PEER COACHING REFLECTION

Peer Coaching Reflection

Rachael Rassel
TE 807- Spring 2016
Michigan State University

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Peer Coaching Reflection

Peer Coaching takes on many different names and various forms. Although it may look different
from place to place it can have an impact on educators everywhere. According to Pam Robbins
Peer coaching is a confidential process through which two or more professional colleagues
work together to reflect on current practices; expand, refine, and build new skills; share ideas;
teach one another; conduct classroom research; or solve problems in the workplace. (Robbins,
1991). Reading this definition makes peer coaching sound like a daunting task that many
educators would not want to pile onto their already extensive work load, however after
embracing peer coaching and experiencing it personally the impact and importance of it became
quite clear.

Over the year I found myself developing quite a few frustrations within my own classroom. My
coworkers and I had shared our frustrations regularly over lunch and in passing, but had never
truly sat down to explore the issues. After studying peer coaching it seemed that my colleagues
and I could benefit greatly from this practice by working collaboratively around an issues to
increase professional sharing in an attempt to redefine professional practice (Robbins, 1991). I
met with 3 other colleagues with a focus on problem solving and an established goal of
addressing the lack of work completion in our classrooms. We focused on three specific
questions: 1. What are students not completing work? 2. How can teachers motivate students to
complete daily assignments? 3. What types of assignments are students more likely to complete?

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During our session we shared our individual concerns and worked to find trends. We were able
to find that the problem increased as students got older. In addition we shared out our currently
last work policies to see if theses policies were effective in work submission. We found that
although marking down for late work or not accepting it after a certain date does negatively
impact students grades, it does not show a greater amount of work submitted than another class
without those policies. SInce none of us felt our strategies were extremely effective we decided
to connect our problem with a current initiative at our school, positive behavior initiatives. Since
completing and turning in work is a behavior we brainstormed ways to improve work submission
by positively rewarding those who turn in their work as a way to motivate other students to want
to also get this positive recognition. Among the three classroom teachers we decided to
implement different positive behavior techniques in our classrooms for a few weeks. This
allowed us to not only investigate many different strategies, but it also allowed each of use to
explore solutions that we felt would best fit in our own unique classrooms. We then scheduled to
meet again to reflect on the the different methods and possibly decide to all implement the same
method in the future.

Overall I felt peer coaching was a beneficial experience. Collaboration helped illuminate the
isolation of teaching. I no longer felt like I was the only one struggling with an issue and was
much more willing to learn and collaborate with my peers. By taking the problem solving
approach I believe we were able to eliminate the idea that any one person was an expert allowing
for everyone to contribute equally. Having shared roles, voluntary participation and a goal driven
session led to the overall feeling of success for the meeting, and although I would not say we
completely solved our problem we were able to use research we had acquired from professional

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development sessions into action creating action research. We also were able to create a
community of collaboration while breaking down the walls to our classroom. It can be
intimidating to admit your struggles to other teachers who you may look up to or feel have it all
figured out, however this peer coaching session created a community and co-collaboration that
gave us all a sense of teamwork.

After participating in a peer coaching session I am a strong believer in the importance of

collaboration among colleagues and the impact that peer coaching can have on staff morale as
well as professional development. As helpful as reading about new techniques can be peer
coaching allowed us to collaborate on how to effectively implement research into our
classrooms. This experience made me a better educator by making me challenge my own
practice, collaborate with other educators, and incorporate research into practice to create a more
effective learning environment in my classroom while establishing stronger professional
relationships with my colleagues.

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Peer Coaching Session Agenda

Student Work Completion
Focus:
Lack of work completion seems to have a strong correlation with student success in the
classroom. As educators it is often hard to help students master content when the students do not
complete assigned activities or practice. Not only are students not gaining content/skill
knowledge, but teachers are unable to assess how well the student is understanding the
information when assignments are not completed. The focus of this session is to work together
in order to identify why students are not completing work as well as how we as teachers can help
solve this problem and motivate students to submit more work.
Inviting Teacher:
Rachael Rassel
Colleagues:
Sarah Dawson- High School English Teacher/ Interventions Specialist
Kelsey Miller- Special Education Teacher
Cindy McCormick- Middle/ High School English Teacher
Activity:
Colleagues will discuss issues with work completion in their own classroom as well as various
strategies used. Teachers will also look for trends among students and brainstorm effective ways
to increase work submission. [Problem Solving]
Agenda:
Share current concerns about work completion
Address specific students or grade level trends
Present current strategies used and their effectiveness
Brainstorm new strategies to address the problem
Plan to implement strategies to provide consistency
Schedule Follow-Up reflection

Specific Questions:
1. Why are students not completing assigned work?
2. How can teachers motivate students to complete daily assignments?
3. What type of assignments are students more likely to complete?

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References
Robbins, P. (1991). A definition of peer coaching. In How to plan and implement a peer
coaching program.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/61191149/chapters/A-Definition-of-Peer
Coaching.aspx