How I’ve Come Around to Real-Time Coaching

As an in-building instructional coach, I didn’t have any exposure to or training on “coaching in the classroom,” as my colleague Nicole Padula George, of NPG Consulting, and I prefer to call “real-time coaching.” Then, after my time as an in-building coach, I spent 8 years coaching teachers and coaches virtually, so even when we considered real-time coaching from a virtual standpoint, it just seemed too logistically challenging. 

My initial impression of what I read and heard about real-time coaching or “bug-in-the ear” coaching just sounded terrible and really seemed to cross a boundary with teacher autonomy.  In some situations, teachers wore an earpiece and a coach in the back of the classroom would whisper directives into a microphone.  In other situations, a coach would raise a hand and interrupt to ask the teacher to do something again.  Getting corrected on the spot in front of students just sounded demoralizing. 

So it’s taken some real convincing from my colleague Nicole (same from above) to help me see that interruptions and bug-in-the-ear coaching is far from all that’s possible with coaching in the classroom. Having had more experience with leading coaching in the classroom in a school context, she’s changed my mind.  

I have discovered the coaching in the classroom doesn’t have to be invasive, controlling or scary.  Instead, coaching in the classroom can take the shape of co-teaching, modeling a part of the lesson or student support, or signal or whisper feedback.  (More on the ways coaching in the classroom can look in my next post.) 

Ideally, coaching in the classroom should be agreed upon collaboratively with the teacher, minimize invasiveness or taking of the teacher’s authority, targeted to what teachers need support with, and highly focused.

At its best, coaching in the classroom is a way for teachers to experience very short feedback loops and see the skills that they are building done well in their own classrooms.

Coaching is often celebrated for being “job-imbedded,” but you really can’t get any more job-imbedded than coaching in the classroom.  

Check back next week for Part 2, Strategies for Coaching in the Classroom!