Mentoring and Coaching in Schools

Professional Learning through Collaborative Inquiry

Suzanne Burley, Cathy Pomphrey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780415563635
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136760136
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Adult Education

Can mentoring and coaching really improve professional practice? How can research and inquiry improve mentoring and coaching practice?

Mentoring and Coaching in Schools explores the ways in which mentoring and coaching can be used as a dynamic collaborative process for effective professional learning. It demonstrates how the use of practitioner inquiry within mentoring and coaching relationships in schools results in professional learning which is both transformative and empowering for teachers.

The book sets out a new model for mentoring and coaching which is centred on a process of critical inquiry and shows teachers how they can use this model to carry out their own collaborative inquiries. Features include:

• reflective questions, guidelines, task and templates to help collect evidence and evaluate inquiries
• detailed case studies focusing on teachers at different stages in their career
• practical guidance on carrying out practitioner inquiry and research
• an analysis of learning outcomes resulting from different coaching and mentoring relationships.

This timely text will be valuable reading for coaches and mentors in secondary schools, teachers undertaking continuing professional development and students on coaching and mentoring courses.

CHAPTER

1

Using this book to develop
professional learning
through mentoring and
coaching

Key learning points

1. 
   how to reflect on and make use of academic reading;
2. 
   how to carry out inquiries into mentoring and coaching;
3. 
   how to evaluate inquiries for effective professional learning;
4. 
   undertaking tasks and inquiries related to each chapter.

This chapter enables teachers to employ the material in the book in order to use mentoring and coaching to develop their own professional learning in a practical and pro-active way. Mentoring and coaching provides the ideal opportunity for teachers to collaborate in a number of ways and productive collaboration is an essential aspect of institutional and individual professional learning.

The book is divided into two parts; the first part contains theoretical information about professional learning, mentoring and coaching and practitioner inquiry, while the second part provides case studies which illustrate how teachers have collaborated in using inquiries to develop their professional learning through mentoring and coaching.

This chapter aims to structure teachers’ engagement with these two distinct parts of the book and can be used flexibly to support the professional learning which can be derived from each chapter. Teachers will be able to gather evidence of this professional learning through engaging with the guidance in this chapter.

Part I

Part I (Chapters 2, 3 and 4) covers the following areas:

1. 
   dimensions of professional learning;
2. 
   mentoring and coaching: a platform for professional learning;
3. 
   practitioner inquiry for professional learning in mentoring and coaching.

A series of reflective questions for teachers are provided below to support Part I. These will enable teachers to record, reflect on and analyse the potential for application of their reading.

Reflective questions for Part I

These reflective questions can be used after reading each chapter in Part I. The questions are divided into three areas.

1. Recording the key theoretical concepts presented in each chapter.
2. Reflecting on these concepts in relation to individual experience.
3. Analysing how these theoretical concepts make sense of professional experience and could inform the development of practice within a school context.

Recording

1. 
   Use the key learning points at the start of each chapter as subheadings to record the main ideas presented.
2. 
   Note the names of the main researchers or policy-makers who produced these ideas.

Reflecting

Examine the main ideas produced and consider them in relation to the following:

1. 
   ideas that have a resonance with current and previous personal professional knowledge, experience and practice;
2. 
   ideas that are new or question previously held values, beliefs and assumptions.

For ideas that resonate with current or previous professional knowledge, experience and practice, consider the following questions:

1. 
   How did this idea originate?
2. 
   Does the information in the chapter add to or change previous conceptions?

For ideas that are new or question previously held values, beliefs and assumptions:

1. 
   What is the significance of the new idea?
2. 
   How does it impact on current professional knowledge and understanding?

Analysing

Use the reflections above to identify the following:

1. 
   ideas to explore further;
2. 
   questions to ask in relation to individual and institutional professional practices;
3. 
   possible ways to change or develop current professional practices; potential sources of support or barriers to change or development.

Part II

For Part II, guidelines are provided to support teachers in developing their own collaborative critical inquiries. These guidelines include suggested tasks, examples and tables to support inquiries. The evaluation templates included at the end of Chapter 1 give teachers the opportunity to evaluate the inquiries they have developed in order to both reflect on and progress their professional learning.

In this part an investigation is provided at the end of each chapter. These investigations are divided into three components:

1. purpose, which gives an aim for the inquiry to be carried out;
2. action, which sets out a process for the inquiry;
3. evaluation, which enables teachers to assess the effectiveness of the whole inquiry process.

It is the evaluation stage which ensures that teachers are able to make connections between processes and outcomes in their collaborative mentoring and coaching inquiries and can apply these to future professional learning.

The inquiry in each investigation can be evaluated using Evaluation Template 1.1 provided in the Appendix to this chapter. Additionally, teachers can analyse their inquiry using the practitioner inquiry spectrum discussed in Chapter 4 (pp. 49–52) and reproduced in the Appendix (Evaluation Template 1.2). Teachers can use this further evaluation template to consider where on the spectrum each aspect of their inquiry is situated.

Before undertaking the investigations linked to Part II, teachers may find completing the following task helpful in understanding the three key components of the investigation structure.

Task

Read the following account of a teacher's inquiry which was designed to introduce specialist coaching to develop skills for teaching assistants. Compare this account with the suggestions for evaluation given in Evaluation Templates 1.1 and 1.2 and identify ways in which using the templates might produce a more useful and incisive assessment of the inquiry, the professional learning achieved and the possibilities for future individual and institutional development.

Teachers will also find i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Using this book to develop professional learning through mentoring and coaching
• Part I Theoretical perspectives
• 2 Dimensions of professional learning
• 3 Mentoring and coaching: a platform for professional learning
• 4 Practitioner inquiry for professional learning in mentoring and coaching
• Part II Inquiries
• 5 Inquiring into the nature of mentoring and coaching through collaboration
• 6 Inquiring into mentoring and coaching in a range of professional contexts
• 7 Inquiring into one-to-one mentoring and coaching collaborations within the school context
• 8 Inquiring into wider mentoring and coaching collaborations within the school context
• 9 A new perspective: mentoring and coaching as collaborative professional inquiry
• Bibliography
• Index