TEACHER COACHING & DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 1

Teacher Coaching and Development Process

Laurie Salem

Grand Canyon University

EAD 530: Improving Teacher Performance and Self-Efficacy

June 1, 2023

Observation Pre-Conference
TEACHER COACHING & DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 2

In my experience, pre-observations were quick conversations between administration and

the teacher they were observing. When I had my preobservations, I was able to share what I was

planning to teach, what resources and materials I would be using and what I needed from them to

be successful during the lesson. Some of the other questions that were asked during the

preobservation are: what is the lesson about? how have you used data or information about your

students to differentiate the lesson? What will the students be doing to get practice with the

content? how will you know that the students understand the content or need more practice?

Being able to answer these questions or not is a good indicator of teacher preparedness and

planning.

For example, when the observer wants to know what content, standard, or skill is being

taught, a teacher should be able to clearly state the objectives, the overall information they will

be teaching or have am understanding of the lesson. If they are not able to do so, this is an

indicator to the observer that the teacher is not prepared. Teachers who can also talk about the

modifications they made for the lesson also shows how much they know about their students and

their abilities (Danielson, 2015). Just being able to answer questions, however, does not prove

that a teacher has prepared well for the lesson.

One of the questions that stood out while viewing the video this week was the observer asking if

there is anything specific she wanted her to look for while being in the classroom. This is a great

question for the teachers to reflect on their classroom dynamics and use this opportunity for self-

development to check in on the effectiveness of our strategies, resources, and methods.

Classroom Observation
TEACHER COACHING & DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 3

Classroom observations are opportunities for administrators and coaches to look for

goals, activities that would enhance student engagement, how teachers/ students manage the

classroom, the outcomes of the lesson and ways that the teacher checked for understanding and

assessed the students. Having these look- fors in a lesson demonstrates to the observer the

effectiveness of the lesson and whether it will support student growth, learning and achievement.

They would also want to check student work samples to also determine how effective the lesson

was. According to WestEd, the observers must provide feedback on time management, student

interaction and engagement, the culture of the classroom and routines and procedures that would

impact the lesson. The feedback should be clear and concise and allow for the teacher to apply

the new strategies to improve student learning (WestEd, 2019).

Post-Observation Conversation & Feedback

In order to nurture growth in an educator observations should be constructive and

informative. In some of the post observation videos suggested to watch, the observers started the

discussion by asking the teacher their opinion about the lesson. This allows the teacher the

opportunity to reflect on the lesson as well as to highlight the particular areas they want to focus

on. Post observation feedback should be structured as a discussion where teachers feel that they

can defend their work, disagree with a score and open up about why they think the lesson was

effective (Hatzipanagos & Lygo- Baker, 2006).

Feedback should include specific examples of evident indicators and suggestions for how

to improve in areas where the indicators were not evident. In the videos provided, the observers

highlighted the teacher’s use of sentence frames and scaffolding methods that supported the

students throughout the lesson but also allowed them to grapple with some of the skills. There

was also feedback about student engagement and student interaction, which are vital components
TEACHER COACHING & DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 4

of any lesson. When compared to another video, the observer asked more questions and asked

the teacher to read the notes. This removes the opportunity for a conversation to happen where

the teacher can ask clarifying questions and the administrator can provide examples that would

support the teacher’s development. Also lacking in this exchange was positive feedback. There

was no mention of the strengths of the teacher until the feedback session was halfway through.

Instead, there was a focus on areas where the teacher had some difficulties such as utilizing

different teaching strategies, ensuring the students were engaging and interacting with each

other, as well as managing the time of the lesson.

Feedback that is specific and nurturing is a powerful tool that can be used to develop

plans of action, set goals and allow teachers the room for critical thinking and solving problems

to support them with practices (Shannon, McLaugkins

References
TEACHER COACHING & DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 5

Danielson, C. (2015). Danielson. Talk about teaching! (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.

Effective Coaching: Improving Teacher Practice and Outcomes for All Learners. (2019).

In National Center for Systemic Improvement at WestEd. National Center for Systemic

Improvement at WestEd.

Hatzipanagos, S., & Lygo-Baker, S. (2006). Teaching observations: A meeting of minds.

International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 17(2), 97-105.

Shannon D., Snyder P., McLaughlin T. (2015). Preschool teachers’ insights about web-based

self-coaching versus on-site expert coaching. Professional Development in Education, 41,

290–309.