Coaching

In teacher development, coaching is a sustained one-to-one or small-group professional learning relationship in which a coach helps a teacher improve specific aspects of practice through goal-setting, observation, feedback, and structured iteration. It differs from mentoring in framing — coaching is typically narrower, more goal-bounded, and less hierarchical — and from one-off feedback in its insistence on a continuing cycle.

Joyce and Showers and the transfer problem

The case for coaching as professional development was made empirically by Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers in a 1980s research programme. Their starting observation was stark: studies of staff development built on workshop-style training found that fewer than ten per cent of participants implemented what they had been taught, even among teachers who had volunteered for the training. Joyce and Showers argued that workshop input plus modelling and practice was insufficient on its own; sustained classroom-level coaching after initial training was the missing component that converted exposure into reliable change.

Their proposal — peer coaching as an on-site dimension of staff development — was published in Educational Leadership and elaborated across two decades of follow-up writing. They distinguished components of effective training (theory, demonstration, practice, feedback, coaching) and showed that omitting the coaching component was the principal reason transfer rates collapsed.

Forms of coaching

Three forms of coaching dominate teacher-development literature. Instructional coaching pairs a trained coach (often a former teacher with subject expertise) with a teacher to work on specific instructional moves over a sustained period. Peer coaching pairs working teachers as equals, with each observing the other and giving structured feedback; the absence of an evaluator dynamic is intended to lower defensiveness and increase risk-taking. Cognitive coaching focuses on the teacher's planning, decision-making, and reflection rather than directly on observed performance, on the assumption that surfaced cognition will reshape practice.

Coaching vs related supports

Coaching is sometimes confused with Mentoring and Peer Observation. Mentoring is usually broader, longer, and more hierarchical, addressing career development as well as classroom practice. Peer observation can be a single discrete event or a recurring habit; coaching is recurring by definition and tied to a learning goal. Coaching is also distinct from line-management feedback: a coach is not the teacher's evaluator, and the coaching conversation is intended to be free of evaluative judgement so that the teacher can name struggles honestly.

References

• Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (1980). Improving inservice training: The messages of research. Educational Leadership, 37(5), 379–385.
• Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (1982). The coaching of teaching. Educational Leadership, 40(1), 4–10.
• Showers, B., & Joyce, B. (1996). The evolution of peer coaching. Educational Leadership, 53(6), 12–16.