COACHING AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Coaching and Student Achievement

Coaching and Student Achievement

Introduction

Coaching are training and development strategies used by teachers to help students improve their grades and knowledge; both are based on a collegial relationship. Coaching is a powerful teaching strategies that are especially appropriate for student-centered classrooms in which students are generating knowledge.

This paper discusses the art of coaching, describing in detail how teachers can empower and motivate students by giving them more responsibility, providing them with choices, enhancing their self-esteem, and relieving them of stress. We also discuss the conditions necessary for a productive atmosphere and explore how coaching helps teachers to determine the aptitude of students by recognizing their talents and grouping them accordingly. The teacher-coach becomes aware of the appropriateness of the content, matches it to an effective strategy, and uses that strategy to help students develop their skills.

Discussion

Coaching by teachers has a strong relationship with student achievement. Schools need not be institutions where learning stops at the classroom door; they can be vigorous centers bursting with creativity, intellectual engagement, and fun. Yes, fun! The goal of learning may be to expand the mind and better understand the world, but the road to getting there does not have to be straight and narrow—it can be an interconnected circle of lively and intelligent discussions, where knowledge bursts through the doors, the windows, the walls, and the floor, and every day there is something new to be discovered. (Allalouf, 2008)

When we first begin to teach students a new concept, we usually use some kind of analogy—we try to help them see how the “new” information is similar to something that they already know. For example, if you want students to get the idea of how events are sequenced, you may discuss a familiar process such as brushing teeth. Analogies serve as mental anchors, and adults need them as much as younger students do.

Both of our primary professional developers for the Reading Excellence initiative were masters of providing mental anchors for adult learners. Although very different in personality, they could expertly teach adults complex concepts through analogies and clear, simple language. Coaching is certainly easier when it follows adult learner-friendly professional development and can meet teachers where they are. For example, when we trained teachers in the comprehension strategy of questioning, it became evident that many teachers still believed questioning should take place at the end of reading. By validating the teachers' belief in the power of questioning and coaching them in the research on questioning as an active process that occurs before, during, and after reading, we were able to nudge them toward more effective instruction. (Anastasi, 2001)

Teachers are often in a state of self-induced frustration. It is the coach's job to convince them that they are OK, that they know more than they think they do. The more the coach can convince teachers that they do not have to replace what they have already been doing with all-new instructional practices, the more productive coaching will be...