Professional Development: Partnership Approach vs. Traditional Approach

It's Autumn in the South. In addition to the changing colors of leaves, pumpkin everything, and the approaching holiday season, this means football. This time of year, the names of football coaches are as common in households across the South as the question, "what's for dinner?" Although, this may come as surprising, I always knew I wanted to be a coach. I enjoy guiding others to get better at something that I love and I got to do just that as a high school cheerleading coach for three years. My main reason for stepping down from that position was my decision to begin working on my Ed.S. In my discussion with my principal, I told him that it was not my desire to be a "coach" throughout my teaching career. I wanted to shift my focus to becoming an instructional teacher leader. Little did I know at the time that I would still be a "coach", just of another type. According to Richard Gauthier and David Giber, "coaching is all about helping transport someone from where he or she is to where he or she needs to be. The verb 'coach' derives from the old English noun describing the vehicle for transporting royalty, moving from one place to another via the coach" (Marzano & Simms, 2013, p. 4). As a world history teacher, I love that the term originates from the transportation of royalty! 

In Coaching Classroom Instruction, Marzano and Simms provide substantial research and theory surrounding the history of coaching as well as research on the benefits of coaching. As research indicates, "teacher effectiveness is directly linked to student achievement" and therefore it is "well worth the effort to support teacher growth and performance through coaching" (Marzano & Simms, 2013, p. 3). As educators, our sole focus should be on student growth and achievement. Why wouldn't we participate in instructional coaching relationships if the research points to increased effectiveness on student achievement? Through my initial reading of chapters one and two of Coaching Classroom Instruction, I've concluded that often times we, as educators, administrators and teacher leaders, assume that whole group professional development and training is enough. I believe that administrators and teacher leaders are hopeful that other professionals participating in the training will take back what they learn to their classrooms, but unfortunately research shows that isn't the case. As referenced by Marzano and Simms, Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers conducted research on the effectiveness of coaching as early as 2002. In their research they found that, "even when training included demonstrations, practice sessions, and feedback, it did not noticeably affect teachers' transfer of their learning to the classroom (effect size = 0.0)." There was however, a "large and dramatic increase in transfer of training - effect size of 1.42 - when coaching was added to an initial training experience" (Marzano & Simms, 2013, p. 5).

There is additional research on the idea that a partnership approach results in more effective teaching than the more often used traditional approach. In 2007, Jim Knight concluded that educators were four times more likely to transfer new knowledge and skills they learned in a coaching relationship than those learned in traditional, lecture from an expert, sessions (Marzano & Simms, 2013, p. 6). In fact, Knight reported previous findings from Robert Bush, that traditional professional development usually only leads to "about a ten percent implementation rate" whereas when "teachers receive an appropriate amount of support for professional learning, more than ninety percent of them embrace and implement programs that improve students' experiences in the classroom" (Marzano & Simms, 2013, p. 6). 

This research is eye opening to me. Why do we, as administrators and teacher leaders, so often neglect the coaching aspect when research shows its effectiveness? Instead, we deliver valuable information to our faculty in whole group settings and expect them to transfer that knowledge, new strategy, technology, etc. into their teaching on their own. If we are really concerned with teacher effectiveness that results in student achievement, we must refocus our professional development model to include instructional coaching. 

References

Gardner, A. (2014, August 12). Instructional Coaching. Retrieved from: http://www.cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?v=32a5pR3CUEc

Marzano, R. J. & Simms, J. A. (2013). Coaching classroom instruction. Bloomington IN: Marzano Research.

Miller, B. (2013). What makes mentoring and coaching different? Retrieved from: http://blog.vistage.com/business-leadership/what-makes-coaching-and-mentoring-different/