Coaching Our Coaches: Online Learning as a Venue for Professional Development

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: Division K Section 8 Poster Session 1

Abstract

Instructional coaching has gained widespread adoption as a structure to raise student achievement through sustained teacher professional development. The promise of supporting teacher learning through coaching rests on the need to prepare and support instructional coaches in their own ongoing learning. However, research addresses few methods of organizing professional development for instructional coaches. This qualitative study examines an online coaching certificate designed to fill this gap by offering distance learning that connects directly to participant contexts. The findings provide insights into how job-embedded online learning can operate successfully to impact coach learning, as well as to offer directions for future inquiry into its limitations.

Authors

• Lindsay M Stoetzel, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Stephanie Shedrow, University of Wisconsin

• Beth R. Giles, University of Wisconsin