Coaching to Improve Practice
By Annette Oswald
How does coaching apply to childcare? Coaching is a learning journey based on collaboration and partnership between teachers and educational leaders that promotes growth and implementation of best practices for the development of young children and their families.
Directors, teachers and other childcare stakeholders desire to improve their teaching, implement effective skills, and achieve better child outcomes.
Effective coaching creates relationships in which teachers and directors feel cared
for, and, therefore, are able to access and implement new knowledge and increase intentionality
to
benefit children's learning outcomes.
Coaching fosters relationships that help teachers self-reflect, discover what they are doing well, and identify what areas need growth.
Coaching provides for self-directed continuous quality improvement in teaching, promoting a culture in which the school family embeds positive learning experiences for all stakeholders. Coaching supports teachers as they gain the ability to use data to reflect on their teaching practices and make positive changes that will increase children’s learning outcomes.
Most importantly, coaching supports shared leadership across a school family. This creates learning teams who work together to support growth across the school.
The Institute is currently developing a course focused on the skills needed for effective, collaborative coaching practices that support child outcomes, and the continuous quality improvement it takes to create and maintain high quality child care programs.
These collaborative coaching strategies will support the teacher as a guiding member of the learning team and help elevate his/her feelings of professionalism and job satisfaction.
For more information about this course, contact Darcy Russo at 561-868-3663 or russod@palmbeachstate.edu.
