Peer Coaching of Teachers Introducing

Peer Coaching of Teachers Introducing peer coaching to all the school's teachers Peer coaching gives both beginning and experienced teachers an additional professional support system and emotional 'safety net.' During what is proving an increasingly difficult as well as rewarding direction for the teaching profession in the 21st century, it is necessary that teachers feel they have somewhere to turn to enrich their classroom skills and simply to discuss potential problems and solutions to the challenges of modern educators.

Peer coaching is a confidential process through which two or more professional colleagues work together to mutually reflect on their current educational practices. They expand, refine, and build new skills together, share ideas, help teach one another, frequently aid one another in conducting classroom research and simply help one another to solve problems of the workplace, such as problems with difficult students or parents. (Robbins, 1991) It must be stressed that peer coaching does not necessarily imply that one person in such a collaborative relationship has a different status.

It is true in some peer coaching relationships a less experienced educator who is still developing his or her basic pedagogical strategies and approaches can have the opportunity to routinely consult with another, more seasoned educator. The two can critique different teaching practice and approaches, as well as observe one another's classrooms. But it must be stressed that peer coaching is not simply an instructional strategy for the developing teacher, a kind of addendum to the mentoring relationship to student teaching.

Peer coaching's ultimate objective is more to promote collegiality and support between faculty members. It may provide a source of connection as well as advice between newer and older teachers. But it also can provide an experienced professional with the new enthusiasm and a source of innovative teaching methods for older teachers. In peer coaching, the education is mutual, rather than directive, as is usually the approach with student teaching.

(Robbins, 1991) Even teachers of the same level and years of experience can enter into a peer coaching relationship -- the coaching is a relationship between peers, not a teacher-student relationship. Furthermore, for teachers who are reluctant about being monitored, it should also be stressed that ultimately, the goal of the program is not to watch over teachers, but through a sharing of information, its may help ensure quality teaching for all students and develop the skills of all teacher.

"The reality is that a teacher has the same 'rank' in his or her last year of teaching as the first" (Sizer, cited by Robbins 1985) Training a volunteer group of teachers in the clinical cycles Why peer teach? This is often the first question asked by potential volunteer teachers. Unlike other professions, teaching is often an isolated profession. No one knows what one struggles through with a particular class, within the confines of a classroom.

Even occasional national teacher conferences do not allow teachers to enter into the environment of classroom teaching with a fellow colleague. Thus peer coaching within a school allows teachers to work together professionally, eliminating such feelings of total isolation. As teachers are asked to do more and more by busy and demanding parents, it further fosters collaboration and support among teachers throughout the same school building. The purpose of peer teaching is not to judge the other teachers, but to encourage mutual reflection and analysis of teaching practice.

It promotes specific feedback over time, rather than monitors teaching in glimpses, like a visit from a principle. (Robbins, 1991) Selecting teams (matching teachers) Teachers can be matched according to experienced/less experienced teachers. However, they can also be matched within subject areas, or across subject areas, such as English and History teacher in a high school. This fosters the potential for cross-fermentation of different disciplinary approaches.

Another potential way of pairing teachers might be to have a workshop period, where teachers take a series of exams and do a series of exercises to determine their teaching styles. While "when making decisions, teachers should ideally have the students as their main focus. Too often, however, they teach according to their own preferred learning methods, rather than according to what is best for the students.

Similarly, teachers tend to emulate the teachers who helped them to learn best when they were in school -- though in most cases they don't know why the model teachers taught the way they did. Teachers need to be aware of these personal influences and refocus their actions to benefit the students. To do this, they need space to develop their own theories about teaching and learning through professional development with colleagues," by better understanding their own unique teaching style in a self-critical fashion.

From the information gleaned from such workshops, teachers could be paired with other teachers with contrasting teaching styles, such as teachers with more/less interactive styles, more knowledge-based styles, or other styles based on professional, personal, and generational.