Identifying Productive One-on-One Coaching Practices

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Effects of Coaching on Teacher Learning

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a conceptual review of the literature on one-on-one, content-focused coaching. The aim of the review was to better understand the activities, purposes, and knowledge and perspectives involved in productive coaching, or, coaching that can support teachers’ development of ambitious instructional practices. To accomplish this aim, we decomposed instances of productive coaching in the literature into practices, which consist of three elements: (1) the effective enactment of a specific type of coaching activity; (2) the purposes the activity serves in supporting teachers’ learning; and (3) the perspectives and knowledge involved in enacting the activity effectively for the identified purpose. We identified nine such coaching practices that, together, clarify what productive content-focused coaching looks like.

Authors

• Nicholas M. Kochmanski, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Paul A. Cobb, Vanderbilt University