and Joyce. We explain that we need a consistent approach, so chose one and committed ourselves to implementing it with hi-fidelity, so we will be able to evaluate how well the model suited our context.

Barbara Gottesman's ‘Peer Coaching for Educators'

In the library of Monash University, I found this convincing text, with step-by-step advice on how to implement peer coaching in a school or district, right down to masters for handouts and overhead transparencies. What a find! Published in 2000, Roland S. Barth, the influential contributor to the discourse of school change and transformation and author of Improving Schools from Within and Learning by Heart, wrote the introduction. He argues that peer coaching:

‘… provides us […] with an opportunity to promote frequent, informal, helpful observations by one professional educator to another. And it provides something even more valuable. By embedding adult, mutual visibility and learning into the fabric of the schoolhouse, peer coaching can transform the very nature of the school culture, from a place where some are transmitting learning to others to a place where everyone engages in the most important enterprise of the schoolhouse – learning. That, it seems to me, is what good education is all about'.

In November 2005 I presented Gottesman's model and a suggested implementation timeline for 2006 to the principals of the cluster's schools. They all agreed that we should adopt peer coaching as an initiative but differed among themselves on the timing of its implementation in their schools.

Gottesman suggests that success in introducing peer coaching is most likely if the expectation is set that all teaching staff be involved in the initial training and in the early phases of implementation. Two principals decided to do that and the others chose to send from two to six representatives to the initial training sessions. I placed an order for multiple copies of Peer Coaching for Educators.

We are implementing peer coaching because the pedagogical skills and knowledge of our teachers will be improved. It will strengthen the work in progress in the two strategies that are already well-established in our cluster: the Thinking-Oriented Curriculum and the Principles of Teaching and Learning (PoLT).

See: www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/blueprints/fs1/polt.asp.

Both strategies are designed to enable teachers to create environments in which students participate fully as interested, active, and engaged learners. Peer coaching will add to the success achieved in implementing these strategies in 2004 and 2005, by the provision of accurate, data-driven feedback and coaching.

Our team of peer coach trainers is using the train-the-trainer methodology Gottesman recommends and has added elements from whole-brain theory. See: www.thinkingnetwork.com.au and William Glasser's Choice Theory. www.wglasser.com.

We provided eight hours of training by the end of May, to more than 80 teachers. By the end of October, we will have delivered a further five hours of training to at least 20 peer coaches, so that in term 4 they will begin coaching.

Learning Partners: peer coaching in a nutshell

Peer coaching is grounded in confidential and trusting relationships between learning partners, who work together to improve their current classroom practice or to successfully transfer new skills or strategies to the classroom.

The ultimate goal of implementing peer coaching is to have every teacher trained as a coach, so that peer coaching becomes a vital and everyday part of the operation of the school or cluster.

The term ‘peer' is used literally to mean between professionals on the same level. Coaching is based on short informal observations on one specific, teacher-identified area.

Establishing peer coaching in a school or cluster is a gradual, phased process designed to overcome teachers' isolation, expand their comfort zones to accept being observed while teaching, and learning coaching skills. The three phases are: Peer Watching (two months minimum), Peer Feedback (two months minimum), and Peer Coaching (ongoing).

Peer Coaching is a five-step model with clear and firm time limits, procedures, and the rule ‘No Praise. No Blame'. The steps are:

• the teacher requests a visit;
• the visit;
• the coach reviews the notes;
• the talk after the visit;
• the review of the process.

In total, this takes approximately 40 minutes and can be completed within a school day.

Training in Gottesman's model is provided in six sessions, which are scheduled in a sequence that provides the training needed for teachers to progress through the three phases:

• Selling peer coaching
• A training session in the five steps
• Practising peer watching
• Skills needed to peer coach
• Troubleshooting
• Peer coaching goes live.

Training Session 1

Introducing peer coaching: learning partners. The first session is designed to introduce the concept of peer coaching and put forward the evidence that introducing it will strengthen our capacity for change and transformation to improve student outcomes. Gottesman calls this session ‘Selling Peer Coaching'. We settled for a less commercially worded title: ‘Peer Coaching: Learning Partners – An Introduction'. We added the term ‘Learning Partners' because we have found some of our teachers like it more than ‘Peer Coaching' and it does neatly sum up the nature of the relationships that are critical to the success of this initiative, particularly in the first two phases, Peer Watching and Peer Feedback.

Another change from Gottesman's plan for Session 1 was that we decided not to ask teachers to read an article on peer coaching before the first session. Instead, early in the first session, we acted out a Readers' Theatre, which dramatised the main ideas of Gottesman's book and the resistance to change that introducing such a program is likely to provoke.

Before the Readers' Theatre, we had two warm-up activities. The first was a Think-Pair-Share that asked our teachers to:

‘Think about PD sessions you have attended over your years of teaching and then complete this sentence as candidly and honestly as your can … “Professional/staff development is … ”.'

Then we asked teachers to list six or seven professional development activities that they have attended over the past few years and to place a tick beside those programs that they have fully incorporated into their teaching practice. They were also asked to place a cross beside those that they didn't attempt to implement, or those they tried initially but were unable to sustain. Most participants reported that there had been very little transfer of their learning to the classroom.

The reflection on current practice was in preparation for thinking about peer coaching as a better approach to professional learning.

The case for peer coaching was put before outlining the Three Phases and the Five Steps. This was followed by a scripted modelling of the Five Steps. Finally, we invited participants to bring questions to the next session.

