This course has been an incredibly interesting one in that I have learned a great deal about how professional development should work in schools according to the partnership principle advocated by Knight (2007). What I found is that while some professional development works as a partnership, much of professional development is centered around a "sage on the stage" philosophy. Information is disseminated to teachers, and they are expected to enact it in their classrooms. When I did my own technology coaching of a teacher in my school, I found myself forgetting some of the partnership principle methods and simply disseminating information to her myself.
It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of gaining new knowledge and forget that a true connection must be made with a teacher we are attempting to coach. No one likes to feel as though they are being criticized for their instruction. As teachers, we take a great deal of pride in our art and can be highly defensive about the practice of that art. Coaching is also an art, but we are not dealing with students, we are instead engaged with colleagues who have valuable experience and input to share with us. That has been my big learning from this semester. Spending time one-on-one with another teacher is valuable as you have the opportunity to learn something new from him before you attempt to share knowledge with him that may not work in his classroom.
Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving instruction. Thousand Oaks: Corwin and Learning Forward.
It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of gaining new knowledge and forget that a true connection must be made with a teacher we are attempting to coach. No one likes to feel as though they are being criticized for their instruction. As teachers, we take a great deal of pride in our art and can be highly defensive about the practice of that art. Coaching is also an art, but we are not dealing with students, we are instead engaged with colleagues who have valuable experience and input to share with us. That has been my big learning from this semester. Spending time one-on-one with another teacher is valuable as you have the opportunity to learn something new from him before you attempt to share knowledge with him that may not work in his classroom.
Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving instruction. Thousand Oaks: Corwin and Learning Forward.