Coaching and or Teaching?
After listening and watching my recorded coaching session to another colleague in my
school, I was hypersensitive to solution driven comments coming from me. I actually
had this session with my colleague the week before we learned about coaching in class.
However, after skyping with Nancy shortly thereafter, I learned that my initial coaching
session to my colleague, Amelia, began the day before the recorded session.
Amelia is an ELL collaborator for our 2nd grade classroom teachers. I am the media
specialist. The lead ELL collaborator, Teresa, had just gone on maternity leave for the
remainder of the year, and everyone was adjusting. Amelia came to me for a digital
camera and was stressed because Teresa was also very tech savvy and simply an all
around problem solver with a can do ethic. In the meantime, Amelia wanted reassurance
that she would be able to download this camera’s pictures at her own workstation.
I promised Amelia that we could download the pictures together if she had any difficulty
at all, and here is where the real coaching began:
Gail: Have you ever used other digital cameras?
Amelia: Yes, I have one, but I think it’s newer than this one.
Gail: It probably is. We’re getting two brand new ones next quarter, but there’s a lot of
similarities. So what are you going to take pictures of?
Amelia: My students are acting out verbs that end in “ing”.
Gail: That’s a great idea. There’re going to remember those! What will you do with the
picutes?
Amelia: Well, I’m not sure yet? I’m not sure how I can download them, so that kind of
helps me decide what to do.
Gail: You can download them into whatever format you like. How could we get the kids
to see them? It sounds like the whole class could benefit.
Amelia: . . . wouldn’t it be fun to make a book with all the pictures?
The video shows the rest of the process. But here we go - Amelia solved her own
problem! As Nancy pointed out, I am teaching in the video, but I was coaching in the
later dialog. As a media specialist, I will also have that dual role of coach and teacher to
my colleagues. They are coming to me because they expect me to be a leader in
technology; they expect that I have experience trying out a variety of technologies.
However, the coaching comes in when we collaboratively plan lessons and how to
integrate technology becomes the focus.
I don’t think that a formal, written coaching procedure would be wise at this time. My
colleagues don’t think of me as a coach. However, I find myself focused on asking
questions rather than commenting and not judging the final outcome, but rather,
supporting my colleagues’ willingness to try new things.