A dialogic conception of learning: collaborative peer coaching

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of the coaching element that was included in an existing graduate literacy course and to describe the responses of experienced and less-experienced teachers as they began to add collaborative peer coaching to their teaching identities. Design/methodology/approach -Data collected included teachers' coaching logs and written reflections on the coaching experience, and field notes taken by a professor. Data were analysed qualitatively through open coding. Initially, the authors read data individually and coded them by what they perceived to be the teachers' coaching moves. Separately, they developed lists of codes and then reviewed coding lists to work through idiosyncratic data, collapse codes, align their language. Findings -The authors identified three overarching and multi-faceted moves that the coaching teachers made as they worked with partner teachers. They found that the teachers: used restraint; focused on partner teacher's needs; and provided opportunities for classroom observations and demonstrations. Practical implications -Due to budget cuts, district coaching initiatives are being down-sized. With fewer literacy coaches available, the authors believe that classroom teachers would benefit from learning about how to support each another as peer coaches. Social implications -Teachers' coaching moves, along with the curricular conversations engendered by them, created a culture of learning based on reflection and dialogue between coaching and partner teachers. Originality/value -Very few studies have been conducted on peer coaching or have addressed the process by which teachers enrolled in graduate programs learned how to engage in collaborative peer coaching.

Developing practices in teachers’ professional dialogue in England: using Coaching Dimensions as an epistemic tool

“…Most teachers' propensity to teach is tenacious; thus professional dialogue can be dominated by retelling accounts of one's own practices in lieu of considered advice or a prompting of reflection. When they are first introduced to coaching per se the concept of 'restraint' recognised as critical for creating thinking space and opening up dialogue (Jewett and MacPhee 2012) can be misconceived and result in non-committal conversations in which the coach offers no opinion, instead requiring the coachee to self-evaluate, but gain little feedback or support for deeper reflection. This is often in stark contrast to the practice of mentoring student teachers or new entrants to the profession through a series of predetermined and externally derived standards; which can lead mentors into the 'judgementoring' scenario described by Hobson and Malderez (2013).…”

Asking the right questions

“…Specifically, with respect to cocoaching, the Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE, 2005) state that co-coaches show well-developed interpersonal skills and are able to relate sensitively to each other. They are also adept at sharing and understanding each other's goals and drawing on specific evidence to help each other make sense of issues (Jewett and MacPhee, 2012). In the US, this approach appears to be synonymous with peer coaching, as defined by Parker et al (2008, p. 489): "a dyadic relationship between two individuals of equal status that has as the primary purpose to support the personal and professional development of both parties".…”

Experimenting with dialogic mentoring: a new model

“…It contends that, for the mentoring process to be genuinely productive and successful, we have to engage in an open but essentially risky encounter in which our perceived and real insufficiencies are 'laid bare' to the gaze of another. Doing this means we had to take a leap of faith -we had to trust that the other person would treat us and our 'faults' kindly; that they would regard us with understanding and empathy (Jewett and Macphee, 2012). Bokenko and Gantt (2000, p. 238) talk about dialogic mentoring as a form of organizational learning which 'encourages experimentation, risk taking, openness' along with 'creativity, authenticity, imagination, and innovation'.…”