Video As a Coaching Model

When coaches model, they demonstrate techniques and instructional practices to scaffold implementation. Modeling, the most supportive coaching move in the GIR model, is recognized by teachers, researchers, and professional organizations as a valuable practice.
 
Observing professional practice can sharpen teachers’ attention to student learning and broaden their instructional repertoire. Modeling is a powerful, differentiated coaching activity, usually focused on working with individual teachers to address their specific needs and goals. In addition to demonstrating potential practices, modeling provides content for teacher-coach conversations and can generate other coaching activities. Modeling can also build teachers’ confidence and efficacy. Research demonstrates that coaches’ modeling can improve student achievement (Elish-Piper & L’Allier, 2011; Firestone, 2003; Shidler, 2009).

If it’s not possible for you to model in the classroom, or if that doesn’t seem like the best solution, a video could serve the purpose instead. You might have a video of yourself that demonstrates the strategy in another setting. Clips from video recordings purchased from publishers or professional organizations may also be useful. Or you could find a clip from YouTube or another online source. Better yet, you could spotlight the instruction of another teacher in your building.
 
Model by Spotlighting Other Teachers
 
You can start your own video collection for this purpose. Whenever you see something good going on, ask, “Would you mind if I capture that?” then whip out your phone or other friendly device and record away. Not only will you have meaningful examples to share, you will have built good will in the building. Just be sure you don’t create “coach’s pets.” Every teacher has an idea worth capturing!
 
Another bonus of home-grown videos is the authenticity factor; when teachers see something happening in their own school with their own student population, they are less likely to discount the idea as something that wouldn’t work for them. As with “live” modeling, recordings need not be perfect examples; learning occurs through reflecting on both successes and less-successful aspects of lessons. Just be sure to keep the focus positive, especially when using clips from colleagues’ classrooms.
 
Using Video in Coaching Conversations
 
When video recordings are provided as instructional models, you might choose to view and discuss clips during a planning or debriefing session. This allows for on-the-spot dialogue about how to adjust and put the ideas into practice. Pushing pause as the video plays lets you draw attention to nuances that might otherwise be missed. Sometimes, though, sending the video in advance is the best solution, especially when your time with a teacher is short. You can then use your valuable time together to tweak and transform the strategy to meet the needs of her learners. If you don’t have any face time at all, you can share a link as part of an online coaching conversation.
 
Teachers can have “unlimited, on-demand access” to videos demonstrating effective instruction and could watch a video on their own schedule and again and again, as often as needed. Re-viewing a video again after a teacher has tried the practice can support self-adjustment.
 
Video-based modeling can be either collaborative (viewed with a group) or more targeted and individualized. Although lacking the immediacy and full-bodied experience of classroom modeling, videos can be accessed any time and many times. Video recordings provide an instructional model that allows the teacher to see practices in action.
 

This week, you might want to take a look at:
Overcoming the “drama triangle” when working with teams:
 
https://www.smartbrief.com/original/recognizing-and-overcoming-the-drama-triangle
 
 
How to feel more joy and help others do the same:
 
https://www.ted.com/talks/ingrid_fetell_lee_where_joy_hides_and_how_to_find_it/
 
 
Creating effective sentence frames to support emergent bilingual students:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/52443/strong-sentence-frames-to-support-your-ells/
 
 
Moving coaching relationships from social to professional:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/failure-to-norm/
 
 
This video about grouping to increase eye contact and learning:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/what-social-brain
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNF25 for 15% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!