TEACHER COACHING & DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 1

Teacher Coaching and Development Process

Toni Crawford

Grand Canyon University

EAD 530: Improving Teacher Performance and Self-Efficacy

Dr. Schlabra

February 15, 2023

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Observation Pre-Conference

Pre-conferences allow teachers to share what they will be presenting in their lessons,

voice any concerns or details the observer needs to know, and receive any suggestions,

strategies, or ideas that can help enhance their lessons. My pre-conferences were always

extremely brief as I would share my lesson plan and any factors that may affect the lesson.

During my pre-conferences, the first question that is always asked is: what are you teaching?

What activities are you using and how will you differentiate to meet the needs of students? One

of the questions that stood out while viewing the video this week was the observer asking if there

is anything specific she wanted her to look for while being in the classroom. This is a great

question for the teachers to reflect on their classroom dynamics and use this opportunity for self-

development to check in on the effectiveness of our strategies, resources, and methods.

These conferences can also demonstrate the level of planning and preparation that went

into the lesson by listening to the teacher’s response to the variety of questions being asked.

Conversations about practice require teachers to understand and analyze events in the classroom

while considering the instructional decisions they have planned for and determining the student

learning outcomes based on their preparation of the lesson (Danielson, 2015). If teachers have

short, incohesive answers to questions, then most likely they have not prepared or planned for

the topic that is being asked in the question, which allows them to adjust the lesson in those

areas.

Classroom Observation

When completing observations, administrators and coaches often look for objectives,

goals, student engagement, activities, classroom management/procedures, the success of

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lessons/strategies, and means of assessment and checks for understanding. They look for these

specifics as it helps determine the purpose, outcomes, and effectiveness of the lesson and to

determine if the objectives and goals were met based on the student’s final products. Leaders

should provide detailed feedback on instructional strategies, routines/procedures, classroom

culture/environment, student engagement, and time management. The following components are

necessary for the growth of teachers because specific feedback clarifies how teachers’ practices

directly impact student learning and lesson outcomes (WestEd NCSI, 2019).

Feedback is critical to the success of both the teacher and the student; therefore, leaders

should not provide constructive feedback during the observation. This demeans the teacher in

front of the students and can potentially affect the classroom environment moving forward.

Along with that, will interrupting the lesson to address the teacher when no one is in danger

benefit the teacher or students during the lesson? Allowing teachers to fix the problem first will

always be the best step before announcing their wrongs in front of others.

Post-Observation Conversation & Feedback

While watching the post-observation videos, all the observers begin by asking the teacher

how they think the lesson went; my administrators ask the same question as well and then follow

up with positive feedback. This set the tone for the conversation by giving the teacher the time

and opportunity to speak about the lesson while also giving them positive feedback. When giving

feedback, the observers provided detailed examples of the lesson that included student

engagement and responses along with productivity with the sentence frames and scaffolding

techniques. Teachers were open and receptive to the feedback and discussed ways they could

adjust and alter lessons, so they can implement the given feedback in their classes.
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Positive feedback was identified, and specific examples were given for the teacher to

know their areas of strength in one of the videos. However, in the second video, the observer

asked a lot of questions and the teacher read the notes she wrote and answered them compared to

it being a free-flowing conversation; positive feedback was also not given until halfway through

the discussion. In that video, the observer did not validate the strengths and seemed to have

focused on the weak areas such as his time management, instructional strategies, and student

engagement/understanding. When observers discuss areas of improvement by asking a question,

it allows the teacher time to reflect on what happened, why, and how they can fix the issue. Such

feedback may be particularly powerful when used to develop action plans, and goals, or to help

teachers engage in problem-solving processes as they attempt to implement new practices

(Shannon, Snyder, & McLaughlin, 2015) versus the leader telling them what to do and how to

implement new strategies for the next steps.

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References

Danielson, C. (2015). Danielson. Talk about teaching! (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.

Effective Coaching: Improving Teacher Practice and Outcomes for All Learners. (2019).

In National Center for Systemic Improvement at WestEd. National Center for Systemic

Improvement at WestEd.

Shannon D., Snyder P., McLaughlin T. (2015). Preschool teachers’ insights about web-based

self-coaching versus on-site expert coaching. Professional Development in Education, 41,

290–309.