Facilitating Collaboration
When I accepted my second coaching position, I was comfortable with the position, as I had
been successful in growing teachers’ literacy knowledge and had helped make positive changes in classroom instruction for the benefit of the school as a whole and for the students. What I did not realize is that I did not yet truly understand how to “coach” teachers. What I had been doing, I soon learned, was “consulting.” While consulting is valuable, it is quite different from a one- to-one conversation in which the teacher contributes ideas as well. I was fortunate to also have a coach who visited me each week and guided me through explorations of true coaching experiences in which the coach helps teachers reflect and plan. What stuck with me after this experience was the discourse I could use to help teachers come to conclusions that they might not come to on their own.