Only one teacher in ten can go to a traditional professional development offering—an expert talking to a room full of strangers—and successfully implement the new method all by themselves when they return to the classroom.*
This struggle makes sense. How many pilots fly a new plane without a training flight? How many surgeons use a new open heart procedure without another surgeon present in the operating room for consultation? People need guidance, advice and support in order to master new tools and techniques.
It follows, then, that most teachers will need some professional hand-holding if we are to reach our potential.
A few school districts have the habits of learning that provide trained mentors or coaches on a regular basis to all their teachers. Some school buildings have a continuous development approach that has colleagues constantly encouraging one another. So far, these support systems are not yet universal. So what is a teacher to do?
Never walk alone! Find or invent a support system.
- Find a person in your department or grade level to work with. Visit one another’s classrooms. Brainstorm lesson plans, think up discipline solutions, or discuss whatever concerns you.
- Make regular videos of yourself teaching. Watch them once to get over how you look, and then view them several times— for one viewing, pay attention to your methods, for another, look for students’ reactions, then watch again with a colleague, asking for comments on what he or she observes.
- Have a virtual partner. Stay in touch with a former classmate or in-service attendee. Talk about what you have tried or what you might do. Consult notes you both took to compare your understanding or discover details that will make your implementation go better.
- Make the most of your evaluations. Request feedback from your administrator that will actually help you improve rather than expecting him or her to know what you need.
- Request a coach or help develop a coaching system for your school or district that everyone can rely on. A coach makes an amazing difference. While implementation is about 10% when we try to do it alone, teachers who get instructional coaching in their own classrooms show a 90% implementation rate.* It’s a way to multiply effectiveness, so let’s stop trying to go it alone.
*Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction. Jim Knight, A joint publication of NSCD and Corwin Press, 2007