Training Session 2

The five steps. Session 2 is a full day of training in the Five Steps. We knew what a huge leap this was to be for us. We were about to take Gottesman's three-page outline and turn it into a workshop that we hoped would engage more than 80 people for most of the day. We were to lead the three sessions from 9.00am until 2.30pm. Our last session would be a motivational talk by David Parkin, a highly respected footballer and coach.

We began with some housekeeping matters, including the importance of sticking to the scheduled times to model this element of our peer coaching model.

Our planning was based on breaking up our presentation with activities. The first was a request that teachers draw or write about their ideal classroom. We linked this to Glasser's quality world pictures that we each carry in our heads to represent everything that meets our psychological needs. The goal of peer coaching is to alter our teachers' quality world pictures of the classroom, to include another adult in the classroom watching, providing feedback, or coaching.

This was followed by a Think-Pair-Share:

• ‘What is your best coaching experience?'
• ‘What is your worst coaching experience?'

I then put up a PowerPoint slide listing a typology of coaching:

• expert;
• inspirational - gurus;
• technical;
• self-coaching: reflective/technical;
• peer coaching: reflective.

I asked if any other type had been identified during the Think-Pair-Share activity that could be added. There was one only one suggestion: coaching by a team. The example was from the sport of yachting at an elite level, where team members contributed their expertise to coach each other.

Then we presented Showers and Joyce's research and Gottesman's challenging remark that professional development may provide theory, demonstration, practice and feedback but if we don't add the coaching element ‘all training money, time, and effort are down the drain'.

An important element of Session 2 is the regular invitation to ask questions or express concerns. Dani introduced the first opportunity at this stage.

One of the best features of the day was the questioning, clarifying, sharing of experiences, challenging or supporting of coaching that participants contributed.

Before defining the role of principals and teachers in implementing peer coaching, Julie and Jo asked participants to do another Think-Pair-Share activity:

• ‘For peer coaching to succeed, what would principals need to do?'
• ‘For peer coaching to succeed, what would teachers need to do?'

We followed this with an activity using the Neethling Brain Instrument Profile, which most members of our cluster have completed. From a comprehensive list of thinking processes, set out in the whole-brain quadrants, we asked participants to select those that would be the most important in peer coaching. Then we put up a slide with the 16 thinking processes that we thought would be critical to peer coaching success.

 

L1 Performance-driven Diagnostic Quantitative Analysing R1 Risk-taking Curious Looking for alternatives Preference for change L2 Time-conscious Step-by-step approach Thorough Task-driven R2 Approachable People awareness Non-verbal cues Respectful/Empathy

 

Then it was my turn to present the Five Steps in detail, with pauses for questions. The first session concluded with a short list of ‘Dos and Don'ts' of peer coaching.

Throughout the day, all four trainers took a turn at teaching a mini-lesson. We followed Gottesman's suggestion and chose topics unrelated to the classroom. Julie taught a lesson on buying a digital camera, Dani on relationships and the gender differences in the human brain, Jo on Sodoku, and I taught mine on home brewing.

After morning tea, Julie taught her lesson to model the Five Steps of Peer Coaching, with Jo taking the role of the coach and Dani the process observer.

The afternoon session of guided practice was challenging to us. We were flat-out explaining the process, teaching our lessons, making sure that coaches were positioned to record data, sticking to time, rotating the role badges, and answering queries.

Julie began by getting participants into trios and explaining that, in guided practice, three mini-lessons would be taught and everyone would have the opportunity to practise all three roles of teacher, coach and process observer. We made it clear that the process observer role is used only in training and not in real coaching.

To conclude the session, we set a reflective writing task for homework for the next training session.

• ‘The things I liked most about Peer Coaching are'.
• ‘The things that might prohibit me from becoming involved in peer coaching are …'
• ‘The characteristics I will look for in a peer coach are …'

Our last activity was drawing the winners of door prizes related to our mini-lesson topics: a digital camera, book of Sodoku puzzles, a weekend get-away, and a home brewing kit. The day ended with David Parkin giving a passionate address ranging over topics such as leadership, the important role of teachers in society, and coaching.

Training Session 3

Practising peer watching. In May, five cluster schools scheduled this hour-long, after-school session to launch Phase 1: Peer Watching.

The session opens with 10-minute small group discussions of responses to the reflective homework. The trainer then brings the group back together to share the findings in each group, listing concerns that are found to be common. Questions and concerns are openly discussed and the group challenged to find solutions to tough questions and problems.

This is followed by a review of the three phases of peer coaching, to set the stage to launch Peer Watching, during which teachers will visit each other's classrooms, four times each. We went over the rules and procedures for Peer Watching and distributed a survey asking teachers to nominate their learning partner. The survey also asked teachers if they would like to join a school team to track the progress of Peer Watching. The team members will ask each teacher to complete a pro forma recording the teachers' names, the date and the nature of the lesson observed.

Australian Government Quality Teacher Project (AGQTP)

Also in May, our cluster was awarded AUD$25,000 to support the implementation of peer coaching. This enables us to provide remuneration to our peer coaches for providing coaching to their peers and for contributing to the training of the second group of coaches in 2007.

Concluding comment

We have come a long way towards successfully implementing peer coaching since we started working on it late last year. The next steps are seeking expressions of interest from teachers wishing to be trained as peer coaches, training them in coaching skills, moving from Peer Watching to Peer Feedback and then to Peer Coaching. Then we will be able to start measuring the results.

 

Dr Ray Daniels is a former school principal who is currently Cluster Educator for the Clayton-Springvale-Westall Cluster of schools. He is based at Springvale Secondary College, in Springvale, Victoria, Australia.

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