Suggested Process for Launching Collegial Coaching with your Staff
Collegial Coaching can be launched at your school in a variety of ways. Through our research and conversations with teachers about how to make Collegial Coaching most successful, we have developed a suggested process to use in your school. Like anything, Collegial Coaching will be most successful with investment from staff. Guiding your teachers through a process will enable them to buy-in to how this level of coaching will benefit them as educators. As a result, we do not encourage school leaders to "jump in" without first working to set norms with their staff and talking with their teachers about the benefits of Collegial Coaching.
Step 1: Develop a ScheduleThrough our research, we heard repeatedly from teachers about the importance of School Leaders devoting time to making Collegial Coaching work. This will mean an investment of about forty-five minutes of staff professional development or meeting time two times a month. We picked one week a month to focus on Collegial Coaching and gave teachers one morning meeting that week as release time and set the expectation that they would use their prep period that day (or sometime that week) to observe their Collegial Coach.
We also set aside a second chunk of time that week-- either a normal staff meeting time or during a PD time-- for partnerships to meet and debrief. If you can develop this schedule for the whole year or for a semester at a time and have this ready to share with teachers at the beginning of the year, they will feel encouraged that (A) this is important work that their school leader is committed to doing and (B) there is a thoughtful plan about how collegial coaching can happen that will not require a ton of additional time for teachers. |
Step 2: Decide on Partnerships
There are pros and cons to deciding the partnerships for your staff ahead of time vs. allowing your staff to choose their partners for themselves. In our research and conversations with teachers, we heard how both ways can be beneficial. Deciding the partnerships ahead of time, with consultation from the teachers, could be a happy middle-ground. That way, teachers know their voices are being heard and they can give their input, and you can also guide the partnerships based on what you know about teachers and their strengths and areas of growth. It also creates an expectation that every teacher will become an expert collegial coach and that all teachers will work with one another to help them improve their craft. It avoids a situation where some teachers are not "chosen" and thus have their feelings hurt or worse. It also allows new teachers to the staff an opportunity to be immediately involved even though they may not yet be well known. If you are deciding partnerships, or making recommendations with consult, think carefully about how to make this work. It is really helpful to create partners who have different planning periods. This way, teachers can observe one another during their planning period. You will also want to think about personality matches, strengths and areas of growth, and who will push one another to achieve greatness.
Note: At HTMMA, we took in to consideration when teachers had planning periods. When teachers were already enrolled in BTSA and had an on-site mentor, we paired them together since they will be doing this work already.
Note: At HTMMA, we took in to consideration when teachers had planning periods. When teachers were already enrolled in BTSA and had an on-site mentor, we paired them together since they will be doing this work already.
Step 3: Launch Collegial CoachingThe launch of Collegial Coaching at your school is incredibly important. This is an opportunity to get teachers excited and invested. This is also your initial opportunity to frame how you see collegial coaching impacting your staff. If it is something you commit to doing, you should talk with them about why you think it can be valuable and get their input on how they think it will help them improve. We developed an agenda to launch Collegial Coaching that could be a guide to you as you launch it at your school.
Continuum in HTH Teaching |
Sample AgendaSample Hopes & FearsSample Norms |
Video of Initial CC Meetings
In these two videos, two collegial coaching partnerships meet at the beginning of the year. In the first video, Mike tells his partner, Cady, about his goals linked to the HTH Continuum. In the second video, Catherine questions her partner, Kyle about his goals, also linked to the HTH Continuum.
Step 4: Collegial Coaching Level OneIn our focus groups, research and conversations with teachers, we experimented with using three levels to launch Collegial Coaching in the best possible way to ultimately have the best possible outcome. Level One is for each teacher to do individual observations of other teachers that are not their critical friend. After knowing the focus area and criteria based on the Continuum, teachers would observe in other classrooms to look for these elements. Teachers would record their observations to share with their critical friend. This step is about the observer learning what to look for and how to talk about what they see. The critical friends would then meet to debrief the observations of the classrooms they saw. This allows teachers to see other rooms and practice using the common language before they observe in one another's classes. We developed a Collegial Coaching Level One Protocol for critical friends to use during the debrief. We also developed Observations Templates-- these can be used at all levels. There are lots of alternative templates or ways that teachers record their observations and these are just samples. Since in most cases, the debriefs do not happen directly after the observation dates, it is important to encourage teachers to write down their thoughts since it may be a week before they get to meet.
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CC Level One ProtocolBelow is the protocol to use for debriefing observations at this step in the process.
Observation Templates |
Step 5: Collegial Coaching Level TwoLevel Two builds from Level One and provides another layer of scaffolding before teachers observe and give feedback to one another. In Level One, teachers observe any classroom(s) of their choice on their own and there is no expectation that teachers will give feedback to those teachers. It is to help the observer improve at the craft of observing. In Level Two, critical friends observe classroom(s) together. The focus continues to be on HOW to develop your craft as an observer and how to prepare to give feedback to someone. Again, there is not an expectation at this level that teachers will give feedback to the teachers they observed. Instead, the critical friends observe a classroom(s) together and record observations linked to the Criteria they developed based on the Continuum. When critical friends meet to debrief, they use the Collegial Coaching Level Two Protocol which gives them a chance to debrief the observations and took about what sample feedback they might give to those teachers if they were their critical friends.
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CC Level Two ProtocolBelow is the protocol to use for debriefing observations at this step in the process.
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Step 6: Collegial Coaching Level ThreeLevel Three is the final step that will be repeated monthly for the rest of the year. This is when critical friends observe one another and give feedback to one another. The focus will continue to be developed by the partnerships and based on the Continuum (or some other instructional rubric). Teachers will look for the criteria they developed together and think through the feedback they will offer their partner during the debrief. This process is repeated monthly for the remainder of the year. Teachers will change their focus area and go back to the Continuum to develop Criteria for different focus areas. Critical friends use the Collegial Coaching Level Three Protocol when they meet to debrief. You will want teachers to reflect and goal set after each debrief to ensure teachers are continuing to make progress and talk about new areas they hope to improve.
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CC Level Three ProtocolBelow is the protocol to use for debriefing observations at this step in the process.
Video of CC Goal SettingIn this video, collegial coaching partners, Isla and Emily, talk about setting goals for an upcoming observation. Emily repeats back to Isla what she will look for when she observes.
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