Teachers benefit from coaching; schools reap the rewards
Laura Tomas doesn’t look like a stereotypical coach. She doesn’t pace the sideline during basketball games or wear a whistle on a lanyard around her neck. But Tomas, a veteran teacher at Orchard View Elementary in Delray Beach, is a coach just the same — an academic coach trained to support other teachers and up their game.
The idea is simple: If pro athletes like basketball star LeBron James and tennis legend Serena Williams have coaches, why not teachers?
Tomas is among a new breed of professionally trained coaches who review their peers in action — as if they were athletes going over a game film — and provide teachers all manner of support, such as modeling proven teaching meth- ods, interpreting data like classroom metrics and test scores, and fine-tuning instructional strategies to spur student engagement and learning.
“I wish I had a coach when I first started teaching,” Tomas says. She notes that schools largely operated with a “sink or swim” philosophy when she entered the profession 25 years ago. Today, there is a growing recognition that all teachers — new as well as experienced ones — can benefit from professional coaching throughout their careers.
In a recent report aimed at schools and administrators nationwide, scholars are recommending just that: All teachers should have a skilled coach as a way to sharpen their practice and improve the nation’s educational system.
Research has shown effective coaching can enhance a teacher’s practice, lessen turnover and improve student learning. The best coaches are carefully selected for their skills and desire to teach teachers. And they receive specialized training in proven coaching methods.
Since 2013, when Palm Beach County partnered with the Lastinger Center to launch its peer-coaching initiative, 172 coaches in roughly 100 schools have become certified teacher coaches, and 20 more will complete the program by June, says Julia Mate, coordinator and planner of the district’s K-12 STEM program.
Mate says a top priority of the district’s coaching effort is to improve its science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs, critical subjects that research shows U.S. students are trailing those in other developed nations.
One reason having a trained coach is effective, teachers say, is it’s a relationship completely separate from official performance reviews. In contrast, coaching is a collaborative process solely designed to improve a teacher’s effectiveness.
Unfortunately, a majority of teachers say they don’t receive regular professional coaching. Nationwide, slightly less than half reported receiving coaching and only 12 percent had weekly coaching sessions, according to a 2014 study by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
To tap into the transformative power of instructional coaching, leaders in districts and schools need to make it an important part of their strategy for school improvement. This means selectively recruiting teachers as coaches, ensuring coaches share the responsibility for student learning and providing them additional pay.