 TESOL
2003: Improved learning through peer coaching
TESOL 2003, Baltimore, Maryland, ESL in Secondary Schools strand session,
Improved learning through peer coaching Cognitive coaching (Costa, 1994) is a model of peer coaching that provides a format for teachers to reflect on and refine their inner thought processes and resulting classroom behaviors in a professional dialog with a trusted coach. There are three steps in the cognitive coaching model. In a planning conference, teacher and coach examine the goals of the teacher’s lesson and determine how the coach will collect data as evidence that the learning goals have been achieved. During the classroom observation, the coach collects the data as outlined in the planning conference. The reflecting conference is a discussion on the teacher’s impressions of the lesson and in particular, how the teacher’s behavior affected learning, as shown by the data. The teacher, supported by the coach, proposes areas of change that might improve student learning. The coach returns for other observations to collect data on student learning with the new refinements in place. In this demonstration, the presenter shows how the planning conference brought improvement in the application of literature circles (Daniels, 1994), a procedure for small group discussion that was new to the teacher. As the teacher introduced interaction cues, theme development and question starters, the coach collected data in the classroom several times, showing evidence of student achievement of the learning goals. The presenter reviews sample student interactions and demonstrates how the teacher’s thought processes supported by the coach’s data, brought effective change in the teaching procedures of literature circles. This demonstration highlights the advantages of the cognitive coaching
model to enhance student learning through respectful collaboration between
teacher and coach.
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