FEATURE ProvIDE PrECISE PrAISE
The idea is to avoid the language of judgement or to reinforce the nebulous idea that practice is general and nonspecific. ‘The way you engaged Michael, getting him to respond well to your modelling of the writing task, worked well’. It’s very specific.
ProbE
Probing questions focus a teacher’s attention on the key area of their practice. “How you think Jennifer was doing with those harder problems?” We avoid more open questions ( ‘How do you think the lesson went?’) because that widens out the scope for the evaluation when we’re trying to foster a more focused approach.
IDEnTIfy ProblEM AnD ConCrETE ACTIon STEP
This is the central part of the process. In a directive or consultative style appropriate for the teacher, specific action steps must be identified linked to specific issues. These are the agreed actions that will be followed up on.
PrACTISE
bambrick Santoyo suggests “Great teaching is not learned through discussion. It’s learned by doing… by practicing doing things well. The implication is that, as part of the instructional coaching/ feedback process the coach and teacher explore how the action step should be taken in detail, using modelling and practice activities.
PlAn AHEAD
The action steps need to be recorded for future reference. Did you do the things you said you were going to do? Ideally the teacher should own their own professional journey and the record of it – but their teacher coach should have access to it for reasons of communication and transparency.
SET TIMElInE
The final step in the feedback discussion is to agree a timescale. by next week? (In some cases). four weeks? (More likely). Three months? (Too long.) Teachers and their coaches have lots of very light, lean, short interactions rather than a few heavy-duty interactions.
“Instructional coaching is about supporting continual incremental improvement.” HWRKMAGAZINE.CO.UK
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